What is Referral Marketing?
Referral marketing is impressive because it is the only form of marketing that doesn't entail a product or service's direct pitching to your target market. Instead, you invite them to promote your products for you. Its concept is simple. You ask your past customers to share your products with their family and friends and encourage them to share their experiences and how it helped them. If you have the right product, this will be easier for you.
Your digital marketing resume needs referral marketing expertise like your feather needs a cap.
Referral marketing is excellent because it allows multiple people to promote your products and services all at the same time. It can help you boost your brand's social proof so that you can win the trust of your target market.
Why Referral Marketing?
There are several reasons why small business referral marketing is right for your business. Here are some of them.
- Targets the right people - one of the things you'll love about referral marketing is its hyper-targeted nature. Since you ask your customers to promote your products and services, they will do it by finding the people who are most likely to convert into a buyer. With this setup, you no longer have to define your target market through ads. You know that you'll only get the most relevant people to your website with referral marketing.
- Increase Trust Factor - Referral marketing generates positive results because of the trust factor inherently present in the relationship between your customers and their family and friends. Since they know each other, you don't have to convince them to sign up overly. The trust will already win them.
- Encourages more traffic and sales - Because of the existing relationship between the customer and his referral, you can get more traffic and sales to your website. Referral marketing is a great way to promote brand new websites like Drum Set Lab and Hunting Bow Lab. You have to set it up and use it to start reaching your market.
- Better brand recognition - Every business requires proper brand recognition to start getting a consistent stream of traffic and sales. But you don't need to focus heavily on promotions with referral marketing. As long as you have a reliable brand in place, your customers will do the heavy lifting for you. They will promote your brand to their inner circles.
- Wider reach - Since you are not the one who will promote your brand, you will have other people promote your brand for you. When this happens, you'll have more people talking about your brand. This means a broader reach for your website without paid ads.
- Positive impact on Influencer marketing and SEO - If you ever wanted to get more people to notice your eCommerce website, referral marketing can help you. It may be the only boost that you need to get better search engine rankings or higher chances of getting promoted influencers. Having many people talk about your website is attractive and can do wonders for your social proof. And it can also convince other people and the search engines to view you as credible.
Can Referral Marketing increase your eCommerce sales?
Now that you have seen the value of referral marketing, you can now use it to boost your eCommerce sales. You don't need referral email templates to see how referral marketing can impact on your sales. Here are some ways on how it can help you.
It Boosts your Site's Social Proof
As mentioned, referral marketing can boost your website's social proof. It doesn't matter if you are a brand new website with no traffic, no subscribers, and no buyers. Once you implement a referral program, you'll have other people talking about your website, and this can encourage more people to buy from you. Why is that? It is called social proof. As more people support people, others will also be motivated to help you as well.
It Encourages User-Generated Content
Referral marketing is fueled by word-of-mouth marketing. This can be done in person, or it can be done online. It can come in the form of a blog post, social media post, or a video review when it is done online. In any case, it will be shared as online content. As more people join your referral program, more people will be posting about your site, and this can be treated as user-generated content.
It Increases Your Website's Conversion Rate
It doesn't matter how many vanity metrics you get. Your Instagram and Facebook followers, likes, shares, and comments don't mean anything unless you get some sales. But your eCommerce website can only have a decent conversion rate if you have a decent amount of traffic. This will allow you to track how well your website converts visitors into sales. So referral marketing can bring tons of traffic to your site, which may positively affect the conversion rate due to positive written or video reviews.It Attracts Customers with Higher Lifetime Value
Unlike other marketing forms, which only attract traffic, referral marketing is impressive because it attracts people with higher lifetime value. What is lifetime value? This term refers to the person's tendency to buy from your website again and again over his lifetime. If you have a customer with a high lifetime value, it means that you have a customer who has a higher chance of being loyal to your brand.
It Lowers Cart Abandonment
Another factor that makes referral marketing so good in driving sales is its ability to lower cart abandonment. Cart abandonment is every eCommerce seller's worst nightmare. The buyer is ready to check out but leaves his cart just because he changed his mind. It would help if you got them back, and referral marketing is an excellent way to ensure that they don't change their minds. It increases your brand's credibility, making you appear more trusted.
Referral marketing can help you increase your eCommerce sales. It is a matter of knowing how to implement it in your business. You may need to think of incentives that can attract the right people to your business, but it all starts from there.