How to Skyrocket Sales with E-Commerce Referrals Marketing
Marketing becomes more interesting and effective when we start doing it without even knowing that we are actually doing it. Maybe, that’s what is called Referral Marketing. Your marketing goals become clearer when a customer comes to you through a referral. That is the moment you know that your techniques are actually working and people are sharing about your brand or company with everyone else, that is what makes your company or brand’s reach around every corner and nooks. You know that your customer service is satisfying when your customer starts recommending your products or services to their friends or other people they meet.
We always trust our friends more than any websites or ratings, and that’s why it becomes more trustable when your brands are indirectly promoted by your customers as they tell their loved ones about them. Not because they are getting any paid for it, they do that just because they find it actually good to suggest the brand to others, because they themselves are highly satisfied by your service. It stands as an important parameter for your business success. But, the referrals do not comes to you naturally you need to persuade them to do so and that is what called Referral Marketing.
What is Referral Marketing?
Referral Marketing covers any marketing efforts that encourage your past customers to naturally refer you new customers.
Don’t confuse this with Affiliate Marketing. They are similar to each other but not completely same. In Affiliate Marketing the customers are not yours, and they don’t promote your products to other naturally, mostly they do the promotion for money. That doesn’t make it natural. The basic difference between the Referral and Affiliate Marketing is their natural and artificial nature.
Both of these are being used by many successful businesses, but for maintaining a balance one should follow either of them and not both of them at a time. Referral marketing work with both service based businesses and e-commerce businesses. According to some sources the average referral marketing revenue in e-commerce and retail is about $155,000 per year.
How to make the best out of Referral Marketing?
Every approach you choose there are some pros and cons of it, depending upon your business goals. If you are choosing Referral marketing then there are pros and cons of it too. Therefore, it is necessary to take in consideration the whole picture of your business, so that you can choose the right approach of the Referral marketing.
Let’s look at some advantages of Referral marketing:
· Referrals are one of the most trusted sources. As the referrals comes from your natural customers and are passed out to all those people who are in contact with your customers. Thus, it makes the information trustable for them and that ultimately makes them to get your products too. It directly increases your sales and popularity between the crowds, and proves that your customer service is being loved by your customers.
· Low initial and ongoing costs. The cost you need for building a referral system is reasonably low than the other approaches. Once, you have built a strong referral system then only the real costs are only initiative you reward referrers with.
· Referral Marketing helps you to know the satisfaction level of your customers. Thus, you can invest more resources to make your current customer happier that helps you to get more referrals. Thus, the money needed for your marketing is saved.
· Customers are usually connected with other potential customers already in some markets. That helps you to get quick referrals, for your products.
· Referral Marketing is not in your control. It is completely depended on your customers, it is up to them that they would share their experience with others or not and how they would share it. You don’t have any control over them. You are not the narrator here.
· Your approach is limited to the size and base of your customers. If you have a small business then your customers won’t refer about your business to other potential customers. Thus, this approach doesn’t works well with small businesses.
· The process is time consuming. It doesn’t works in a rapid way as it happens in other advertising or marketing approaches. It can take some amount of time to build a trust in your customers regarding your products. It is a tricky process and sometimes takes months or weeks to get in process.
Some Examples of E-Commerce Referrals Marketing:
Here, are some examples of the e-commerce businesses that are using Referral Marketing.
Trendy Butler is a male fashion business app. When you log in it shows up the option to send invite to your friends. When you sign in this app, the referrers get $10 in credit.
Referral Marketing is a part of Harry’s pre-launch marketing campaign. Once a customer signs in they are given a simple option: Invite friends to sign up and get free products.
This is the key. Once the user referred more and more of their friends in their contact, they receive more rewards.
It is a large e-commerce site that sells all types of apparel. When a customer invites a friend the new signup gets a $10 discount credit and referrer also gets a $10 credit.
4. Amazon Prime (Discounted)
When any user sign up and make a small purchase then the referrer get $5.
How to Implement a Referral Marketing Strategy:
Everything lies in the implementation:
· Decide the phase when you are going to introduce your referral program.
· Keep a track on your referrals
Online Referral Marketing Tools and Platforms:
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