Referrals for Business

A steady stream of customers keeps the business afloat. This is what every online entrepreneur wants for their business. They hope to build a concrete and consistent stream of referred leads.

Continuous flow of referred leads can only happen if you offer an amazing product or extraordinary service. However, given the number of entrepreneurs starting their online business the competition gets tough. To get the referral tap flowing, you also need to create compelling ways to stay top of mind with your referral sources and convince them to sing your praises. Here are referral tactics I've seen start-ups use successfully:

1. Getting back on them. Among the referral techniques I have read about, this is by far the easiest. After your customers avail of your product you can say. “We expect that you are going to be thrilled with this product that you have purchased. To make sure that you have everything you need, we would also like to ask for three others who would like to get the same amazing product you have.”

2. Free gift certificate. Send gift certificates for your products to your customers and referral sources. These gift certificate can be sent quarterly, and the recipients are free to pass this on to anyone if they want. Most customers would really want to refer your product to friends and family and getting your gift certificate is the best way to get started.

3. Refund all the way. This is a fun and easy way of gaining new customers. This is how it works:

• A customer purchases from you. Send them a referral code through the mail.
• If they refer your product to one friend, and this friend buys one of your products the previous customer gets 20% back (referred customer provides the code so you can keep track of who gets the 20%).
• The person who referred her friend can get up to 100% refund of the product they got from you. So that means you gain 5 new customers in the process.

If you really want a steady flow of referrals doing the tips above would help you. These tips have been tried and tested by both offline and online businesses, and I must say it does work.

So give it a shot and see which one works best for your business.