7 Steps to Consistent Referral Generation
By John Jantsch
Understanding your customer lifecycle and mapping every
customer touch point is key to generating a consistent flow of
referrals.
Referrals happen, thank
goodness, but for too many, they happen randomly, almost
accidentally.
One of the keys to tapping the systematic generation of referrals is to identify and address the customer touch points that add up to lead a customer to the logical and emotional decision that your organization is referable.
I say this often, but it's worth repeating - every person, place and thing in your business that comes into contact with a prospect or a customer is performing a marketing function. Your organization's referability is being decided by the sum total of those contacts.
It's so important to figure out the critical stages involved in developing a customer and then fill the gaps in every contact - by fill I mean, make sure that every contact is a marketing contact - and that includes things like delivery, customer service, even billing.
The 7 Stages and logical touch points along this customer referral life cycle look something like this.
- Know - Your ads, article, and referred leads
- Like - Your web site, reception, and email newsletter
- Trust - Your marketing kit, white papers, and sales presentations
- Trial - Webinars, evaluations, and nurturing activities
- Core - Fulfillment, new customer kit, delivery, and financial arrangements
- Repeat - Post customer survey, cross sell presentations, and quarterly events
- Refer - Results reviews, partner introductions, peer 2 peer webinars, and community building
I suggest creating a diagram consisting of the stages above and mapping out every touch point you have or should have before you ever start dreaming about a world flooded with referrals.
Related article - Keyword research
for websites
John Jantsch is a marketing and digital
technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape
Marketing. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing
system. You can find more information by visiting www.ducttapemarketing.com
I always cringe when I see someone at a business
networking meeting going on and on with their company sales pitch oblivious to
the fact that their "hard sell" technique pushes people away instead of
attracting them.
Unfortunately, many people in network marketing still teach this outdated and ineffective method to their new recruits. That's why I think it's so important to show people there is a different and better way. 
