Make a Referral Offer They Can

Copyright 2006 John Jantsch

Sometimes your referral marketing effort just needs the right hook or offer to get people to pay attention and participate. Draw from my top 5 referral offer starters and think of ways to creatively wrap your business around one or more of them.

1) Offer special pricing

If you are looking for referrals from your existing clients, you can develop a special price for those clients who refer a set amount of new business. Then, when a new client asks what the price of a product or service is, you can respond, "Do you want the full price or the special referral price?" This encourages repeat business and can provide a strong incentive to refer on the spot.

2) Will work for referrals

If you can target a referral source that has influence with your target market, you can offer a trial service or product in exchange for an endorsement of your products or services, a testimonial or a place in the next association speaker panel.

Seek out the leaders in trade groups and organizations you would like to target and offer to perform a service or let them try your product free of charge. Get them to agree that if they like your product or service as much as you know they will, they will send a letter to the membership of the organization promoting your offer. Then write the letter for them.

3) Help a worthy cause

Donate a percentage of business acquired by way of referral to a non-profit agency. By offering to help a worthy cause, you can increase referrals while improving your community.

There are many variations on this referral strategy. You can make donations to a designated charity in your referral source