Referral Marketing – Overlooked but Profitable
Nearly all of the courses in the Marketing Master Class were requested by our students. Referral marketing is an exception. We added it for several reasons:
- Getting referrals is one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing.
- The nature of aviation and business to business marketing is VERY trust-driven, and therefore very conducive to referral marketing.
- It’s an easy improvement in nearly any marketing system.
Although referrals are a huge source of business, (in some cases bringing in more that 50% of a company’s revenues) most companies continue to treat each referral as merely a happy accident. Some simple changes can make a huge difference in the number of referrals you receive.
What is Referral Marketing?
Referral marketing is a method of promoting products or services to new customers through referrals, usually word of mouth. Although referrals often happen spontaneously, businesses can influence this through easily implemented strategies.
Referral marketing is a structured and systematic process to maximize word of mouth potential. Referral marketing does this by encouraging, informing, promoting and rewarding customers and contacts to think and talk as much as possible about their supplier.
Referral marketing takes word of mouth from the spontaneous situation to one where maximum referrals are generated.
Online referral marketing, using digital marketing as a platform, is the internet based approach to traditional referral marketing. Given the advances in tracking customer behavior online through the use of web browser cookies, online referral marketing provides a high degree of tracking and accountability.
A study by the Goethe University Frankfurt and the University of Pennsylvania found that referred customers were both more profitable and loyal than normal customers. Referred customers had a higher contribution margin, a higher retention rate and were more valuable in both the short and long run.
Contents
Referral Marketing – Overlooked but Profitable 2
What is Referral Marketing? 2
Referrals Should be a Natural Part of Your Customer Lifecycle 4
Rule #1 – Provide an Excellent Product or Service 5
Rule #2 – Do Something Unusual – Have a “Core Talkable Difference”. 5
Jet Blue 6
United AirLines 6
Ritz-Carlton. 6
Airport Fast Park 7
Financial Planner 7
Insurance Professional 8
Software Company 8
Rule #3 – Ask! 9
Be Careful What You Ask For 9
Bad Referrals? 10
Referral Clues 10
Create a Referral Kit 11
Join a Referral Network 11
Make Referrals Part of Your Process 12
Example referral process 14
Referral Marketing Checklist 15
Recommended Reading list 16
Show Your Work Challenge 16
This course includes:
A thirty to sixty minute video with detailed instruction
A downloadable PDF Workbook
- We’ll send “Certificates of Completion” to those that show a good working knowledge of the concepts, and feature the best ones on ABCI’s blog. (An opportunity for additional publicity!)
- Need professional continuing education credit? CEUs or PDUs are provided for most professional organizations (Equivalent of 2 hours classroom instruction.)
- Your satisfaction is unconditionally guaranteed.
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