4 Strategies to Snag Social Referrals

Referrals are like the holy grail of marketing. With one positive remark about your brand, an existing customer has the power to push a new customer right to your door, and you get to make a sale (and hopefully gain repeat business) at no cost to you! If every single one of your satisfied customers would just say something great about your company on their Facebook or Twitter feeds, you’d be rolling in the dough. This is especially true when you consider the fact that as many as 81 percent of all consumers admit they’ve been influenced by their friends on social media.

So, how can you get your customers talking about your brand and getting their friends and followers pumped up to give you their business? Take a look at these expert tips:

It’s the law of supply and demand, baby! People like to feel important, and one of the best ways to make your customers feel valued and significant is through the usage of exclusivity or scarcity. Putting a specific number on the amount of people who can take advantage of a certain sale, limiting the quantity of a specific product that will be sold, or even offering deals only to those who use a specific social media platform helps you create a sense of urgency and scarcity. As your customers see how limited your stock is or how time is running out on an incredible deal, they’ll be inclined to share, re-tweet, or otherwise engage with the marketing strategy, thus driving more people to your site. Cha-ching!

Get this: research has shown that a whopping 83 percent of shoppers have actually made unplanned purchases simply because they received coupons and/or referrals from their friends on social media. Incentives like these surround your brand with excitement, and everyone wants to get in on the deal. If a customer finds a great coupon on social media, they’re likely to tag their friends or make referrals so that their loved ones can also take advantage of the savings opportunity. Once those who have been referred to the coupon make a satisfactory purchase, you’ll have a whole new generation of loyal buyers who will make incentive-based referrals down the line. For the highest success rate, we recommend coupons and other incentives that require “share” buttons in order to claim them.

As many as two-thirds of all Americans own smartphones, and over half of shoppers are using these smartphones and other mobile devices as a means of researching in-store items before making a purchase, either in the store itself or online. In addition to making sure that you have educational content available that’s been optimized for mobile, you also need to make sure that it’s as easy as possible for your customers to see reviews and referrals from previously satisfied buyers. Positive reviews should be easy to access, and you should harness technology that instantly shows users when their connected friends on social media platforms or embedded within their contacts have also viewed or purchased the same products in the past.

Do you really want to risk losing out on a huge sale because you were too cheap to offer free shipping to your customers? You’ll definitely want to re-think this when you realize that providing free shipping on products significantly increases the odds that customers will be thrilled with their experience and will refer you to future buyers.