How to Prospect Customers with Referral Marketing: 3 Different Methods

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A 2023 Finances Online research survey shows that 82% of B2B sales leaders believe that referrals generate the best leads.

Key takeaways from this article:
Referral marketing is a marketing strategy that aims to transform customers into promoters of a brand.
Referral marketing encompasses different tactics that are used to turn customers into a sales channel for the company, as they can promote the business and, in addition, act as a trigger for social proof .
The main advantages of referral marketing include: lower costs per customer acquisition, reduced sales cycle, higher conversion rates , increased credibility and more profitable sales opportunities.
The three best-known referral marketing strategies are: referral program , ambassador program and success stories.
Ambassadors are professionals who are very engaged and satisfied with your brand, so expect qualified and hot leads to prospect. Learn everything about prospecting to improve your strategy: Guide: how to prospect new customers and generate qualified leads
Furthermore, according to a Nielsen study , people are 4 times more likely to buy a product or service when recommended by a friend.

With this data in mind, there is no way not to think about how to prospect customers with referral marketing, targeting more qualified leads and higher sales conversion rates, right?

Indeed, referral marketing is an excellent way to obtain better results in customer prospecting .

And the best part: this is a highly democratic strategy, that is, it can be easily implemented in any business model, for any type of client, and for any product or service.

Continue reading and learn more about what referral marketing is and how to prospect customers with it!

What is referral marketing?
Referral marketing is a marketing strategy that aims to turn customers into promoters of a brand, recommending its products and services to their suppliers, partners, clients, friends or family. Unlike word-of-mouth marketing, which happens spontaneously, referral marketing requires an effort from the marketing team to encourage referrals in exchange for rewards.

In this sense, referral marketing encompasses different tactics that are used to turn customers into a sales channel for the company, since they can promote the business and, in addition, act as a trigger for social proof, showing their network of contacts that their products or services are approved by them.

Think about it: do you trust salespeople more or recommendations from your closest friends?

Do you see how a recommendation inevitably carries more weight when it comes from someone we trust?

Knowing this, a customer will not go around promoting your products and services without seeing value in it. After all, their credibility will be at stake.

Therefore, the customer must already have a good experience and exchange of interactions with the company. In other words, the levels of customer engagement and satisfaction must be excellent.

What are the benefits of referral marketing?
The benefits of referral marketing include everything from better prospecting results to turkey mobile phone numbers database higher loyalty rates and reduced customer acquisition costs. Learn more about the advantages of this strategy:

Lower Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Later in the article, we will present four referral marketing strategies. In general, they have lower implementation costs compared to traditional advertising practices and digital marketing strategies , which makes the CAC of referral marketing much more interesting, since the efforts to generate demand are smaller and involve less expense.

Shorter sales cycle and higher conversion rates
When receiving a referral, the sales team deals with a lead with high qualification potential, because the person who referred them tends to know their business model and knows how their solution could be positioned within the reality of this lead .

In addition, the social proof trigger we mentioned earlier helps to break down several barriers and objections during prospecting, which can further accelerate the sales cycle of the indicated leads and favor conversion rates.

Greater credibility
According to research from McKinsey , 63% of Gen Z consumers say recommendations from friends are their most trusted source for learning about products and brands .

Therefore, when your audience speaks well of your business and spreads it to more companies in that sector, your name grows, your credibility is strengthened and your positioning in the market improves.

More profitable opportunities
A study by the Wharton School of Business highlights that referred customers have a 16% higher LTV (Lifetime Value) than average customers .

In other words, referral customers contribute greater revenue during the time they have a relationship with the organization, which makes them more profitable than customers who are attracted to the organization through other channels.

Take advantage and check out 5 tips for prospecting clients and increasing sales:


How to prospect clients with referral marketing?
Ready to learn how to prospect customers with referral marketing? Here are 3 methods you can use:

Referral programs
Referral programs are one of the best-known and most widely used referral marketing strategies on the market.

It basically works like this: your company encourages its customers to recommend your products and services in exchange for rewards. These rewards can be discounts, gifts, and even prizes.

To ensure that referrals are not made solely for the sake of winning awards, create basic criteria for customers to recommend your organization. This is especially essential for B2B business models .

As a result, salespeople will have a warm list of customers to prospect. Then, it is necessary to enter these contacts into the CRM , define the source channel for these leads to, in the future, measure the results, adjust their sales approaches and start prospecting.

Ambassador Program
The ambassador program is a way to build a community of customers who are highly engaged with your company and who promote your products and services because they identify with it .

To do this, you need to reward customer loyalty not only with discounts and prizes, but by inviting them to be part of your brand, as a business partner.

In B2B, ambassadors are also customers who can be referred by the company that created the program. This creates a mutual referral, which tends to further strengthen the relationship between the parties.

Ambassadors are professionals who are very engaged and satisfied with your brand, so expect qualified and hot leads to prospect!

Success stories
Finally, to close our list of referral marketing strategies that you can use to prospect more qualified leads , we mention the success stories.

Success stories are complete content with testimonials where customers report the results they obtained with your solution, their purchasing experience and their level of satisfaction with customer service.

This content can be published on your website or social media, and is an excellent way to show potential customers from similar segments that your company is already a reference for the competition, and that it generates positive impacts on their operations.

Learn more about customer prospecting and demand generation!
Want to delve even deeper into prospecting for clients through referrals?

So, you need to know about the B2B Prospecting Course with Agendor CRM, a complete course, with practical content, “straight to the point”, no fuss and with a certificate to become an expert in B2B Prospecting.

Learn all about ways to prospect clients, build a high-performance prospecting team, and how to be a tactical and strategic leader.