Whether you're blogging, you have an art or fashion shop, coaching, hosting events, you have a Youtube channel, or anything in which you need to spread awareness, below you'll find some awesome ideas to experiment for FREE! Well, except for the small gifts, but I'll explain that one.
REFERRAL METHOD 1
Small gifts like fridge magnets, bookmarks, prints that are branded (promo items)
- These are great for shops and events. Once a client purchases from you, you can include a small gift like this with their order. Just make sure to include extras that they can give to their family and friends. Also think of the creative attractiveness of the items, because if it's not something cool, they wouldn't care much for it. For example, anyone that's purchased Apple products can vouch that the packaging is too perfect to throw away. Another example is when I bought the Flowerbomb Viktor & Rolf perfume - the box was so cute, I didn't even want to open it!
REFERRAL METHOD 2
Every referral your customer brings gives both of them a discount/credit
- You know how shops have reward programs in which your points add up and you get a free item? Learn from those franchises and you do the same! Let your customers know that for every friend that mentions them during purchase, they'll both receive a discount or credit towards their next order. They'll totally love it and refer everyone they know. I mean who doesn't love a great discount and fun challenge to reach a goal? (as in the goal of collecting enough credits to receive a free item)
REFERRAL METHOD 3
Affiliate program - unique links or discount codes that influencers must be accepted to get and they gain a percentage from each sale
- This one is a bit more complicated to organize, but there are tons of websites free and paid that can ease the process. Lots of companies do this, as you're probably aware through social media. That's because it works! You gain tons of exposure, affiliates get paid when you get paid, and new customers get to take advantage of a discount. Everyone wins.
REFERRAL METHOD 4
Ask them to tag their friends (example: tag a friend that would wear this, tag a friend that has this style, tag your best friend to tell them you love them)
- This one is the easiest method to do and possibly the most fun. For every post you share on social media, you just ask a question in which commenters should tag others, and there you go! Just make sure the post/question is engaging and something that your audience will be dying to tag others in. Not only will you get new followers from those tagged that are curious, but you'll be increasing your post engagement, which in turn increases your exposure (you know, those algorithms).
REFERRAL METHOD 5
Give advice and have readers share with those they believe will appreciate it
- You can either email the advice to your mailing list, type the advice as a blog article, or post the advice on social media. By being focused on who you're writing for(not necessarily your audience, but new markets you want to target) and having the call to action be that your readers share with their friends that need it, you'll be broadening your exposure. A fantastic example of this is one of my favorite marketing gurus, Derek Halpern. His audience is entrepreneurs, so he can literally target whoever he wants, because entrepreneurship spreads across a broad spectrum creatively, analytically, physically, spiritually, etc. He can't write every blog post for every entrepreneur, though, or no one would relate to them. What he does instead is choose ONE person from a certain field of work and writes solely to that person. Now his entire audience can share that blog post with everyone they know that's like the person he wrote to.
If you'd like to dig deeper into any one of these referral methods, comment your questions below!