A2X Consulting

Business marketing has changed quite a bit as more and more activity shifts to the internet. The way brands would get the word out about new releases or attempt to expand their customer base used to be focused on brick and mortar stores and costly advertising through radio, television and regional or national billboard campaigns. In the modern information age, a much larger impact comes from the savvy exploitation of social media. While traditional advertising has evolved, so has the ability of consumers to see through it. Today it is the personal recommendation that drives new business. That means your best pathway to success is to make your customers happy, and create the sort of relationship where they become ambassadors of your brand. Here are five ways to get your customers to promote your business for you.

The first step will be determining which customers are most likely to get involved. What you are basically looking for are people who love sharing about products that they enjoy or helping their friends and family get good deals. It’s easy enough to figure out who are the best candidates. Start by integrating a question about recommendations into your regular blog, social network and newsletter posts. Ask your customers to tell you how likely they would be to recommend your company or a particular product, on a scale of 1 to 10. Anyone who takes the time to respond is probably on the bubble. But people who answer with a “10” or a “9” are those you will want to reach out to.

Now that you know who your brand ambassadors are, you must help them through the process. The easiest way for customers to promote your business is by posting reviews of your product or service on the social sites where people most commonly go for such information. Studies have shown that around one in every five customers who answered your question about recommendations will actually write one. That can add up to a lot of great reviews if you play your cards right.

Reviews are fantastic, and they bring along with them the feel of honesty. But customer testimonials are even better. In those cases, customers share how your product or service has actually impacted their lives. These can be even stronger marketing tools, as the stories shared will stick with potential customers more than just a product review. So offer your customers quality incentives to write or record a testimonial you can use on your website.

At this point, you’ve probably connected with a small but dedicated group of customers who have shown a willingness to post ratings and testimonials. So see if any of them will take their interest a step further and actually answer questions posed by prospective customers. Your service team manages most of these, but every once in a while hearing from a current customer could sway a potential customer who is on the fence. Streamline this by creating a banner that connects new people directly with customers to ask questions. Your conversion rates will skyrocket, and whatever you give your brand ambassador will be well worth it.

Finally, create unique promotional offers that your customers can share with others. Again, everyone loves telling friends about a deal, even if it’s for www.bowlerhat.co.uk or something equally niche. You can make the offers basically anything, as long as they are easy to share. Just keep in mind that the more you give your customers for sharing these deals, the less effective the recommendations will be. They have to share because they love the product, not because they are getting anything out of it.