Who Refers Your Brand?

Referral is to new business what imitation is to flattery. There is no higher attainable brand summit than that of a personal referral, where existing brand champions refer prospective customers.

I recently met with a prospective client whose brand commands the highest potential for Affinity Brand status—more than any I have seen in recent months. While all of the characteristics for affinity status were evident, the decision-maker lacked the vision to recognize the potential for taking the brand to the next level.

Instead, they focused on brand experiences within controlled environments, where they felt safe. In this case, it was limited to the traditional storefronts and seasonal catalogs.

And while this might seem sufficient for maintaining traditional formulas for managing brand awareness, it misses tremendous opportunities for existing brand owners to influence prospective customers.

Migrating existing brand-owners to brand-champions results in referrals. And proud brand-champions are always eager to spread the word about the products and services they enjoy.

How is this accomplished? By providing a voice for your existing brand owners. This involves creating marketing tools whereby existing customers can easily share with others and ultimately replicate your best sales efforts.

The secret ingredient of these tools is expertise: your expertise! Your customer is not the expert, you are. Replicating your expertise so it is easily accessible to share freely between consumers is a powerful feature of the digital space.

Be careful not to confuse referral with suggestion. To only suggest infers brand awareness, while referral implies intent, and personal experience. The latter is more authentic and most effective.

There are many marketing tools available, and the latest trends are not always the best indicators of which tools will work best for your brand. With prudent research, discovery, and diagnosis, the best tools can soon be in the hands of your existing brand champions, reaching out to prospective customers on your behalf.