The modern business world is dynamic and highly competitive. Brands must adapt quickly to new technologies and changes in the market to stay afloat and competitive. The most successful brands have a B2B referral program that allows them to generate leads and revenue despite unpredictable market dynamics.
Customers are more likely to buy from a brand they know or have heard about than a business they’re unfamiliar with. A recent study by Havard Business Review found that 84% of sales come from referrals.
Peer recommendations influence 90% of B2B buying decisions and account for 65% of new business opportunities. Based on these stats, it’s essential to have a robust way of getting your business on the map, connecting with your target customers, and generating sales. That’s exactly what a B2B referral program does.
What is a B2B Referral Program?
A B2B referral program is a lead generation strategy that encourages past customers to recommend your brand to friends, colleagues, and others in their network.
Word of mouth is one of the most potent native marketing strategies. A loyal community of satisfied customers willing to recommend and vouch for your business will help you scale up and get miles ahead of your competitors.
Statistics also show that referred clients are 4x more likely to recommend your brand to others in their network if they’re content with your service/product. In addition, this group of customers is 18x more loyal than other clients acquired through other customer acquisition strategies.
In summary, a well-crafted B2B referral program creates a community of happy customers who are willingly ready to act as brand ambassadors. Let’s shift gears to look at tips on how to create a successful B2B referral program.
How To Create A Successful B2B Referral Program
Like other lead generation strategies, the success of a B2B referral program is hinged on how well it’s structured and managed. Here are 7 tips to guide you in creating a referral program that works for your brand.
Strive to Create Strong Bonds/Relationships With Customers
As mentioned earlier, the referrers are not the conventional digital marketers you hire to promote your business, e.g., influencers, but instead, customers who have used your services or product in the past.
Focus on creating strong relationships with customers to encourage them to endorse your brand to their peers. One guaranteed way to achieve this goal is by providing additional support to ensure they get the utmost value for money.
The most successful brands that get new customers through referral programs have robust onboarding programs that provide additional resources and user guides to customers. The support team also constantly communicates with customers, making them feel valued and appreciated.
Train Your Team On How To Handle Customers
Your team needs to clearly understand the foundations and objectives of your B2B referral program. Provide resources and additional sales training to equip them with the skills and expertise to offer the best customer service.
Consider hiring a professional marketing expert to hold an in-house conference to discuss the benefits of a referral program and how it works. During the training, reiterate that when customers feel valued, they are more likely to recommend the brand to others for a discount on their next purchase or even for free.
Know When To Ask for a Recommendation
Timing is one of the pillars of a successful B2B referral program. You shouldn’t ask the customer to recommend your brand too early or late in the sales funnel. The rule of thumb is to request that they share the referral link after they submit their feedback.
Don’t be too pushy, though. Maintain high professionalism and ask for recommendations subtly to avoid looking too needy or desperate. Send them a referral request email shortly after they submit their feedback.
Experiment with different email templates to determine which one works best for various segments of your customers. Hire a professional copywriter with a proven track record of crafting high-performance email copy to help you write the content. Monitor the results to determine which areas of the copy need to be improved for peak results.
Identify Potential Referrers
High-potential referrers are customers who are more likely to recommend your brand. Some of the factors that can help you identify them include;
- Recent upgrades or additional purchases
- Consistent subscription renewals
- Positive reviews
Monitor how the customers interact with your brand by recording their purchases. Use the information to target customers with a referral request email. Group them based on their past purchases and create a custom referral request email copy for each group to get the best results.
Offer Incentives
Not every satisfied customer will be willing to recommend your brand for free. Give them an incentive to motivate them to act as your brand advocates. The incentive should be unique and valuable to the customers.
Avoid offering the same incentives as your competitors, as they may not work for your target customers and brand. For example, if you’re just starting, offering a $50 gift voucher for every referral will hurt your finances.
Consult your team and research which incentives are ideal for your business. Test different incentives to find one that offers the most returns without breaking the bank.
Automate Your B2B Referral Program
Tracking new referrals and manually awarding discounts or other incentives is tedious and expensive. Automate the process to eliminate the risk of mistakes and scale up your referral program. Automation will also ensure that no potential leads that would have been nurtured fall through the cracks.
As you automate, strive to balance maintaining personalization and efficiency so that the referral requests are authentic. Thanks to technological advancements, modern CRM (customer relationship management) systems and email marketing software are designed to achieve both objectives without costing users thousands of dollars in fees.
Market Your Referral Program
One of the worst mistakes you can make is assuming that customers know your program. Promote the program on social media and other marketing platforms to enhance your marketing and branding efforts.
Go the extra mile to create a dedicated page on your website with program details and share it via email and social media. Make it easy for customers to share details of your business by providing links to landing pages, pictures, and even videos highlighting how the product/service works.
Here is an example of a professional B2B referral program page.
Image sources: Zoho.com
Make the program even more enjoyable by gaming it. Create leaderboards and badges to make it more interactive and competitive. Display the leaderboard on the website to encourage new customers to join the bandwagon.
Building Long-Term Success Using Referrals
To succeed in scaling up your business, you must implement robust ways of connecting with customers and consistently generating new leads. Use the above tips to create a solid B2B referral program and continuously monitor the results to know if you’re headed in the right direction.
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