![\"small](\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/small-business-marketing1.jpg\" "\\"small")
<\/a>again.<\/p>\nAnd because your past customers already know you and trust you, they\u2019re willing to pay more for your products\u2026buy other products on your recommendation\u2026and send their colleagues, friends, and family your way.<\/p>\n
In fact, referrals and cross-selling are the single most important reason you should market to your customer list.\u00a0 Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n
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- Depending on your market, you may not want to depend solely on repeat business. For instance, when I sold real estate my clients typically didn\u2019t buy another home for 2-3 years.\u00a0 Of course, I wanted (and usually got) that business.\u00a0 But if I depended solely on repeat customers, I wouldn\u2019t have been able to grow my business as quickly as I did.\u00a0 And as Dan Kennedy likes to point out, momentum is a key element of massive success.\u00a0 Focusing on referrals and back-end opportunities helps create that momentum.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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- Referrals are pre-qualified and looking to buy\u2014now. If you need a new dentist, what\u2019s the first thing you do?\u00a0 If you\u2019re like most people, you ask friends for a recommendation.\u00a0 Only after exhausting all other options will you begin to look in the phone book, online, and so on.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Likewise, your referrals are coming to you pre-qualified and ready to buy.\u00a0 Your happy customers already identified that the referral needs your help.\u00a0 If you played your cards right, they raved about your services.\u00a0 And if you really hit the nail on the head with your past-customer marketing plan, your old customers\u00a0 built you up in the referral\u2019s mind as the only logical option to fill the referral\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s powerful stuff.\u00a0 A prospect that is pre-qualified, ready to act, and already trusts you is less expensive to connect with.\u00a0 They\u2019re willing to pay more for what you\u2019re selling.\u00a0 And they tend to be much easier to work with.<\/p>\n
And that brings me to me last and most important point: referrals are cheap<\/em>\u2014the good kind of <\/em>cheap, that is.<\/strong><\/p>\n
As I mentioned above, converting a new prospect to a customer is expensive.\u00a0 They don\u2019t know you.\u00a0 They\u2019re skeptical.\u00a0 And you have to convince them that you\u2019re the best choice out of all the options available to them.\u00a0 That\u2019s expensive, and depending on your market, time-consuming as well.<\/p>\n
But because referrals come \u201cpre-sold\u201d on your services, you don\u2019t have to do any of that.\u00a0 All you need to do is get them to buy.\u00a0 And you can do that, can\u2019t you?<\/p>\n
But as mentioned at the beginning of this article, there\u2019s a right way and wrong way to market to your customer base.\u00a0 And that goes double for referrals.<\/p>\n
You see, there\u2019s a specific strategy to maximizing your referrals.\u00a0 If you do it right, you can dramatically grow your business almost overnight.\u00a0 But if you do it incorrectly, you run the risk of alienating your customers and losing their business.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly what I\u2019ll show you in my next article.\u00a0 I\u2019ll show you what to do\u2014and more importantly, what not to do\u2014in order to maximize your referrals.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll even show you a simple way to \u201cre-activate\u201d those customers you haven\u2019t contacted in awhile\u2014just by sending a simple letter. See you next time around!<\/p>\n
– Paul<\/em><\/p>\n
- Referrals are pre-qualified and looking to buy\u2014now. If you need a new dentist, what\u2019s the first thing you do?\u00a0 If you\u2019re like most people, you ask friends for a recommendation.\u00a0 Only after exhausting all other options will you begin to look in the phone book, online, and so on.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n