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Does referral marketing only work with the following constraints?

by stanigator
8 replies
- having a pre-existing large network of personal and professional contacts
- having a large network of past clients
- having relationships with influencers who have large networks of personal and professional contacts

The reason I'm asking is because I always thought startup businesses are pretty much restricted to outbound marketing when it comes to bringing in the money, especially if you don't have your own network (or access to one) to begin with.

Your thoughts?
#constraints #marketing #referral #work
  • Profile picture of the author myob
    None of the above are necessary,

    Referral marketing (including affiliate marketing) can work by targeting networks or groups of people who may share a specific commonality of interests or demographics.

    A widely exploited example used by marketers might be bloggers or publishers who already are targeting the prospects to which you are marketing. Informative, engaging articles can drive highly convertible traffic.

    For any given commercially viable niche, there may be hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands, of online/offline publication editors that are hungry for quality content for their reading audiences.

    Consider using "Writers' Market" for offline publications and "The Directory of Ezines" for online sources in your initial search for niche-relevant candidates.
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    • Profile picture of the author Oliver Statham
      Originally Posted by myob View Post

      None of the above are necessary,

      Referral marketing (including affiliate marketing) can work by targeting networks or groups of people who may share a specific commonality of interests or demographics.

      A widely exploited example used by marketers might be bloggers or publishers who already are targeting the prospects to which you are marketing. Informative, engaging articles can drive highly convertible traffic.

      For any given commercially viable niche, there may be hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands, of online/offline publication editors that are hungry for quality content for their reading audiences.

      Consider using "Writers' Market" for offline publications and "The Directory of Ezines" for online sources in your initial search for niche-relevant candidates.
      Nice!

      But I don't like your 'competitors' nightmare' catchphrase. I leverage my competition and bring them closer to me than my most trusted friends.

      Cheers.
      Oliver
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      • Profile picture of the author writeaway
        Originally Posted by Oliver Statham View Post

        Nice!

        But I don't like your 'competitors' nightmare' catchphrase. I leverage my competition and bring them closer to me than my most trusted friends.

        Cheers.
        Oliver
        I get what you're saying.

        I've always worked to REVERSE ENGINEER my competition.

        Get them to do my homework for me.

        How?

        I figure out what their strong points are and build on those.

        I figure out where they dropped the ball and avoid making the same (costly) mistakes.
        Signature
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    • Profile picture of the author stanigator
      Originally Posted by myob View Post

      None of the above are necessary,

      Referral marketing (including affiliate marketing) can work by targeting networks or groups of people who may share a specific commonality of interests or demographics.

      A widely exploited example used by marketers might be bloggers or publishers who already are targeting the prospects to which you are marketing. Informative, engaging articles can drive highly convertible traffic.

      For any given commercially viable niche, there may be hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands, of online/offline publication editors that are hungry for quality content for their reading audiences.

      Consider using "Writers' Market" for offline publications and "The Directory of Ezines" for online sources in your initial search for niche-relevant candidates.
      But when you're approaching bloggers or publishers, aren't you doing outbound marketing on them in order to get them to refer you to their audience? I think we have different semantics of what counts as a "referral."
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    Originally Posted by stanigator View Post

    - having a pre-existing large network of personal and professional contacts
    - having a large network of past clients
    - having relationships with influencers who have large networks of personal and professional contacts

    The reason I'm asking is because I always thought startup businesses are pretty much restricted to outbound marketing when it comes to bringing in the money, especially if you don't have your own network (or access to one) to begin with.

    Your thoughts?
    Nobody starts out with those things. They all get built over time, one at a time.

    You build a "large network of personal and professional contacts" by making one contact and starting a relationship, then another and another and...

    You build a large network of past clients by getting one client and serving them well enough that they want to recommend you to their contacts. Then you do the same with another client, And another, and another and...

    You build relationships with influencers by being useful to them first, in ways that make them want to share what you have with their networks. You do it, yep, you guessed it, one at a time. First one, then another and another and...

    Are you seeing a theme emerging here?

    It's a little different than what myob posted. He's talking about content marketing, which is basically a straight-up trade. You provide the publisher with valuable content that benefits their audience and makes them look good for publishing it, and in return, you get a "resource box" - basically a small ad and link at the bottom of article or other content.
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    • Profile picture of the author myob
      Originally Posted by Oliver Statham View Post

      Nice!

      But I don't like your 'competitors' nightmare' catchphrase. I leverage my competition and bring them closer to me than my most trusted friends.

      Cheers.
      Oliver
      LOL! Sorry if that catchphrase is not as warm and fuzzy as your approach. But my competition is not and never could be my target market. My marketing strategy is brand differentiation and limited only to qualified strangers who become trusting friends through a systematic mass sorting, qualification, and incrementally personalized funnel process. This simple, yet far-reaching referral marketing system gives nightmares to the competition as it consistently beats them all-to-hell


      Originally Posted by stanigator View Post

      But when you're approaching bloggers or publishers, aren't you doing outbound marketing on them in order to get them to refer you to their audience? I think we have different semantics of what counts as a "referral."
      Perhaps it could be considered "outbound marketing" to submit articles for publication, but in the purest semantic sense you are not doing any "outbound marketing" directly to your targeted market, nor is it necessary to have "relationships" with influencers.

      When editors accept your articles for publication, there is a subtle but extremely powerful nuance of endorsement to their reading audience which may often warmly open up their networks of personal and professional contacts to you.

      In my marketing experience, there is nothing better than obtaining referrals through leveraging the relationships among networks. When this concept is applied, barriers of entry for even new startup businesses within virtually any commercially viable market can be broken down.


      Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

      It's a little different than what myob posted. He's talking about content marketing, which is basically a straight-up trade. You provide the publisher with valuable content that benefits their audience and makes them look good for publishing it, and in return, you get a "resource box" - basically a small ad and link at the bottom of article or other content.
      Phew, speaking of semantics ... !

      Much more than an "ad", with content marketing you're actually getting tacitly endorsed access to the publishers' reading audience. This overlooked nuance is extremely powerful for getting warm referrals from other people's lists. Back in the day (early 1970's?), we used to call it "hitchin' a ride" - using other people's vehicles to get to where you want to be.
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      • Profile picture of the author nickjperoni
        First post here on Warrior Forum And a topic I love, because referral marketing is actually one of the main strategies in how I built my business from nothing.

        As mentioned by John McCabe, nobody starts out with a network. Everyone starts at nothing, and has to build that credibility.

        I'm not sure what niche/industry you're in, but referral marketing applies to everything and never needs to have a large network or any connections to start out with. When I built a website in my niche, I had never once sold anything in that niche. Now we are a leader of the industry.. very much in part to referral marketing.

        However, I do believe that referral marketing works WITH outbound marketing. You need to be bringing people in to your business and telling them what you do.

        But that's a different topic, so I'll assume you are bringing people in...

        Each person I bring into my business has a possible network of potential clients. Because some of that person's friends are probably in the same market, and people love to share information.

        So the first rule is to of course over-deliver on great value. That makes people want to talk about you and your business.

        Then you should put in place some sort of incentive for every person you interact with to refer your business to others. It has to be relevant to your target market of course, but there is always a way to incentivize this strategy.

        For my business, I offer to pay them a commission based on bringing in another paying client. It gives them a reason to share.

        My other goal is to have my business become like a "trusted adviser" for my market.. so even if they may not refer me now, when the conversation does come up, they talk about my company.

        This is how you build a network.

        Again, I don't know your niche.. but outbound marketing is not hard. Give something free away as value to bring people in. Then over-deliver and pre-frame for your core offer, share testimonials and reviews to leverage and repeat.

        As you bring those people in, put in place a referral marketing strategy and watch things compound quickly over time!

        I know my business has tripled in size in part to this strategy alone
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        Originally Posted by myob View Post

        Phew, speaking of semantics ... !

        Much more than an "ad", with content marketing you're actually getting tacitly endorsed access to the publishers' reading audience. This overlooked nuance is extremely powerful for getting warm referrals from other people's lists. Back in the day (early 1970's?), we used to call it "hitchin' a ride" - using other people's vehicles to get to where you want to be.
        Agreed. We called it "piggy-backing."

        That tacit endorsement from the publisher is important, especially when starting out.

        I still consider the term "ad" appropriate for the 2-3 sentences and link at the end of the article, however it is more of an ad for the writer, and for the continued experience offered for following the link rather than a product promo or offer, per se.
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