Your customers and your brand are two of your most valuable assets. In ideal circumstances, your customers act as brand ambassadors by talking you up to their social networks. It’s the perfect marriage of your assets. Unfortunately, only the most dedicated customers are likely to take up your mantle spontaneously. There are, however, ways to put your brand in customers’ hands and convert them into advocates for your business.
Incentivizing Reviews
Reviews are serious for businesses. More than 90% of people check business reviews online before choosing a business. It’s in your best interest to get more of your customers to leave reviews. How? Incentivize them. One easy way is to set up an email autoresponder. Have customers send a link to their review to a specified email. The autoresponder replies with a reward, such as a coupon or discount code. If you want to offer something more substantial, like a gift card, you’ll want to cap the number and manually confirm the reviews. Many companies also offer an entry to a drawing for a larger prize, which can help keep costs low. Be careful with these types of incentives, though, so you don’t come across as paying for good reviews. You can do this by making it very clear that their reward, or potential reward, will not be influenced by what they say.
Branded Products
Branded products are a particularly useful tool for encouraging your customers to carry your brand into the world. 88% of branded product recipients can recall the name of the business. Equally important, the people they know are also seeing your brand messaging, even if it’s just a logo and slogan. Commonly branded products include pens and markers, calendars, and computer accessories. Products that people find useful and carry with them, as well as wearables, maximize the exposure value. You can make a practice of giving away branded products on a schedule, as part of events or to every X number of customers. You can also sell branded products, in addition to giving them away. Be sure that any product bearing your brand or logo is of decent quality. A free pen won’t have much of an impact on your image, but a shirt with pixelated graphics and off-center printing might make people question your brand’s commitment to quality. Work with suppliers and a quality screen printing service like Schilling Graphics to make sure the products you give away are a good representation of your company.
Incentivize Referrals
83% of people trust recommendations from inside their social networks. You can capitalize on that fact by creating a referral incentive program. If your business deals in high-ticket products or services, the referral rewards should reflect that value. A set of steak knives or a spa day, for example, sends the message that you value the referral. If your business deals in low-ticket products and services, especially where repeat business is likely, discounts and coupons make sense.
Even happy customers won’t necessarily talk about your business to others. Incentivizing customers to leave reviews and make referrals increases the odds that your happy customers will take that next step. Providing customers with branded products helps to insert your brand information into their daily lives, where others will see and even ask about it.
