In the third part of this video series, Liz Harr will continue to talk about referral marketing. In the previous videos she shared what referral marketing is and how to increase referrals. Let’s say you’ve got that down, now how to do you keep the referrals that are coming your way?
TRANSCRIPTION:
Hi, in this video series I’ll continue to talk about referral marketing. Now, in the previous videos I shared what referral marketing is and how to increase referrals. Let’s say you’ve got that down, now how to do you keep the referrals that are coming your way?
That’s what I’d like to share in this particular blog post. So here’s the sad reality, almost 52% of people will rule you out before ever speaking with you. You get a great referral, but then something happens and you never hear from these folks. So let’s dig into what’s happening here. There’s really three primary reasons that you’re being ruled out over half the time that you get referred.
The first reason for being ruled out is firms can’t understand how you can help them. So let’s say you got a great referral, the first thing people will do is go to your website or use some type of due diligence to check you out and see what you’re all about. Now, if they go to your website or if they ask the person that just referred you, well tell me more about this firm, if you just have a general reputation as, “Well they’re a great firm, they have really great people.”
That’s awfully hard for the firm you just got referred to, to figure out, “Well, okay that’s nice but how can they solve my problem?” Now flip that around, what if your reputation was around something very specific. You are a talent management specialist in the legal industry. You’re an IT firm that helps non-profits implement CRM or a very specific technology.
Now, that’s easy to hang your hat on, and it’s easy for referrals to figure out whether you can or can’t address their problem. Now, the second top reason that you’re getting ruled out is because of your website. Going online and doing our due diligence by looking at firm’s websites is fast becoming a top way that firms get judged and vetted, so if your website is lacking in user experience, if it has cliche imagery, cliche copy and people just walk away underwhelmed, you send a subliminal message that it may be an underwhelming experience to work with you as well.
So, just a website alone is a second reason you can get ruled out. Now, let’s talk about the last one, poor quality content. Poor quality content is the third reason that firms are getting ruled out before they ever get the chance to speak to somebody, and that’s because of the role expertise plays in professional services business generation.
Everyone wants to align with the expert, nobody has time to work with a generalist firm. And how do they gauge whether you’re an expert? Well, in part they’ll look at your content. If your content is generic, if it doesn’t have a specific angle, if you’re just contributing to the noise, then you will get ruled out because you’re not the expert that the referral source is looking for.
So, if you’d like to learn more, I’d encourage you to check out our course in Hinge University on differentiating because that is in fact a way to avoid being ruled out. Hope to see you there.
