Like this article? PLEASE +1 it!

The 7 Stages of a Referral Generation

Written by: John Jantsch

Article Overview: Referrals happen, thank goodness, but for too many, they happen randomly, almost accidentally.

Free Download - Weekend Favs May Twenty One By John Jantsch

The 7 Stages of a Referral Generation

Referrals happen, thank goodness, but for too many, they happen randomly, almost accidentally.

One of the keys to tapping the systematic generation of referrals is to identify and address the customer touch points that add up to lead a customer to the logical and emotional decision that your organization is referable.

I say this often, but it’s worth repeating - every person, place and thing in your business that comes into contact with a prospect or a customer is performing a marketing function. Your organization’s referability is being decided by the sum total of those contacts.

It’s so important to figure out the critical stages involved in developing a customer and then fill the gaps in every contact - by fill I mean, make sure that every contact is a marketing contact - and that includes things like delivery, customer service, even billing.

The 7 Stages and logical touch points along this customer referral life cycle look something like this.

1. Know - Your ads, article, and referred leads
2. Like - Your web site, reception, and email newsletter
3. Trust - Your marketing kit, white papers, and sales presentations
4. Trial - Webinars, evaluations, and nurturing activities
5. Core - Fulfillment, new customer kit, delivery, and financial arrangements
6. Repeat - Post customer survey, cross sell presentations, and quarterly events
7. Refer - Results reviews, partner introductions, peer 2 peer webinars, and community building

I suggest creating a diagram consisting of the stages above and mapping out every touch point you have or should have before you ever start dreaming about a world flooded with referrals.

Related Articles

More on Referrals

Getting Referrals

Business Marketing No More Cold Calling

When Good Referrals Turn Bad by Keith Rosen, MCC

Why Transformation Efforts Fail

Home > Entrepreneur-Advice > John Jantsch > The 7 Stages of a Referral Generation

Article Tags: critical stages, customer kit, customer referral, customer survey, customer touch points, email newsletter, emotional decision, evaluations, fulfillment, gaps, goodness, introductions, life cycle, marketing function, person place, quarterly events, referrals, sales presentations, sum total, white papers

About the Author: John Jantsch
RSS for John's articles - Visit John's website

John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing - The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide (foreword by Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth) published by Thomas Nelson - due out in the fall of 2006 He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system and Duct Tape Marketing Authorized Coach Network. His Duct Tape Marketing Blog was chosen as a Forbes favorite for small business and marketing and is a Harvard Business School featured marketing site. His blog was also chosen as "Best Small Business Marketing Blog" in 2004, 2005 and 2006 by the readers of Marketing Sherpa.

Click here to visit John's website

More from John Jantsch

Build your you hub

Do You Suffer from Occasional Contentapation

3 Sources of Grammar Inspiration

Posting relevant comments on blogs is networking

Create Your Own Referral Sales Force

Related Forum Posts

Re: Traditonal Demographics Do NOT Work with Generation V - That article is the first time I ever heard the term. I found this definition - [i:189o61sy]The term Generation V (for Virtual) is used to describe the online culture in which relationships, services and communication are carried primarily and preferably through electronic media. Generation Virtual is made up of people from multiple demographic age groups who make their social connections primarily online - through virtual worlds in online games, in social networks, as bloggers, or through posting and reading user-generated content.[/i:189o61sy] I like the targeting options the internet offers much better than the typical demographics. Age is particular is not nearly as effective in finding a target market unless you want to target kids. Too many of the typical demographics rely on stereotypes and just seems outdated for many types of promotion. That's one of the reasons this article title caught my eye. Shri

Re: Win Prizes - The Triple Crown Contest! - Hi GT - if you log into your author account you'll see Referral Program as one of the options on the left side. If you click on that you'll get the link that will tie people to your account.

Picking a corporate lawyer - Hi Everyone, I was just curious to know what's the most important criteria a small business owner should look at when choosing a corporate lawyer? -Cost/hr? -Location? -Reputation/Referral? -Experience? -Personality? How did you pick your lawyer? And what's a fair price to pay per hour? Thanks

Re: FREE Toronto Referral Workshop - Hi there, Indeed, I have never heard of a Referral Seminar. What a good idea. I guess being offered for free, there must have been a great deal of people attending. It is another way of saying: Do you want to increase your customers. Come along and we help and teach you. It has been said, that even in downturn of business confidence and consumer's caution, business will not come to a grinding halt. Please Andy, can you let us h ave these 14 ways of getting referrals. Thanks.

Re: Google Places Review | How to Get a Review on Google Places? - Hi Evan, Yes, I am planning more. I have multiple videos coming out this year on: Social media marketing Email marketing Lead Generation Organic search marketing Conversion rate optimization Analytics Content marketing Paid search marketing I am looking for SEO / Internet Marketing questions people have. I enjoy producing videos answer tuff SEO questions. Let me know if you are any of your members have any they want answered. Jeff

Recommended Article for You close


Name:
Email: