Referral Program Ideas: 11 Sales Boosting Tips

Getting word of mouth referrals from your customers can be the most effective form of advertising, especially in the lawn care and landscaping industry. With a sales referral, your prospect is already pre-sold — confidence and trust has been established in your company through the referring party, resulting in a sale much more often than through traditional marketing avenues.

The question is whether you’re doing everything you can to maximize referral sales.  The following are eleven top notch lawn care referral program ideas to help answer that question.

1. Incentives – Current customers will be more than happy to refer your company if you create a financial incentive or benefit to do so. Referral discounts create referrals.

2. Email- Stay in touch with current customers via email. Be sure to sign e-mails with messages that create referrals. “Refer us to friends”, or “Ask about our referral program” is a great way to create new customers.

3.Build Relationships- Attending lawns and landscape industry related events and meeting people in your network will gain you referrals and business related sales. Also, anything you can do to build face to face relationships with your customers will be a step toward building referral business.

4. Referral Coupons- Printed marketing materials advertising referral coupons will boost referral sales.

5. Yelp- Yelp is one of the top rated referral/testimonial websites on the internet today. Asking customers for testimonials on Yelp is a great referral program idea.

6.Thank You cards- Customers are motivated to refer businesses that go out of their way to build relationships with personal touches. Mailing Thank You cards or a personal “thank you” phone call after a sale is a great way to be memorable.

7. Best Customers – Select clients who will promote your business best by making a list of your most loyal customers. Focusing your efforts and incentives on your most loyal customers will generate your best results.

8.Education- Offering product/service education through websites articles, newsletters, etc will cement you as an industry expert and build trust with customers. Your customers are more apt to refer their friends to you when there is an educational benefit.

9.Ask for referrals- At the end of every sale with current customers, ask your customer to refer you to a friend. One of the biggest drawbacks to not getting referrals is the lack of consistency to simply ask.

10. Be Referable- In all of your lawn care business transactions, the most important way to get referrals is to be referable. Always be professional and exceed the customer’s expectations at every touch point, and referrals will follow.

11. Support- Provide every customer with sales materials, such as professional brochures, and follow up support.
Customers are more likely to refer you to friends when they possess expert sales support materials.

Referral business is the backbone to growing sales for your business. You can get started today by putting these lawn care referral program ideas into action.