Getting started with your referral marketing plan

Now that you have gathered all of your contact data in one place and organized the information into groups you are almost ready to start using the information.

Are you surprised at the number of contacts you have gathered? Most people are. Usually you will end up with a lot more contacts that you thought you had.



The next two steps of segmenting your contacts data into groups and stages are really important.

Groups
Think about how you would speak to a person that has referred someone to you.

Think about how you would speak to someone who is a past client.

Think about how you would speak to new prospective client.

Think about how you would speak to someone who was referred to you by an associate.

This demonstrates the group separation.

Stages
Think about how would speak to people as you go through the stages of relationship.

You would not have the same dialogue with different groups or people in different stages of a relationship. This is why you should sort your prospect list based on the type of relationship you have with each group and the stage of ongoing diolouge you will have with each group.

Let's use one possible group as the example:
Someone who was referred to you by an associate.

With this specific group in mind write at least 7 messages to that "person".

Dear {name},

I was asked by (referral source} to contact you about assisting you with the mortgage for the your new home purchase. ..........

--------

Dear {name},

Thanks for taking the time to discuss you mortgage needs for your home purchase......

----- or

Dear {name},

I tried to reach you to discuss you mortgage needs. I was asked by {referral source} to contact you....

------

Here is where the work comes into the equation. You have to invest the time to brainstorm ideas for ongoing communication. You can also base the tone of the message based on the steps you know will happen.

1 introduction
2. follow-up on contact
2a. follow-up on no reply
3. confirm meeting
4. meeting follow-up

Importance of regular contact
The content is important and you should invest some quality time developing your messages but even more important is regular contact. You have their information and you should invest the time to establish a regular communication channel with your contact list.

Building a referral marketing list

In referral based marketing your list is everything.

If your goal is to obtain most of your business from referrals you have to have a marketing list. In fact you will have more than one list.

The reason I say you will have more than one list is that there are different types of groups of referral prospects and you will be in different stages of your relationship with the people in each group.

Here are some examples.

Groups: prospects, clients, referral partners, vendors, and friends.

Stages: New, recently meet, trying to meet, recently referred someone else, was just referred to you, and established contact but has not referred anyone.

These are not all of the groups or stages your groups can belong to but it should give you the idea.

I think you will find that referral groups and stages of relationship are something that will grow and evolve as your referral marketing plan matures.

The important point is that you spend time on a regular basis refining the groups and stage descriptions for your list(s) and that you are thinking about how you want to talk to each group at each stage.

If you do not have your referral list formalized now is the time to get started.

You will be surprised at the number of names you already have.

• Gather up all of the business cards you have laying around
  
• Go through all of your emails
• Sort through all of your business agreements and applications
• Go through all of the note pads you have

Once you have all of the names and contact information in one place you should divide them into a few basic groups and stages. Use the examples here as beginning suggestions. Don't worry if the groups and stages are not perfect. They never will be. This is something that will change and evolve as your referral marketing plan evolves. The important thing is to get started.

In the next post I will give you some ideas on how to decide what to say to get your referral marketing plan launched.

Referral marketing for mortgage, real estate, and financial services

What is referral marketing?

The simple answer is "Keeping in contact within your business and social network by keeping them informed about you and the services you can provide to them and their friends and associates."

Referral marketing can be as simple as handing everyone you come in contact with 3-4 business cards and asking them to pass them out to anyone they know or meet that they think can benefit from your services to a well organized market plan using a contact management application to send letters, emails and make phone calls on a regular basis to everyone that you can add to your referral list.

The more effort you put into your plan the more success you will achieve.

Even the simple strategy of handing out business cards can to refined to get better results.

What are you doing with the space on your cards? Over 90% of all business card only use 50% or less of the available space. The backs of the card are blank!

What could you put on the back of your card to gain more business?

Here are some ideas.

• List 5 reasons that someone would benefit from your service.
• Describe the types of services you can provide.
• Print recommendations from past clients.
• Itemize the information you need to help them.
  

Think about the risk /reward ratio.

It will cost you about 25% more to add content to the 2nd side of your cards but it will double the content.

Next look at your envelopes, are you wasting a lot of unused space?

I hope this information helps, I always welcome comments and subscribers.

Positioning and Personal Branding

An article I wrote about positioning and personal branding was published in March - 08 commercial edition of The Scotsman Guide. The article is entitled "What's Your Position?"

Because of a publishing agreement with the company I cannot repost the entire article. I can give you an overview of the subject of the article and prove a link to their website if you want to read the entire article.

The premise is a basic of personal marketing. Every service or product has a "position" in the mind of a consumer. Understanding that position is the first step towards building a personal brand for your position. An example would be to ask you to name 5 real estate moguls. The odds are pretty good that Donald Trump will be in your top 3 choices. Name the 5 top software gurus. Did you name Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? They are all great examples of positioning and personal branding.

If you want to read the full article please visit The Scotsman Guide's website.

I always welcome subscriber and comments.