Struggling to find new customers? Cole Information can help. This webinar gives you hints and ideas on how to capitalize on your best customers to find new ones.
Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us for Cole Information’s refresher webinar on Referral Marketing—how to target Neighbors of your Best Customers.
My name is Lora Ullerich & I’m the digital media specialist for Cole Information. Discuss today's session. Playing to your strengths by using your referrals— Starting off small— Constantly testing new ideas & processes & measuring those results to refine your process to reach success. We’ll also have five action points you can implement starting today.
Before we get started, just a little background on Cole Information. In 1947, Jack Cole created Cole Directory, a directory of people by their address and phone number. While companies had dabbled in this type of directory in the past, what made Cole Directory revolutionary was that he used IBM punch cards to streamline the process and thus created a searchable database. This type of crisscross directory was groundbreaking & invaluable to a number of industries including telemarketing, debt collection and law enforcement. Today, through a number of our products, including Cole X-Dates & Cole Lists, we have continued to provide small business owners this searchable database of addresses and phone numbers that allows them to target consumers and businesses in their own neighborhood. We also want to provide small businesses with the necessary tools and information they need to grow their business. We do that through Cole community.com and also these small business 101 webinars.
We also have a an online community called Cole Community, where with articles, a blog & other content including past webinars we think is interesting & is beneficial to small business owners like yourself. We invite you to take a look around, check out the site & use it as a resource for your needs.
Cole Community features articles, a blog & other content including past webinars we think is interesting & is beneficial to small business owners like yourself. Best of all, it’s FREE! We invite you to take a look around, check out the site & use it as a resource for your needs.
Whether you’re in the home services, automotive, real estate or the insurance industry, referrals are a great revenue source for your small business. These people have called or come into your store on the advice of one of your best customers. Usually this word-of-mouth promotion happens by spontaneously or organically—but wouldn’t it be nice for you to have it happen on purpose? With Cole Information products, in just a few clicks, you can influence new customers to choose you through…and we’ll show you how.
Don’t leave this to chance. Consider your 10 best customers –& ask yourself the following questions: how old are they? what’s their home worth? how long have they lived at their current residence? where do they live? Cole Information has products that offer customer cloning for your needs For Insurance Agents we also offer expiration dates of their homeowners insurance
Whether you are the local solution to a national provider or even it you’re not, there are easy ways to promote your referral business. You can put it in your email signature, on your social media sites to get the word out & also generate these new leads. and then reward those customers who are giving you referrals with a special gift.
To get to those referrals, let’s think about reasons to engage with & talk to you best customers. Find reasons to call them to initiate a conversation. Think about major milestones in their life: is it their birthday, anniversary? Have they recently renewed their policy with you or added a policy? Why not give them a call, then them for their business & then ask them for one of their friends/neighbors you can call to build your customer base. Call them, thank them for their business & ask if there’s one person they can refer to you. Offer an incentive—some sort of discount, freebie, or something.
Before you pick up the phone, stop! Spend 15 minutes coming up with a script you can use to call these referrals and generate new business.
As with any approach with someone you’ve never talked to before, be sure to include in your introduction: Be clear—tell them who you are and why you’re calling. Be sure to stress that you’re local—this separates you from the rest & lets them know that you know the area, people & are dealing with the same issues they are.
In your approach, go back to your referral “Bob” and say “I just wrote a new policy for Bob Smith & was able to save him a bunch a money on his homeowners insurance. See how that works for a week & then alternate with slightly different approach for a week & see which works best.
Use this same approach with the offer. In the offer, ask several different ways and see which one works best.
You can also build a referral list by finding the neighbors of your best customers by searching neighborhoods via a Google Map technology or radius search. This is accurate, reliable information that’s easy to use. All you have to know if the customer’s last name, their house number and zip code—and you can clone your best customer.
In your career, you’ll find working referrals generates the most revenue.
In your career, you’ll find working referrals generates the most revenue.
Not so fast…. You’ll fail every time: You don’t do your homework You don’t know which approach & offer works the most effectively You buy a list, pick the prettiest postcard with a pretty picture & mail it to everyone.
Pull those customer files & figure out your ten best customers
We also have a an online community called Cole Community, where with articles, a blog & other content including past webinars we think is interesting & is beneficial to small business owners like yourself. We invite you to take a look around, check out the site & use it as a resource for your needs.