Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones

SO WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?

Here are a handful of ways you can jump start the power of customer “commendations” or referrals:

• Create unique customer or ambassador profiles, as well as referral codes based on content creation, conversation, referral behavior, and activity to match to the profiles. (“Customized” and “customer” are almost the same word; need I say anything more?)

• Harness and activate a passionate, distributed sales force by creating a community of like-minded, energized, and appreciated customers.

• Using barometers and other standard sales-tracking tools, introduce tiers of performance and reward accordingly.

• Why not create a customer salesperson of the year?

• Create widgets, badges, stickers, and buttons for web sites that endorse, recommend, or just acknowledge an existing affiliation with a brand:

• I am a customer.

• I own this.

• I love this.

• I’m satisfied.

• I’m a promoter.

• I’m an affiliate.