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

INCENTIVIZATION DOES NOT ALWAYS HAVE TO MEAN COMPENSATION

I think it’s important to stress that incentivization itself is multifaceted. It doesn’t always require a tangible reward to provide some kind of acknowledgment to customers for their content, referral, or loyalty.

Figure 13.1 breaks out two types of incentives—tangible rewards and intangible recognition—across both repeat purchases and successful word-of-mouth referrals.

Are you able to document the ways you’re currently rewarding—let alone recognizing—productive dissemination of word of mouth? How about the same for repeat sales? Or—taking a giant step back—to what extent are you even aware of the current level and state of customer-initiated word-of-mouth and sales referrals?

Figure 13.1 Recognize and Reward Matrix

Source: © Joseph Jaffe.

If you can fill out the below grid, you’re probably in a good place. Regardless, I’d strongly recommend that you think about formalizing four distinct strategies and corresponding tactics to deliver against these four quadrants.

Strategies and Resulting Tactics	Repeat Purchase	Word-of-Mouth Referrals
Reward
Recognize

To help you with this process—and with apologies to and inspiration from Maslow—I’ve come up with two hierarchies (see Figure 13.2.) that illustrate basic to complex levels of both incentivization and compensation.

Incentivization can take the following forms (from ...