5 Steps to Turn Relationships Into Powerful Endorsements

By Vinay Murthy, Co-founder and VP of Business Development, KnownCircle

Customer endorsements are proven to be an extremely powerful sales tactic. Nielson’s 2013 Trust in Advertising study found that 84 percent of consumers prefer and trust word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know over and above any other form of advertising, including branded website ads.

Another recent study, The Connected Consumer, examined brand advocacy trends from more than 100 social media campaigns. The researchers found that 1 in 5 consumers who participated in advocacy-focused social marketing campaigns suggested preferred brands to their family and friends.

Yet while most small business owners covet word-of-mouth customer endorsements, many don’t pursue them as aggressively as they should. Part of the reason for this is that the process of providing and gathering testimonials has traditionally been tedious for both consumers and businesses alike.

Yet referral marketing doesn’t have to be difficult. Consumer advocacy can begin with just one referral that creates brand awareness, leading to new impressions among friends referred. To keep it simple, just imagine your business as a matrix of connections and relationships that you’ve built over time. Thanks to the incredible reach of social media, each of your connections has the potential to connect you to hundreds—or even thousands—of their friends, family members, and other contacts.

Not convinced it can be that simple? Let’s do the math. If 10 of your customers share your information on a social media site like LinkedIn or Facebook, you can reach 2,000 of their friends and family in an instant. In other words, a single share can result in a 200X amplification. In another example from The Connected Consumer study, consider that 600,000 influencers told 9 million friends about a particular brand, resulting in 302,000 new customers. This ROI speaks for itself compared with any other form of advertising.

Clearly the relationships you need for word-of-mouth referrals are out there. But they might remain out of reach if you can’t find an unobtrusive way to pursue them, while also making it easy for consumers to share their endorsement with your network.

Here are five steps that can help you transform good relationships into brand advocacy through word-of-mouth endorsements:

Just ask. Unless customers know that you want their positive feedback, they won’t likely offer it. Don’t shyaway from coming out and asking customers for endorsements; people won’t agree to provide them unless they feel that you deserve top marks. Seek platforms that allow you to harness technology to easily collect customer endorsements with a single click.

Make it easy. The easierit is for customers to endorse you, the more likely they’ll take the time to do so. One very simple solution is to use your email signature, website, business cards, and in-office signage as reminder tools to request endorsements. Including links or URLs for your social media sites in these places can facilitate this, but someone liking your Facebook page or linking with you is not the same as an actual endorsement. However, if you use a platform to collect customer endorsements, it’s an effective strategy to add a link to this platform in your signature line, website, or other tool. Then whenever a customer compliments you, you can respond with a thank you, quickly followed by an endorsement request, noting the link that appears in your signature line or directing them to the link on your other reminder tools.

Set a weekly endorsement goal. You’llbe more motivated to collect endorsements if you set a specific numeric goal for your new additions for each week. Challenge yourself to reach or exceed a challenging weekly goal, and don’t limit your requests only to current clients. Think outside the box when considering referral prospects; for example, you might ask business associates, acquaintances, and others who have previously tried your products or services.

Request referrals. Though you don’t want to overuse this strategy, it can be appropriate to periodically request that your customers make a social share on your behalf, or refer you to their networks.Certain technology platforms can make this easy for consumers by using a social sharing widget. As noted above, even a single social share can greatly amplify your message. This effect can be multiplied much further when hundreds of your customers are doing it!

Build your network. In the classic marketing funnel, a customer’s awareness of a product or service shared with their friends and family leads to increased engagement, brand loyalty and affiliation, and ultimately, conversion. The power of word of mouth is that people always want to tell their friends and connections about great experiences, and this includes their experiences with businesses, products, and services. So don’t stop with the four steps above—work on continuing to build your network to generate more referrals. By doing so, you’ll be making the most of customer endorsement, your most powerful sales tool.

About the author

Vinay Murthy is co-founder and VP of Business Development at KnownCircle™. Vinay is a serial entrepreneur and a leader with a passion for creating technologies that help businesses and their customers connect and share information better. KnownCircle is an innovative social referral network where consumers can discover and connect with professional service providers that are most trusted by their friends and family. KnownCircle is a unit of SocialTwist, Inc., a leader in social referral marketing that drives referral programs for more than 50 of the Fortune 500 brands.