How to Increase Sales in Your Print Shop | Referral Marketing

Referral marketing is proven to grow sales in screen printing, embroidery and promotional products businesses just like yours. If you’re after for a low-cost strategy to increase high-quality, inbound leads – referral marketing is worth your time.

What is referral marketing?

Referral marketing makes use of recommendations and word of mouth reviews. It can be both in-person or online (google reviews, facebook community groups, social media comments etc)

It may be a slower burn than other forms of low cost marketing, but you’ll be swimming in consistent long term benefits if you approach it the right way.

To grasp just how effective referral marketing can be, have a read of these mind boggling stats from the 2021 Nielsen report:

• 92% of your customers follow suggestions from friends and family
• 88% of your customers trust online reviews written by previous customers
• 74% identify word of mouth as a key influence to their purchasing decisions
• Referred customers are 3x more likely to be loyal to your business

Want to know the craziest part!? Despite the amazing benefits of referral marketing, only 33% of businesses actively employ a referral marketing strategy. 

The opportunity is WIDE open and waiting for you to take advantage.

How to take advantage of referral marketing

It’s easy for you to get started with referral marketing. Here’s a list of some simple strategies that you can use to get the ball rolling today.

Actively ask customers to leave online reviews. 

Ask your customers to leave a review at every chance you get. You’ll be surprised by how many people will actually do it. Popular sites that are frequently visited include Google Reviews and TrustPilot.

Some easy ideas include:

• Print out a QR code that links straight to your review page and put it up in your shop
• Pop a handwritten note into each box you ship, thanking the customer for their support, wish them a great day and ask them to leave a review
• Add a direct link to your review site at the bottom of every email you send. Yes, even on invoices & receipts. 

Provide an incentive for your customers to refer others. 

A common implementation of this strategy is to offer a mutual discount for both parties that it is only redeemable once the referred customer places an order over a certain value.

For example: “Refer a friend! If you refer a new customer and they place an order over $200 you’ll both get 15% off!”

Partner with other businesses in a mutual referral program.

Partnership referrals are a great way to get your name out there. You don’t even need to partner with a business that compliments the print / promo industry. 

It could be a local cafe, all you need to do is pop in a flyer in each of your orders and they do the same for you. You’ll help each other out reach new audiences. 

This strategy is organic and even leads to 2nd hand referrals. For example, a friend of one the cafe customers may be looking for somewhere to get new work shirts printed. Guess who the lucky business the cafe customer is likely to refer to – you!

Negative reviews – Flipping the narrative:

“Uh-oh, i’ve got negative reviews online.. I’m screwed!”

Nope you’re not screwed, negative reviews aren’t all bad news, in fact, a poor review can be a good thing. Now by no means am I suggesting that you sink your business with a bunch of negative reviews but if you’ve been unfortunate enough to publicly receive the wrath of a disgruntled customer, you can turn it into a positive outcome. 

Your response to a negative review, is 7x more powerful than a 5-star review. 

It sounds crazy but it makes sense. Think about when you’re considering a purchase from a business 👇

Let’s be honest, even though there’s only 1 negative review swimming in a sea full of glowing 5-star reviews, you’re skeptical about this brand. 

Now what if it looked like this 👇 

Not only have you been disarmed, you also think “wow these guys are onto it, they get it right 99% of the time and in the 1% where something goes wrong, they have great customer service and are happy to help” 

The take-away: Always reply to reviews, thank the positive ones for their kind words and absolutely always showcase your amazing customer service when there is a negative review.

Referral marketing is low cost, quick to implement, and easy to manage. Give it a go today – what do you have to lose!?

Looking for more ways to boost your sales?

Hoops is a business management software built specifically to help print, embroidery and promo businesses save time, drive efficiency and grow.

Here’s the top 3 things it can do for you:

1. Complete catalogue management. All your catalogue products from Australia’s leading suppliers are all in one place and kept up to date for you. You’ll never have to manually update pricing or products again!

2. Faster quoting. Hoops is the fastest, easiest and most advanced quoting platform in the industry. You convert more quotes when you use Hoops. 

3. Job tracking. Hoops gives you a simplistic yet granular view of everything you have going on. You’ll eliminate mistakes, meet more deadlines and make more customers happy. 

To see the full list of features head to hoopscrm.com

Screen printing management software Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK, USA, South Africa.