Arlen Robinson | Omnistar Interactive
What's the best way to drive leads for your business via word-of-mouth marketing?
This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Arlen Robinson of Omnistar Interactive talks about referral and affiliate marketing programs and how to leverage them to drive qualified leads to your business.
Some highlights from our discussion include:
The main difference between referral and affiliate marketing programs is that a referral program is a program where you're structuring it for your customers to refer people they know and an affiliate program is structured for people that have not used your product or service themselves to promote it to people they don't know in exchange for a commission.
The key to a successful referral program is that it is clear and straight forward as far as the offering for customers.
It is also important to have a smooth onboarding process for the people participating in your program.
Program participants need to be motivated to participate, so it's important to think carefully about the offering. Arlen recommends a 20% commission.
The best referral programs make it easy for members to promote the product or service by providing them with canned emails and social media messages.
Referral and affiliate marketing programs are most common in the ecommerce industry, but new software platforms are making it easier for B2B businesses to put these types of programs in place.
92 percent of all consumers trust recommendations from their friends or family members - people that they know - as opposed to all other forms of advertising.
64 percent of marketers agree that word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective.
Arlen shared that most customers cover the cost of affiliate marketing software within two to three months of implementing a program, making the ROI quite high.
Listen to the podcast to learn more about the differences between referral and affiliate marketing, what types of businesses they're right for, and how to use them to drive leads.
