This is an archived blog from when I ran Conscious Public Relations Inc. from 2008-2018. Excuse the potential outdated-ness!
Remember the good gossipers
Photo: Timeinc.net
If your business is anything like mine and you get most of your clients/customers through word-of-mouth referrals, you will want to thank them like crazy. I try to do this with $200 cash referral bonuses, or 10% discounts on future campaigns. You might think – why don’t you thank the media? They are the ones who are talking about your client? Well, that’s right. And I DO try and thank them. But without referrers, I wouldn’t have the project to work on to begin with.
I mentally thanked one of my very first clients yesterday (and will be sending her a thank-you e-mail later) for mentioning me to someone 4 or more years ago. That good gossip has finally made its way back to me!
I had a potential client meeting with someone who had learned about me through her about 4-6 years ago. At the time he wasn’t living in Vancouver, but has since moved here and is starting a new business. The business is such a cool concept, and although we haven’t been officially signed on to do work for it yet, I am extremely grateful that I was given the opportunity to talk about our work and what we could do, simply because he trusted my former client and was intrigued enough by our website to call me.
It might sound strange to WANT to be talked about… but in business, it’s positive word of mouth, or nothing, right? If you aren’t getting any word of mouth referrals and would like to, ask your past or current clients/best customers if they would recommend your business to others. Hopefully they will give you a straight answer and valuable feedback. Recently, I also made a point to reach out to past clients and referrers who I haven’t been in touch with in a while to let them know that we are doing more social media management now, and ask if they knew anyone they could refer us to.
Is there a good gossiper for your business that you haven’t thanked lately? How do you or can you express that gratitude for them?
