Small Business Blog

Customer lead  generation and b2b lead generation are two different forms of referral marketing and require a slightly different approach.

Within a business network, there is usually an obligation or at least an understanding, that professionals are going to actively send each other new sales leads. When referral partners fail to reciprocate, it is completely understandable to address the imbalance in the relationship and in some cases withdraw from the relationship.

Customers have no obligation to advocate for you. While we’d like to think that if we offer top quality services our customers will promote us via word of mouth, this not necessarily the case; even for some of our most loyal customers. There are a variety of reasons why your customers may not be sending you new business. Perhaps you’re just not “top of mind”. Whatever the reason, it would be inappropriate to expect your customers to do your marketing.

This leaves you with two options. You can either ask yourself, “Why does everyone say word of mouth marketing is so important if it never works?” or you can take hold of the reigns and offer your customers an incentive to spread the word about your services.

In this economy something as simple as a Starbucks gift card could be all it takes to get people talking.

Run a promotion campaign to encourage people you know to talk about your services.