Now is the Perfect Time to Get Your Customers to Sell for You

Now is the Perfect Time to Get Your Customers to Sell for You

Today's consumer lives across a multitude of digital networks. In these networks people are sharing more about brands, people, products and places they like, love and hate. An increasing number of people are growing their social capital and their influence by sharing information, and recommending businesses online. All of this sharing is more than chatter in the ether. Earning a positive recommendation is the equivalent of getting your customers to sell for you.

The Digital Impact

Before the internet started to connect how people felt about the world around them, people actually talked face-to-face. They talked to their co-workers around the water cooler and to their neighbors across the hedges. People are still talking, of course, but their voice can now be amplified across a multitude of channels with a digital imprint that can live forever.

The proliferation of information among personal networks is why there is no better time than now to get your customers to sell for you. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, 85% of American adults use the internet. 59% of these adults are looking for information and nearly half of the population, at 48%, are using social networking sites.

Let's take a moment to understand the gravity of these numbers, and bear with me as we step through this. Let's say there are roughly 311 million people in the US and 72% are adults¹. That gives us 223,920,000 adults in the US. According to Pew, 85% of these people use the internet (190,332,000 people online) and 59% of that population is looking for information. That gives us 112,259,880 million people searching for info.

Let's paint an even more telling picture. Among the population of adults online, 28% are looking for information on a product or service they are thinking of buying. That means at least 55.2 million people, everyday, are looking to buy products.

How to Get Your Customers to Sell for You

There's a large group of people who just sighed with relief at the thought of that many people in the market looking for something to buy. They just realized, with that many people searching, some of them have got to be searching for the kind of product or service they offer. But then, you hear a sharp quick gasp of panic as that group questions "But how do I connect with the right people at the right time? I can't do it all."

Great news, you don't have to do it all. Given that almost half of the adults online are also on social networking sites, it's safe to assume that they are searching as well as sharing information. This is where referral marketing comes into play. Leverage the power of your customer’s ability to repost, like, comment, and pin your content.

Encourage, motivate and reward your customers for recommending your business with their network. This accomplishes two things:

1. You give your customer something of value to share with their network. This helps them elevate their status within the network.
2. You create brand ambassadors that help you reach a broad market of buyers.

Why Wait?

Think about the amount of people that have purchased from competitors or found a sub par solution to their problem because they didn't know you existed. Whether you are a start-up or an enterprise, there is no time like the present to reach out to customers who can act as your brand ambassadors in this noisy, growing digital world.