In almost every industry, referrals are the gold standard of customer acquisition. Research has repeatedly shown that referred leads close faster, buy more, and stay longer — all with significantly less effort and at a much lower CPA than non-referred prospects. A University of Pennsylvania study[1] found that referred customers are more loyal and profitable — by a 16% margin — than their non-referred counterparts.

While B2B referral marketing and consumer refer-a-friend campaigns often have different objectives when trying to reach their target audience, the objective is still the same.

Are you trying to get a referral marketing campaign off the ground? Or perhaps your brand is already running a referral program, but it's getting tough to manage the process with spreadsheets and post-it notes. With word-of-mouth marketing driving billions of dollars in spend annually, it's no shock that more and more marketers are looking to put a referral marketing program in place.

With WOMM (word-of-mouth marketing) driving billions of dollars in sales every year, it’s no surprise that it’s one of the most coveted sources of marketing. Positive word-of-mouth interactions can exponentially drive sales when leveraged through channels like referral marketing, affiliate programs, influencer marketing, and partnerships.

With more and more companies leveraging partner marketing, it’s never been more important for marketers to learn how to build a channel partner program. In fact, in today’s multi-channel, always-on, digital landscape, it has become nearly impossible to generate awareness, trust, and acquire customers in one certain way, at one specific place without enlisting in the help of partners to increase success.

While word-of-mouth marketing impacts a tremendous amount of revenue for most brands, fewer than 1% of all companies have an actual word of mouth strategy in place. We all know word-of-mouth works, but for it to deliver results, we need to have a strategic plan for it.

In digital marketing where the landscape is changing at the drop of dime, it's important for marketers to lean on proven strategies - like how to create word-of-mouth marketing buzz - rather than staying on top of the latest trend that might negatively impact your bottom line, and eat up many of your resources.