Gratitude Marketing leads to Referral Marketing

The best form of marketing is "Word of Mouth", with 65% of all business said to come from it. Why is this? Well, as Ann Sieg said in her book the Renegade Marketer (p62)( http://dunraven.therenegadenetworkmarketer.com/ )
"most of the time people will take information from a neutral third party more seriously than they will from you".

So how do you get it? Like the best things in life, it doesn't just happen. Using Gratitude as a central element in your marketing strategy, helps build trust and shows that you are truly interested in what your clients can teach you. By doing this proves you have their best interests in mind, rather than just trying to make money from them. This was pointed out by Dale Carnegie in his book How to win friends and influence people, when he said you'll win more friends in two years, by showing interest in other people, than you will by trying to convince them of your opinion.

Your interest in them can be shown by giving your clients something for free in addition to a good product and an excellent service. This also means that you can show your passion for what you do, and thereby make work fun. By being genuinely passionate people will warm to what you have to say. It gives you the opportunity to build a realtionship with prospects and clients based on respect and trust. These are vital components if you want them to recommend you to others.

A good time to give a client a gift of appreciation is when they refer someone to you. This is also a good opportunity to show your gratitude by keeping the referring client informed as to what is happening with the person they referred. This proves how professional you are and reinforces their opinion of you. It might encourage them to "close the deal" behind the scenes with the person they referred. Which then means you can show your gratitude again.

By using gratitude you have the strength and confidence to ask clients for referrals. They will be happy to give you them because you are a professional who is conscientious, relaiable and someone they are happy to be assciaated with; without there being anything necessarily in it for them.

Showing your gratitude can be done in many ways, and not necessarily financial. Remember that word of mouth recommendation works because the person doing the recommending is impartial and has nothing to gain from doing so.

As a suggestion, a simple way to show gratitude is to send them a hand written card by snail mail. You'll be surprised how valuable this can be.