How would you like to...
1. Position yourself as "THE" go-to expert for your industry?
2. Get prospects to call, beg and cry out for your product or service?
3. Become a local superstar celebrity?
4. Get all the referrals you can handle?
If any of these things sound good to you then you'll love this referral system. It's based on the principle of "Education-Based Referral Marketing."
Have you ever heard the term, "People don't like to be sold, but they love to buy." The reason that people don't like to be sold is because they like to feel as though they made their own buying decision based on logical benefits rather than being "manipulated" into
making a decision.
That's why Education-Based Referral Marketing is so effective.
NOTE: This POST is pretty long, but it's worth every second of your time to read it!
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What is Education-Based Referral Marketing?
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Education-Based Referral Marketing is exactly what it says it is...it's a method of referral marketing that uses educational tools to help spread the word about your products or services.
When I use the term, "educational tools" I'm talking about information products such as audio CD's, DVD's, special reports, white papers, online videos, email
courses etc.
Once you have these tools developed, you simply ask your referral sources to give them away to their friends and business associates.
For instance, one of the ways that AOL exploded their membership is by having their referral partners give away free trial CD's. Every time I walked into the U.S. Post Office I saw a stack of AOL CD's being given away.
I also saw the AOL CD's in local computer stores, cell phone retail outlets, and even grocery chain stores. Millions of people were introduced to AOL through their CD giveaways at their referral source's place of business.
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Why Education-Based Referral Marketing Works Like Crazy!
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There are few other referral systems more powerful than a well executed Education-Based Referral Marketing program. Here's why...
1. Educating your prospect, allows you to introduce your products and services with the dignity and respect that you deserve.
2. Your educational message will attract the "right" prospects that you're looking for as opposed to selling-based messages that naturally repel people.
3. Because you're providing a valuable educational experience, people will naturally be attracted to you rather than you having to run after them.
4. Because your referral tool contains a valuable and useful educational message, your referral partners will feel proud to give it to their close friends and associates.
5. Referral tools like audio CD's and DVD's make it easy for your referral partners to spread the word for you because they are easy to distribute and they inherently have a value attached to them.
6. You easily track where you referrals came from by attaching unique ID codes to your referral tools.
7. Finally, and this is a huge benefit), instead of giving referral fees to your referral partners for a referral that turns into a successful sale, you can compensate referral partners for each referral tool that they give away.
In this way, your referral partner gets a direct reward for their immediate efforts, rather than hoping that their referral turns into a sale so that they can get their referral fee.
NOTE: You'll get 10 times more referrals by rewarding people for giving out your audio CD than waiting to reward someone for a referral that turns into a sale.
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What Is the Best Type of Education-Based Referral Tool
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You might be wondering, "Which is the best education-based referral tool? An audio CD, a DVD, a special report, a teleseminar, a webinar or an email course?"
The answer is, "It depends."
However, my favorite referral tool is an audio CD because is can easily be listened to in a car while driving to and from work and it allows people to hear your voice as if you were there, in the car, talking to them.
In addition, there is a high perceived value that people attach to audio CD's.
If you go to your local bookstore you'll find that audio books are more expensive than regular books, even though an audio CD is often cheaper to produce than a
book.
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How to Create Your Own Audio CD Referral Tool
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You might be thinking that it's too complex to create your own audio CD, but it's not. Here's a simple, step-by-step method to create your own highly effective audio program.
Step 1:
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Think about who your best prospects for your products and services are and then identify their top 3 problems.
For example, a restaurant owner might struggle with (1)high employee turnover, (2)employee training, and (3)getting customers to return.
Step 2:
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Create a 10 - 20 page report that (a)introduces who you are and why people should believe
you, (b)what the top 3 problems are, why they are so damaging, and how you solve them, and (c)make them an offer they can't refuse and let them know what the "next step" is to take advantage of your offer.
Step 3:
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Download the "Audacity Audio Editor" software from the internet. It's will cost you nothing. Just go to Google.com and type in "Audacity Audio Editor."
Step 4:
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Buy a computer microphone. You can get a cheap one at your local Radio Shack or computer store.
Step 5:
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Read your report into your microphone and record it using Audacity. (You can automatically put professional music on the beginning and end of the recording using
www.FrontandBackMusic.com)
Step 6:
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Upload your audio file to
www.Kunaki.com. Kunaki is a production and fulfillment company.
Kunaki will allow you to create a full color CD cover, print the CD and ship it for you. It will even take your orders for your CD using THEIR merchant account. (and it's extremely inexpensive!)
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How to Get People to Give Your Referral Tool Away
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It's not enough to create a great education-based referral tool. In fact, your referral tool is only as good as the amount of people that you can get to listen to it.
Your education-based referral tool is your automatic salesperson. It has the power to deliver your very best educational sales presentation each and every time it is played.
And the best part about it is, you don't even have to be there!
So the more people you get to listen to it, the more sales you can make.
With that in mind, here are some unique ideas to get your referral tool distributed to lots of people.
Idea #1
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Get your referral partners to give it away.
To do this you simply place your audio CD's in a CD holder that you can buy at
www.displays2go.com.
Then you just go out and ask all the people that you do business with if you can display your CD's in their office or retail location.
This reminds me how AOL became so huge a few years back. You see, AOL created a start up CD that it used to introduce people to their internet service.
Everywhere you went, you saw the AOL CD being offered for free by referral partners.
The local post office. The local grocery store. The local print shop. Everywhere you went, there was an AOL CD offering a free trial.
Idea #2
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Ask your referral partners to display a link on their websites to the order page for your audio program .
Or you can pay complimentary websites to give away your audio CD on their websites.
Idea #3
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Ask your referral partners that ship products in boxes if you can insert your audio program into their packages as a ride-a-long.
This is similar to an "insert program." You can pay companies that sell complimentary products to insert your CD into their packages. Popular insert managers are
www.Millard.com or
www.StantonDirect.comIdea #4
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Print a bunch of CD's and take them to your next networking meeting and give each person three CD's to give away to their friends.
Idea #5
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Hold a customer appreciation event and send attendees off with several CD's per person to give away to people (or simply send each customer a packet of 5 CDs to give away.)
Idea #7
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Pay the sponsors of meetings where your best prospects gather for each audio CD that they give away to their attendees.
Idea #8
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Offer your audio CD to others businesses as a bonus that they can give away to increase their own product offer.
For example, I have a friend who create a video titled, "How to Get $1 Million in Free Publicity." He allowed anyone to order that video at his cost from his duplicator in a minimum quantity of 20 units and then give them away as a bonus when someone purchased their product.
These are just a few ways to get your referral tool distributed to a wide audience using joint ventures and referral relationships.
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How to Implement a Fully Automated Education-Based Marketing Program
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How would you like to implement an Education-Based Marketing program that is fully automated and generates a flood of incoming calls from extremely highly qualified prospects that are ready to do business with you?
Here's how you do it...
Step 1:
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Sign up with
www.PoweredByCards.comStep 2:
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Make a "hit list" of your best prospects who you want to target for your product or service.
Create a group in
PoweredByCards.com called "hit list" and upload your list of contacts into your hit list group.
Step 3:
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Create a few greeting cards that offer your audio CD to people through a website or phone number.
Here are a couple of great examples of cards that offer audio CDs that you can emulate...
Example # 1: CLICK HEREExample # 2: CLICK HEREStep 4:
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Create a campaign in
PoweredByCards.com using the greeting cards you just developed.
Step 5:
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It's time to send your card to each of the people on your hit list. Simply attach your campaign to your hit list group and press the "send" button.
Step 6:
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Sit back and enjoy the phone calls that will start coming in from highly qualified prospects that are already 95% sold on your product or service.
It's as easy as that.
If you want to see a demo of the
PoweredByCards.com system then visit
http://www.SendOutCardsvideo.com and push the "Play" button.
If you have any questions about PoweredByCards, feel free to contact me.
P.S. This method might sound like a lot of work, but it's actually pretty simple to do and can bring you an IMMENSE amount of super high quality referrals.
Now go out and have a Successful Day!
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