8 Steps to Creating a Referral Program for Your Health and Wellness Business

8 Steps to Creating a Referral Program for Your Health and Wellness Business

Referral programs are perhaps one of the most underused tools for growing your business. You leverage the fantastic work you've done with current and previous clients to attract new clients.

Referral programs are great for companies in the health and wellness industry. Not only will they help increase your business income, but they will also help you move closer to your wellness mission by expanding your services to more people, helping them live healthier lives.

This article will give you an introduction to referral programs and introduce you to an 8-step strategy for implementing a programYour coaching business.

What are referral programs?

A referral program is aMarketing tacticThis rewards customers for motivating their network to purchase your products and services. Essentially, it uses word of mouth, often supported by digital tools and social networks, to attract new customers to your business.

In 2014, Kimberly Whitler, a Forbes Senior Contributor, Word of mouth marketing is referred to as “the most important social media”. In fact, word of mouth was the original social media. Long before the Internet, people shared their experiences with services and products, including how they helped them, how much they cost, why they decided to purchase them, and where they could get them, by talking about them with their friends and family.

People are much more likely to buy intoProduct or servicewhen they hear about (or read about) the experiences of those who have already tried it. It's the same principle that has made review platforms like Yelp so popular.

If your customers have had positive experiences with your products and services, there's a chance they'll give you a positive review when the question comes up. However, if it's not convenient and they feel inspired, even your best customers may not feel like motivating their friends and family to use your services.

Referral programs use and leverage natural word-of-mouth marketing principles. You give them the benefit of having opened up new business opportunities for you, and in turn they are more likely to become advocates and take a more active role in motivating people in their network to sign up.

Additionally, referral programs typically add a lot of value to your business because they don't cost much. You can structure them so that you only offer the benefit to existing customers when they attract new customers.

How do you implement a referral program? Read more.

8 steps to create a referral program

Define your goals for the referral program

What do you want to achieve with the referral program? Would you like to attract new customers for one of your coaching services? Want to promote a new group program you designed? Want to increase subscriptions to your membership program?

Setting clear goals is important for structuring the program, marketing around the program, and aligning program design with rewards for your customers.

Understand how to get referrals now

Talk to your customers who have contacted you through referrals. Understand the story behind how they first found out about your company and what communication channels are primarily used. If you have a small and accessible customer base, you can do this one-on-one. If you have a large digital customer base, you can send your customers a short survey to look for natural recommendation systems for your business.

Identify referral incentives

Find out what kind of rewards would motivate your customers to participate in recruiting their network. You can do this by looking for referral programs that other health and wellness companies use, asking your customers directly, or adding a few questions to the survey above.

Some attractive rewards for your health and wellness coaching business could be:

Discounts on your services A pouch bag A free month of your member service Free access to a new class or service Membership in a community of ambassadors A free e-book A free fitness program or meal plan Cashback

Note that rewards may need to change depending on a person's influence. For example, you may want a referral program for customers and a separate program for social media influencers. You may also want to have a tiered program where they receive more benefits with each referral.

Identify your communication channels and strategies

How do people find out about the program, share the details of your service and claim the referral service?

Most companies have information about their referral program on their website and may actively promote it through social media and marketing channels from time to time. For referral programs to be effective, you should provide them with the tools to easily share information about your company, including oneEmail template, a shareable image on social media and, depending on how active your customer becomes, a media kit.

Ultimately, if your customer successfully refers someone in their network to your business, there should be an efficient way to request the referral. Most referral programs have a question on the registration page or questionnaire asking new customers if someone has referred them. You can use names if you have a small business or codes for larger companies.

Create the tools and media to support the strategy

Whether you do the footwork yourself or hire someone else to create the tools and media, you need to budget time and resources. Once you have your strategy in place, set a time to create the programs, platforms, and marketing tools you need.

Execute and follow through on your plan

It's time to start your referral program! Establish your plan, inform your current customers about it, and answer any questions they may have. At this point, you'll also want to find a way to track the customers you get based on the referrals and incentives you give out.

Ideally, you'll also have the ability to calculate the financial benefit of the referral program on your books.

Say thank you

Remember all the customers who brought you new business? Remember to thank them and follow up to make sure they took advantage of their incentives. You may also want to motivate them to continue making referrals by highlighting additional incentives they will receive.

Improve your program

Once you've tracked the success of your referral program, take time to improve it. Which incentives worked best? Were the incentives too low? Too much? Did you achieve the goal of the program?

Talk to customers who have used your referral program, as well as customers who haven't, to understand why your program worked the way it did.

Take this information and use it to improve your program to meet the goals set for the program, or adapt it to different products and services you offer.

Main takeaways

Referral programs are a great way to leverage the principles of word-of-mouth marketing to grow your customer base or increase enrollment in a new program you've created. For a referral program to be successful, you need to align incentives with the extra effort your customers make to use their influence to promote your service. Creating a plan and talking to your customers before, during and after the process is key to a successful referral plan and future improvements to the program.

... more about that in the next part.
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