How to Grow Your Local Business with Viral Marketing in 2023

Introduction

Have you ever heard of Dropbox, Airbnb, or Uber? Of course, you have. These are some of the most successful companies in the world today. But do you know how they achieved their phenomenal growth? The answer is simple: viral referral marketing.

Viral referral marketing is a strategy that leverages your existing customers to spread the word about your products or services to their friends, family, colleagues, and social networks. By offering them incentives, such as discounts, freebies, rewards, or prizes, you can motivate them to refer more people to your business. This creates a snowball effect that can exponentially increase your brand awareness, customer base, sales, and revenue.

But viral referral marketing is not only for big brands. It is also a powerful tool for local businesses that want to stand out from the competition, attract more loyal customers, and grow their profits. In fact, according to a study by Nielsen, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know more than any other form of advertising. That means that word-of-mouth is still the most effective way to market your local business.

And that’s where Viralify comes in. Viralify is a viral marketing growth partner that specializes in viral referral marketing with gamification strategies and sweepstakes for local businesses. Whether you own a restaurant, a salon, a gym, a store, or any other type of local business, Viralify can help you create and manage your own viral referral marketing campaign that will boost your brand visibility, customer loyalty, online reputation, and bottom line.

In this article, we will explain what viral referral marketing is, why it is beneficial for local businesses, how to create a viral referral marketing campaign for your local business, and how Viralify can help you achieve your goals. Let’s get started!

What is Viral Referral Marketing?

Viral referral marketing is a marketing strategy that uses your existing customers as your brand ambassadors. By offering them incentives, such as discounts, freebies, rewards, or prizes, you can encourage them to share your products or services with their friends, family, colleagues, and social networks. The more people they refer, the more benefits they get.

The idea behind viral referral marketing is to create a positive feedback loop that generates more referrals and more customers for your business. The more customers you have, the more referrals you can get. The more referrals you get, the more customers you can acquire. And so on.

Viral referral marketing is not a new concept. It has been used by many well-known brands to achieve massive growth and success. For example:

• Dropbox, a cloud storage service, offered 500 MB of free space for every friend that a user invited to join. This helped them grow from 100,000 to 4 million users in 15 months.
• Airbnb, a home-sharing platform, offered $25 travel credits for both the referrer and the referee when they booked their first trip. This helped them increase their bookings by 25% in some markets.
• Uber, a ride-hailing app, offered $20 off for both the referrer and the referee when they took their first ride. This helped them expand to over 50 countries and 300 cities in less than six years.

These are just some of the examples of viral referral marketing campaigns that have proven to be effective and profitable. But what are the key elements of a viral referral marketing campaign? How can you make sure that your campaign goes viral and generates the results you want?

There are four main elements that you need to consider when creating a viral referral marketing campaign:

• Incentives: These are the rewards that you offer to your customers for referring others to your business. They can be monetary (such as discounts, cashbacks, or coupons) or non-monetary (such as free products, services, upgrades, or access). The incentives should be relevant, valuable, and appealing to your customers and their referrals. They should also be easy to claim and redeem.
• Social proof: This is the evidence that shows that other people trust and recommend your business. It can be in the form of testimonials, reviews, ratings, badges, or social media posts. Social proof helps to build credibility and trust for your business and motivate potential customers to join your referral program.
• Urgency: This is the factor that creates a sense of scarcity and FOMO (fear of missing out) among your customers and their referrals. It can be in the form of limited-time offers, countdown timers, or exclusive deals. Urgency helps to increase conversions and referrals by creating a sense of excitement and action.
• Simplicity: This is the ease and convenience of joining and sharing your referral program. It can be in the form of user-friendly interfaces, clear instructions, seamless integrations, or one-click actions. Simplicity helps to reduce friction and barriers for your customers and their referrals and make your referral program more accessible and enjoyable.

By combining these four elements in your viral referral marketing campaign, you can create a powerful and compelling offer that will attract more customers and referrals to your business.

What are the Benefits of Viral Referral Marketing for Local Businesses?

Viral referral marketing is not only for big brands. It is also a great way for local businesses to grow their customer base and profits. Here are some of the benefits of viral referral marketing for local businesses:

• Increased brand awareness and reach: Viral referral marketing can help you spread the word about your local business to a wider and more diverse audience. By leveraging the networks and influence of your customers, you can reach more potential customers who may not be aware of your business or who may not be actively looking for your products or services. This can help you increase your brand recognition and visibility in your local market and beyond.
• Enhanced customer loyalty and retention: Viral referral marketing can help you strengthen your relationship with your existing customers and make them more loyal and satisfied. By rewarding them for referring others to your business, you can show them that you appreciate and value their support and trust. This can also increase their engagement and retention, as they will be more likely to use your products or services more often and for longer periods of time.
• Improved word-of-mouth and online reviews: Viral referral marketing can help you generate more positive word-of-mouth and online reviews for your local business. By encouraging your customers to share their experiences and opinions with their friends, family, colleagues, and social networks, you can create more buzz and exposure for your business. This can also boost your online reputation and credibility, as more people will see and trust the recommendations and feedback from your customers.
• Reduced marketing costs and increased ROI: Viral referral marketing can help you save money and time on your marketing efforts. By using your customers as your promoters, you can reduce the need for expensive advertising or outreach campaigns. You can also leverage the power of social media and digital platforms to amplify your message and reach more people with less effort. This can result in a higher return on investment (ROI) for your marketing budget, as you can generate more sales and revenue from each customer and referral.

According to a study by Harvard Business Review, a referred customer is 18% more likely to stay with a company than a non-referred customer, and has a 16% higher lifetime value. That means that viral referral marketing can not only help you acquire more customers, but also make them more valuable and profitable for your business.

How to Create a Viral Referral Marketing Campaign for Your Local Business?

Now that you know what viral referral marketing is and why it is beneficial for local businesses, you may be wondering how to create a viral referral marketing campaign for your local business. Here are some steps that you can follow to create a successful viral referral marketing campaign:

• Define your goals and target audience: The first step is to determine what you want to achieve with your viral referral marketing campaign and who you want to reach. You should set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that align with your overall business objectives. For example, do you want to increase your sales, revenue, or profit? Do you want to grow your customer base, retention rate, or referrals? Do you want to improve your brand awareness, reputation, or loyalty? You should also define your target audience and segment them based on their demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and preferences. For example, who are your ideal customers and referrals? What are their needs, wants, pain points, and goals? How do they communicate, interact, and make decisions? How can you reach them and persuade them to join your referral program?
• Choose your referral platform and tools: The next step is to choose the platform and tools that you will use to create and manage your viral referral marketing campaign. You should select a platform and tools that are easy to use, integrate, and customize for your local business. You should also consider the features and functionalities that you need, such as referral tracking, reward management, email and SMS marketing, analytics and reporting, etc. For example, you can use Viralify as your referral platform and tool, as it offers all these features and more for local businesses.
• Design your referral program and incentives: The third step is to design your referral program and incentives that will motivate your customers and their referrals to join and share your campaign. You should create a clear and compelling value proposition that explains what your local business offers, why it is unique and beneficial, and how your customers and their referrals can benefit from joining your referral program. You should also design your incentives that will reward your customers and their referrals for their actions, such as signing up, referring others, making purchases, etc. You should make sure that your incentives are relevant, valuable, appealing, and easy to claim and redeem for your target audience. You should also test different types of incentives to see what works best for your campaign.
• Promote your referral program and track your results: The final step is to promote your referral program and track your results. You should use various channels and methods to spread the word about your referral program and invite your customers and their referrals to join. You can use email, SMS, social media, website, blog, flyers, posters, etc. to promote your referral program. You should also use catchy headlines, images, videos, testimonials, etc. to capture attention and interest. You should also track your results and measure your performance using analytics and reports. You should monitor key metrics such as referrals, conversions, sales,  revenue, ROI, etc. You should also use feedback and surveys to collect insights and suggestions from your customers and their referrals. You should use this data and information to optimize and improve your campaign and achieve your goals.By following these steps, you can create a viral referral marketing campaign that will help you grow your local business and reach new heights of success.
  

  How Viralify Can Help You Grow Your Local Business with Viral Referral Marketing?

  Creating and managing a viral referral marketing campaign can be challenging and time-consuming for local businesses. That’s why you need a partner that can help you with every aspect of your campaign and make it easy and effective for you. That’s where Viralify comes in.

  Viralify is a viral marketing growth partner that specializes in viral referral marketing with gamification strategies and sweepstakes for local businesses. Viralify can help you create and manage your own viral referral marketing campaign that will boost your brand visibility, customer loyalty, online reputation, and bottom line.

  Here are some of the features and benefits that Viralify offers to local businesses:

  • Customizable and branded referral landing pages and widgets: Viralify allows you to create your own referral landing pages and widgets that match your brand identity and style. You can customize the colors, fonts, images, logos, texts, etc. of your landing pages and widgets to make them look professional and appealing. You can also embed your widgets on your website, blog, social media, etc. to increase your exposure and conversions.
  • Gamification strategies and sweepstakes to boost engagement and referrals: Viralify helps you add fun and excitement to your referral program by using gamification strategies and sweepstakes. You can use points, badges, leaderboards, levels, etc. to gamify your referral program and reward your customers for their actions and achievements. You can also use sweepstakes to offer prizes to your customers and their referrals for joining your referral program or making purchases. These features can help you increase engagement and referrals by creating a sense of competition, curiosity, and anticipation among your customers and their referrals.
  • Automated email and SMS campaigns to remind and reward your customers: Viralify helps you communicate with your customers and their referrals effectively by using automated email and SMS campaigns. You can use email and SMS to remind your customers and their referrals to join your referral program, share your products or services, claim their rewards, etc. You can also use email and SMS to reward your customers and their referrals for their referrals, purchases, feedback, etc. You can use personalized and catchy messages, images, videos, links, etc. to make your email and SMS campaigns more effective and appealing.
  • Real-time analytics and reports to measure your performance and optimize your campaign: Viralify helps you track and measure your performance and results by using real-time analytics and reports. You can access and view various metrics and data, such as referrals, conversions, sales, revenue, ROI, etc. You can also see the sources, channels, devices, locations, etc. of your referrals and customers. You can use this information to evaluate your campaign and optimize it for better outcomes.

With Viralify, you can create and manage your viral referral marketing campaign with ease and efficiency. You can save time and money on your marketing efforts and focus on your core business activities. You can also enjoy the benefits of viral referral marketing for your local business and achieve your goals faster and easier.

Conclusion

Viral referral marketing is a powerful and profitable marketing strategy that leverages your existing customers to spread the word about your products or services to their friends, family, colleagues, and social networks. By offering them incentives, such as discounts, freebies, rewards, or prizes, you can motivate them to refer more people to your business. This creates a snowball effect that can exponentially increase your brand awareness, customer base, sales, and revenue.

Viral referral marketing is not only for big brands. It is also a great way for local businesses to grow their customer base and profits. By using viral referral marketing, you can increase your brand awareness and reach, enhance your customer loyalty and retention, improve your word-of-mouth and online reviews, reduce your marketing costs and increase your ROI.

To create a viral referral marketing campaign for your local business, you need to define your goals and target audience, choose your referral platform and tools, design your referral program and incentives, promote your referral program and track your results. You can also use Viralify as your viral marketing growth partner that can help you with every aspect of your campaign and make it easy and effective for you.

If you are interested in creating and managing your own viral referral marketing campaign for your local business, you can contact Viralify for a free consultation and a demo of their services. Viralify will help you create and manage your viral referral marketing campaign with gamification strategies and sweepstakes that will boost your brand visibility, customer loyalty, online reputation, and bottom line.

Don’t miss this opportunity to grow your local business with viral referral marketing. Contact Viralify today and get ready to go viral!

Thank you for reading this article. We hope you found it informative and useful. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share them below.

FAQs

• What is viral referral marketing?
  • Viral referral marketing is a marketing strategy that leverages your existing customers to spread the word about your products or services to their friends, family, colleagues, and social networks. By offering them incentives, such as discounts, freebies, rewards, or prizes, you can motivate them to refer more people to your business.
• Why is viral referral marketing important for local businesses?
  • Viral referral marketing is important for local businesses because it can help them increase their brand awareness and reach, enhance their customer loyalty and retention, improve their word-of-mouth and online reviews, reduce their marketing costs and increase their ROI.
• What are the key elements of a viral referral marketing campaign?
  • The key elements of a viral referral marketing campaign are incentives, social proof, urgency, and simplicity. These are the factors that can make your offer more attractive, credible, compelling, and easy for your customers and their referrals.
• How can I create a viral referral marketing campaign for my local business?
  • To create a viral referral marketing campaign for your local business, you need to define your goals and target audience, choose your referral platform and tools, design your referral program and incentives, promote your referral program and track your results. You can also use Viralify as your viral marketing growth partner that can help you with every aspect of your campaign and make it easy and effective for you.
• How can Viralify help me grow my local business with viral referral marketing?
• • • Viralify can help you grow your local business with viral referral marketing by offering you customizable and branded referral landing pages and widgets, gamification strategies and sweepstakes to boost engagement and referrals, automated email and SMS campaigns to remind and reward your customers, real-time analytics and reports to measure your performance and optimize your campaign, and more. You can contact Viralify for a free consultation and a demo of their services.