How on earth do you expect people to give you great referrals if you don't know who they are?

Every business markets their products or services either through paid or free advertising sources, or both. Paid advertising includes things like print, TV, Radio or Billboards. Free advertising sources could be social media (though you can choose to pay to play on those platforms as well). If you have done any form of advertising or marketing, you probably knew where to market your products and services and how to market them to get the best results. We know where our ideal customers hang out, right? TV might not be a good fit for you, radio might not, but print ads is where you get the best bang for your buck it just depends on your business or profession.

In referral marketing, or relationship marketing, to be successful, you also have to know who you want to get as a new customer before even setting out to ask for referrals or create referral campaigns to attract them.

Asking for anyone or everyone and your message is going to get lost or ignored completely. Or worse you could end up choosing a market that means you get bad referrals instead of good or great referrals that you want. When you’re asking for anyone or everyone, you won’t get a great response. Everyone is not an ideal target market nor an ideal customer.