From: Steven Crane
06 October 2008
CEO Intelligent Marketing Systems (UK) Ltd
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Dear Business Colleague,
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What Is Referral Marketing?
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The text book definition of referral marketing is: “a Marketing
Strategy that takes advantage of peoples inherent desire to help –
or – a systematic warm lead generation system”
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John Jantsch. Referral flood Marketing
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Why Should You Use a Referral System in Your Business?
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If you have a systematic process for gaining referrals – it
is probably the most cost effective way to generate new business.
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Clients that come to you by word of mouth are generally more qualified.
Someone has already described what you do, why you charge what you do,
and how well you deliver.
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There are fewer issues on price. If people find you through an ad in the
local paper or the yellow pages they have nothing else to compare you
other than price.
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Many people that come to you on referral expect to pay a premium. You
will always find someone who wants to undercut you. These are the people
that are in a rush to go out of business and not build a business.
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Referrals use that very powerful force of “borrowed trust”. Someone who
comes to you on referral was sent on trust. Therefore you are the
benefactor of that trust. And people are happy to buy from people
they trust.
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When you use referral marketing as the primary way for marketing what
you are really saying is that what we deliver will make customers so
happy that they will naturally want to refer us to others. It becomes
the barometer of your ability to provide customers with what they want.
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Which Marketing Strategy Works Best For Most Businesses?
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As an experienced marketing consultant, I’ve gathered the results
from hundreds of marketing surveys over the last 3 years with
companies and organisations of all types and sizes.
On asking the question to business owners “what marketing methods
works best for you?”, advertising and direct mail get the big thumbs
down by 98% of companies surveyed.
Approx. 91% of companies stated the Internet was an increasing and
important means of marketing for them (especially some areas of the
retail sector), which brought in a fair to extremely good response
and Return on investment.
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Power Strategy Even Without Trying!!
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Predictably the top method of obtaining new business that kept coming
up as the most successful and cost effective was “Word of Mouth”.
Approx. 97% of businesses stated they got the best leads, clients and
contacts from word of mouth, which was generally obtained through
spontaneous referrals from satisfied customers, suppliers and contacts etc.
And yet when asked what system they have in place to get referrals,
nearly all these companies said “what system, I don’t have a system,
is there a system? I simply thought you did the best you can and then
go home and pray for referrals”.
All their referrals were simply obtained from networking contacts,
reputation, personal preference or satisfied customers.
Just imagine for one second the number of referral leads you COULD
be achieving if you conducted a proficient referral marketing programme!!
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Sign Up to 1QR
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Discover How A Professional Referral System Works Best For Your Business
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Only just 5 businesses from almost 300 companies questioned stated
that they operated some form of professional referral marketing system
to encourage word of mouth leads. And the results speak volumes for
themselves:-
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They were some of the top most successful businesses visited
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They had the lowest marketing spend
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They had the highest promotional marketing results
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They used a systematic referral process that worked like gang busters.
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So Why are others not always as successful?.....
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Most business owners surveyed looked upon marketing as a
one-off exercise. If it didn’t work the first time they
ceased to use it.
If you are not receiving hordes of new customers that are flipping
out their wallets to do business with you or you are not reaping
repeat business by referrals it is probably because you do not have
a system in place that runs on a continuous basis.
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7 Little Secrets You Need to Know to Build A Successful Referral Marketing System in Your Business
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In Order for you to get good results from a referral system
you first have to put some foundations in place. These are the iron
pillars that ensure your referral marketing will achieve maximum success.
1) You have to define your referral target market.
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Who is it you are going to laser in on to generate referrals for
you. Ask yourself who could be the most motivated to generate
referrals for you.
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This could be you customers, but it could also be a referral
network, other business owners, strategic partners, or affiliates.
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You need to write this down and think it through as a business
owner. You need this frame work so as not to waste too much time
and to ensure the referral system works.
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2) You have to identify your ideal target client.
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You need to be able to communicate quite succinctly what type of
client makes a good prospect for you.
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E.g. I work with small to medium sized businesses that need a way
to generate new customers in their business.
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Be precise in order to get the right kind of referral. Get this
right to increase your success.
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3) Have a clear referral message for people to pass on to new customers.
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You need to be able to communicate your core referral message.
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It states the value you bring and the problem you solve.
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It’s just a gentle reminder for your refers to use. This can be a
little overlooked by the referee so make it easy for them
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4) An educational message for your referring customer.
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You need to explain how referring you is going to be of advantage to
them. WII-FM What’s in it for them.
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They won’t necessarily know how to easily introduce you.
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They are not sure what you will do with that referral. So you have to
let people know what’s in store for that person.
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Remove the fear that you will bombard their contact with sales literature. E.g. I’ll send
them a report, a discount, or a movie pass, then I’ll call them to see
if they are interested in my services.
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Possibly hold a formal meeting with a referrer to help educate them
in the type of customers you are looking for.
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5) Offers to new customers and rewards for the referrer.
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The acknowledgement strategy – The creative part that gets people
involved. A Reward system.
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You can offer your own products or other businesses products to
reward your customers for referring new business as a way to recognise
they referred you. In most circumstances gifts are better received by
your customers than financial rewards.
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You should set up multiple reward levels. E.g. Silver, Gold,
Platinum & Diamond. Tell your referrer they have to introduce say
4 people to get to the silver award and 8 to get to the gold award etc.
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Give people achievable targets to keep them interested. People
like to play games, especially when they are challenged and they can
see a very good reason for playing.
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6) A simple conversion strategy
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How are you going to systematically follow-up with your new leads?
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So what will you do when they call?
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What is the sequence of events that your follow?
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If you don’t act then you can have all the leads in the world but
if you don’t have a strategy to convert them then you are leaving
money on the table.
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7) Follow-up message to your referring community.
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Decide how you are going to communicate back to your target market on
a continual basis. Just saying thank you for the referral is enough to
keep them referring. But just keep the relationship alive so they keep
you top of mind.
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Ideally you should be contacting your customers and referrers on a
monthly basis as a minimum.
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Sign Up to 1QR
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A powerful referral Strategy saves you time and money.
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You can create a single page referral message that contains the
details outline above which you can quickly pass onto your VIP
referrers.
The reason for doing this is so that the referral leads that you
will receive are well qualified.
You don’t want to be spending you time chasing leads that are not
really a good fit for your organisation. So get planning and be
as specific as you can be to make it easy for people to refer
others to you..
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Could you be a 100% refund Business?
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Let me tell you a story about an accounting firm that introduced a
referral strategy for their Tax Returns filling service. Every time
they had a client for this service they would ask if the client
would like the opportunity to get 100% of their money back.
The accountancy handed out 4 cards to the client and said for
every card that comes back in the client will receive a 25%
refund. If all 4 cards come back in then that would equate
to 100% of the original fee. The client would be happy and
the Accountancy practice would receive 4 new clients for a
very small cost.
This is a very simple but powerful offer. The clients went
out of their way to find new clients to send to the accountancy
practice. Now just ask yourself could you do something similar.
You can use this one or one of one another hundred other
referral strategies that have been tried and tested by all
kinds of businesses.
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“The Number One Reason Business Owners stated why they did
not use a referral system…”
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Of the hundreds of businesses surveyed and asked why they
did not use a referral program there were many varied replies.
The most amazing reasons were given however the number
one reason why a business did not implement a referral
strategy was FEAR!!!
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Business owners said that they did not like to ask for referrals.
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Business owners said they felt embarrassed to ask for referrals
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Business owners said they felt like it would make them look desperate for new customers.
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Did you realise that FEAR actually stands for False Evidence
Appearing Real. What you need to understand by that is that
they way you approach a marketing strategy could be holding
you back and crippling your business in the process.
If companies such as MCI Telecom, Google, e-bay, Tiscali
telecom, and every shower party ever held have found
referral marketing to be successful then why shouldn’t
you be maximising the benefits of referral marketing.
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Introducing www.1quickreferral.com and How it can help you
to successfully implement a referral marketing system into
you Business, Organisation, Club, or Charity within the next 2 hours….
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When laying the foundations for www.1quickreferral.com we
sought feedback from the organisations surveyed and from
fellow marketing consultant experts in the field of referral
marketing as to what would be needed. This is what they said:-
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“they did not have the time, knowledge, skills,
ideas, resources, funds or contacts to operate referral
marketing campaigns”, so the following challenges had to
be meet whilst developing my intended referral marketing
programme:
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“The referral programme had to be very low cost,
easy to use, operate and manage”
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Most business people actually do not like
asking for referrals and some people do not like
being asked, so any ideas, strategies etc. will
have to get around this common issue
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“The referral programme has to contain ready
to use proven referral marketing templates and strategies
to conduct immediate campaigns”
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“There has to be FREE, fast response professional
advice and support facility available on how to best use
these powerful strategies and how to meet the very few
challenges on referral marketing that some people encounter.”
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“It had to be automated where possible to save users time”
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“Available on the web for easy use, access and updates”
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“Programme can also be used by charities and member
based organisations to raise funds and recruit new members”
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“It had to be membership based, worked as a partnership
between 1quickreferral.com and it’s members and offer many
opportunities for networking and inter-trading between members
themselves”
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“Opportunity for members to present themselves with
personal profiles, endorsements etc. to help in assessing
their abilities and qualities to other members?”
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“An award programme for referring the system to new members”
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“The referral programme to be available internationally”
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“There had to be a ready source of incentives
available for use with various referral marketing programmes”
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“There had to be a 100% Cash-Back Guarantee “(ouch
– the programme will have to be good then)
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So that’s exactly what we did and now it’s available to you.
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The Major Benefits of Using a 1QuickReferral to Systemise
Your Referral Marketing Strategy
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Connect with you customers more often
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When you regularly communicate with your customers about
things relevant to them you will build a greater trust
relationship which has been proven to lead to repeat
sales and hence bigger profits.
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So implementing an Automated Monthly email process
into the system means that you only type one message per
month that then goes out to all your customers relieving
your tension and worries about keeping your customers in touch.
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Stand Head and Shoulders above the Competition
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Who else do you know that showers their customers with gifts
just for talking about them? You want people to talk about
your products and services and no one else’s so that you
can become market leader in your area almost overnight.
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So implementing the Advanced Customisable Incentive
Program allows you to easily show your customers how you will
reward their loyalty. You can add your own gifts or products
as rewards or select from the growing central catalogue.
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Add you own products or service to the central catalogue
for other business owners to see and use in their incentive
programs (This bit is really awesome as it could introduce you
to many other businesses and hence many new customers of those
businesses).
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Create as few or as many levels of awards as you like.
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The points base system allows you to allocate points
for each new customer introduced and then to cross match the
points accumulated with a selection of incentive rewards for
your referral customer to choose from.
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Measurable returns on your Marketing Investments
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The real time summary display quickly shows how
many leads you have received and how many have converted
into customers. The Monthly Bar Graph makes it very easy
to see how well your referral campaign is progressing over
the months.
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Give each new lead a different status as you progress
them through your conversion strategy. Simply see who to
contact next and when.
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Maximising FREE Publicity without lifting a finger which
will give you more time to look after your valued customers.
Your Business is now a talking point.
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The reinforced steel safe security system allows
your customers to log into the system and freely add new
leads and supply testimonials for their friends and colleagues
to see.
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Pre Scripted Automated emails are sent to their
leads introducing your company with the click of a button.
We’ve done all the hard work so that you don’t have too.
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The Easy search Referrers Lead section clearly shows
which of your best customers or advocates are sending you
the most new leads.
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You no longer need worry about forgetting Customers details
as they are at your finger tips from anywhere in the World.
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Working from the business, at home, or whilst
travelling you can access the colossus customer database
which will neatly store all your customer details in one place.
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Customisable sort filters allow you to slice and
dice your customers into manageable segments for ease of
management.
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Categorise who spends the most with you, who your
best advocates are, who are the top 20% who bring in 80% of the profits.
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Enter key notes regarding your customer for others
in your business to clearly see and reminders for yourself.
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Instantly invite a customer to become a VIP Referral Client.
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Just tick which customer you would like to invite
and let the system do the rest.
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A Pre Scripted Automated email is sent to your
customer describing your reward system, how they can benefit,
and how they can access the system.
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Your hand is held through All 7 steps for a successful referral program
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The Business Administration section is where you will fill in
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Your ideal client information,
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Your message to referrers,
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Your message and offer to new customers,
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Your educational messages to ensure your referrers
are fully armed and ready to go.
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The templates section allows you to customise the messages
that are automatically sent out by the system. Use the templates as
a guide and add your own twist to really win over existing and new customers.
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Sign Up to 1QR
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First response from top Marketing Gurus about 1quickreferral.com
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“What this really means to your Business?….”
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Once you fully understand how referral systems work you
will be able to see how you can offer rewards at zero cost to you.
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Also realise that you only ever provide rewards when a leads
convert to a customers. So you never actually pay out until you have
money coming in. This turns traditional marketing on its head. This is
why we say it is Zero cost or Low cost Marketing for you.
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You can stop wasting time and money on your ineffective
advertising that brings in little or no return and is hard to measure.
You can now say No to shot gun marketing.
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You business becomes a talking point.
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You build lasting relationships with your customers.
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You put the customer at the centre of your organisation.
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You find out what your customers like, what they would change,
and what else they’d like you to provide for them.
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You can keep you customers updated on new product ranges, new
promotions new discounts, new news.
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You will always be marketing to a targeted market either
directly to existing customers or indirectly through your customers
to their contacts.
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You can solicit and use testimonials from all your favourite
happy customers and use these in future marketing communications to
new customers.
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Your customers will be excited to recommend you to their
friends and contacts.
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You will now have a consistent systemised process to find
new customers and keep existing customers coming back time and time
again and be happy to spend more with you.
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Your business will exponentially grow. Remember if just 25%
of your customers gave you just 4 referrals each that means you have
just increased the size of your business by 100%. All for Zero Cost.
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“So what is all this going to cost…?”
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Well we could have created the system into a downloadable software
package and charged you anywhere in the realms of £2,000 - £15,000.
But we felt this may have restricted the smaller sized businesses
from benefiting.
And because of this wonderful thing called the internet we were able
to create a system that is only ever in one place, is useable by many
people at the same time and is only ever needs maintaining and updating
once.
It was therefore decided that we should charge a monthly fee to use the
system of £49 per month so that even the one man band and home based
business could make good use of it.
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Your Better Than Life 100% Satisfaction Guarantee
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BUT.. You still have a full 60 days* to decide if it is right for you. If
you don’t believe that, after using the system, filling in the details,
inviting customers or affiliates to be referrers, that you have not
gained any new business, then let us know and you will receive your
money back 100% with no quibbles, and no questions asked.
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NO Stuffy Contracts
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You are under no obligation what so ever to continue using the system
month after month. If for any reason you no longer wish to continue
using the system you can stop at any time.
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Super Large Bonus Just for trying it out..
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You won’t believe this incredible offer that I am going to give you right
now. Every Business that signs up for the service will receive a FREE copy
of Australians Top Marketing Guru Peter Sun’s Most Famous “Maximum Profits
in Minimum Time” Marketing Manual. I normally sell this for £347.00 but
you get if for FREE and you will get to keep this great marketing show
stopper regardless of how long you use the system for.
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Sign Up to 1QR
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I wish you well in all your Marketing ventures.
Warm regards,
Steve Crane
CEO Intelligent Marketing Systems (UK) Ltd
Contact Details:
146 Junction Road
Burgess Hill
West Sussex
RH15 0PZ
Tel: +44 (0) 1444 480609
email: Steven.Crane@1quickreferral.com
PS Don’t forget the special bonus valued at £347.00 that you will also receive.
PPS Once you are a member you can recommend 1quickreferral to your friends
and you will be able to find out what our extremely attractive incentive
reward is. But you have to sign up to find out.
*All refunds at the discretion of the management.
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