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269Chapter 16: Tapping the Internet’s Marketing Power

Online referrals

Referrals are the way that marketers warm up cold calls. A referral allows you
to contact the friend of a friend instead of contacting a stranger. The Internet
is rich with opportunities for cultivating various types of referrals online:

ߜ Manufacturer referrals: If you’re a retailer, ask manufacturers of the
products you carry to include links to your business on their Web sites.

ߜ Professional referrals: If you belong to a professional organization with
a Web site, ask that a link to your Web address be included in the mem-
bership roster.

ߜ Associate referrals: If you receive frequent leads from other businesses
or organizations, consider swapping links so that a visitor to your site
can link to your associate business or organization.

An easy way to increase referrals to your site is to have your Web site designer
add a button that allows visitors to send a Web page from your site to a friend.
When adding this feature

ߜ Be sure that the process sends the friend to the exact location on the
site, not just to the home page.

ߜ Include a feature that allows visitors to write brief notes telling friends
why they are receiving the message.

Gaining referrals through affiliate programs

Online affiliate programs were the brainchild of Amazon.com, where they
were created as a way to entice publishers and other businesses to promote
their offerings on the Amazon site.

An affiliate program includes two key players:

ߜ The fulfillment company: Becoming a fulfillment company takes com-
puter savvy and retailing expertise. It also requires software to track
who visits the site, which merchant referred the visitor to the site, and
what the person purchased on arrival. The fulfillment company also
recruits, manages, and pays commissions to the reseller companies.

ߜ The merchant, or reseller, company: This company directs customers
to the fulfillment site in return for a commission on all resulting sales.

For information, visit www.affiliateguide.com. Also visit the affiliate mar-
keting area on the Commission Junction site at www.cj.com.