What are the best referral schemes you have ever seen?

[Josh - FTZ Studios]

Hi Everyone!

I'm in the process of trying to create a referral scheme for my hot, warm and cold leads.

I'm struggling to think of a service based referral scheme for my video production business. The combined average selling price of my services is around £500-700.

I want to know from other business owners:
- What they would like to receive as a reward for x amount of referrals
- The simplest yet most engaging procedure for me to work from
- The flow of my clients that want to refer me (how would it work?)
- Any other ideas or opinions?

Any information would be a great help!

Cheers,

Josh - FTZ Studios

 

[Grimsby]

I think the primary issues is that other businesses are concerned with generating their own business, rather than helping other businesses. Just what I have found in similar circumstances.

I hope you find a way, and share it!

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

Have you considered offering a white label service? Video expertise I imagine is something not all marketing and digital marketing agencies will have and could be interested in offering as a new revenue stream to their clients.

 

[ethical PR]

Hi Everyone!

I'm in the process of trying to create a referral scheme for my hot, warm and cold leads.

I'm struggling to think of a service based referral scheme for my video production business. The combined average selling price of my services is around £500-700.

I want to know from other business owners:
- What they would like to receive as a reward for x amount of referrals
- The simplest yet most engaging procedure for me to work from
- The flow of my clients that want to refer me (how would it work?)
- Any other ideas or opinions?

Any information would be a great help!

Cheers,

Josh - FTZ Studios

My issue Josh is that I only recommend suppliers who I can be confident will do a great job for my clients. Your selling price is unrealistically low for a video company providing a professional service.

I've worked on a fair few promotional and campaign video's and understand the sort of costs involved for directors/producers, camera people, editors etc and that's before you factor in equipment, software, travel etc.

How can you possibly be working with clients to develop the brief and script, set up, direct and shoot, edit and post production, amends etc for that sort of budget and end up with a decent product/make a profit for yourselves?

 

[Josh - FTZ Studios]

Grimsby - Yeah, I understand completely. People ask me to refer them, but I simply don't have the time. Which is the issue I think many business owners have. The irony is that if I actually spent the time referring people, would I receive an amount of referrals myself...probably!

Scott@KarmaContent- Yes, I have thought about and I am currently packaging some of my best selling products to offer to marketing services, website design companies, social media businesses. The problem I have found though is not many of them are willing to pay much for them...which is why I am developing packages...Il see if that works!

Ethical PR - I understand the confusion. I should have mentioned, that average is stemmed from a lot of video editing. The audience I cater for are small and medium sized businesses. They don't have large budgets. I am therefore the director, producer, camerman and editor in most cases with maybe another assistant to help on the day depending on the job or another editor working on the project. The videos are simple, affordable and are exactly what the client wants within their budget.
If I could prove I could do a great job, at an 'unrealistic' selling price, would you hire me?

 

[ethical PR]

Hi Josh

To be honest having looked at your portfolio, you aren't going to be able to prove to me you can do a great job in terms of the standards my clients look for. Realistically, no video company could do a good job for that sort of budget.

You need a team with the right skills for different elements of putting a video together.

I work with highly experienced producers who understand what my clients want - developing the creative concepts and storyboards to ensure the product meets the brief. They then put together the right team for the shoot and for post production.

They also help with seeding the finished product.

 

[The Byre]

You need a team with the right skills for different elements of putting a video together.

This!

Making any kind of video/film is nearly always a huge team effort. I want to meet that super-human that can monitor sound, control lighting, work the jib, do make-up, do script and continuity and colouring and hold the boom-mic all at the same time!

 

[Josh - FTZ Studios]

Ethical PR - Like I said, I provide an affordable service to small and medium businesses. They buy from me. As you know, online videos are getting more important every year. Small businesses can't afford the big bucks, 5 crew, experienced producers, hours on developing concepts. That is the market I am in. I fully understand what you are saying, but the people that can afford to spend 5-10k on a 60-second promo, are not my ideal client.

The Byre - I am on set, by myself, most of the time. That's how I can afford to produce these videos for my ideal client. I understand that the quality may not be that of a 3k+ production, but that's pretty obvious and my clients don't mind.

I posted this question to look for advice on how to create a subscription service, to offer people an online service that can help them grow their business with online videos, not look criticism on my business model. It works. I'm still in business and it's growing...I must be doing something right!

 

[ethical PR]

Hi Josh

You asked me whether I would buy from you/refer you - my answer was no because I don't think you can provide a quality product for that budget. Your portfolio shows that.

This is important for you to understand because people working in marketing/design/PR will make the same value judgements that I am. They are the people who can refer business to you.

Just because SMEs are buying from you doesn't mean it is a quality product - with the greatest respect they probably don't mind because they just want something for an unrealistic budget and don't have the marketing knowledge to know the difference.

I can't believe at the prices you charge this is a sustainable business model for you. You say your business is growing but is it profitable for you?. Are you earning the sort of income you want/need?

Anyway best of luck.

Helen

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

Josh,

I've checked your site out. Once it finally loaded (God it's slow!), I really liked the look of the videos you do.

I don't know why some people have a problem with what you do. If you're making videos that your customers are happy with and you're making a decent living, where's the problem? There's too much passive aggressive sniping on this forum at the moment and not enough constructive feedback.

 

[The Byre]

Josh,

I've checked your site out. Once it finally loaded (God it's slow!), I really liked the look of the videos you do.

I don't know why some people have a problem with what you do. If you're making videos that your customers are happy with and you're making a decent living, where's the problem? There's too much passive aggressive sniping on this forum at the moment and not enough constructive feedback.

Me? Passive? Aggressive yes, but passive?

Somebody selling the moving image has to have a flawless and killer website with jaw-droppingly good showreel material.

What you may not appreciate, is that there is a surfeit of facilities offering corporate video services. Prices start at around (hold onto your hat!) £200. These are kids with DSLRs and a copy of Sony 'Movie Studio' and some of them are churning out some pretty classy stuff.

OK, you can't sync' a DSLR and you search in vain for the white-balance button, but with reasonable lighting and a great deal of care, you can get a great film-like look to your footage. The OP has to be considerably better than those kids!

The very first thing we all learn in marketing, is to fix the product. Sometimes that requires more than just fixing the product, but that is where we have to start. If you have a wonky product, all the advertising, SM, sponsorship, subscription plans, webshops and campaigns are wasted. Now I do not agree with the Ethical One that our OP needs to be further up-market with whole production crews etc., but he does need to fix the product! THEN we can worry about selling that product! Pretending otherwise does nobody any favours.

There is definitely a market for a £500 corp.video, but the end result has to be streets ahead of anything the customer could do for themselves, armed with a 4K DSLR.

 

[fisicx]

There's too much passive aggressive sniping on this forum at the moment and not enough constructive feedback.

There is lots of feedback but it's not positive if the thing you are commenting on isn't good.

I'll say well done if deserved but in this case Josh's site isn't good. I'll quite happily wade through pages of stuff if the content is good but the corporate client (who want's a corporate video) needs to be wowed within seconds. If you can get their jaw to drop they will pick up the phone without even seeing the portfolio.

I'm also a miserable sod which is why the happy me only comes out when England wins at footy. Which is next due in 2019 when they play Fulchester United's second 11.

 

[Josh - FTZ Studios]

Sorry for the lack of response! I have been busy.

Scott@Karmacontent - Thank you very much, I appreciate it. This is my ultimate point, it sells. They're happy and I continue to be in business, so thank you for your support and I do agree, a lot of the responses have been, aggressive. I don't appreciate that as I have come here looking for support. It's not necessary.

The Byre - If you haven't noticed, I have a showreel at the bottom of my site. I am currently trialling offering a free gift to visitors, to create leads, reasoning to why it isn't at the top of my website. I understand fully what you are saying. I agree, to a certain extent, the product needs improving, but not all the time. I am trying to find a middle ground with regards to time, cost and quality. My clients want the videos fast and on a budget, therefore, quality has to be sacrificed. They pay for it. And although I would love to be producing 'better' videos for my clients, they wouldn't have the budget, hence my choice of supplying to this ever demanding market.

Fisicx - With regards to your site. It's outdated and you're right, isn't my cup of tea. Looking at it at a first glance, I am impressed that it is converting well. And if it is converting well, don't change it. I just find it hard to take advice from someone with such an outdated website that is extremely unappealing. But, if it works for you, that's great. Being a fully fledged, verified member with over 23,000 comments (Website in every signature) probably pays a large part in why you get so many hits. Do you market it anywhere else?

 

[fisicx]

It's outdated

See, this is where I get all confused. Why is it outdated? Why is is unappealing? It's been reviewed on UKBF, other fora and testing sites umpteen times and what you see is the result of all those reviews.

As to conversions, it all comes from Google. UKBF leads come via a PM not the website. Of course everybody isn't going to like my site in the same way not everyone is going to like your site - this is always going to be the case, but what you need is more conversions. If your site gets more leads than you can handle then leave it alone, if you don't get enough leads then you need to change the website. Not the layout/theme, change the content and structure - as that's what matters more than anything else.

 

[AWA Training]

Will pop back later and read this, it looks interesting. For me though with the First Aid for Parents i run, i give £5 per referral.
For my other business, GCSE Astronomy by distance learning, if a tutor refers a student, its £10 back they get.