Has your main source of referrals just moved on to another business?
Or maybe you’re looking to expand in a new direction where old referrals simply won’t be enough!
Either way, if your referrals are drying up and you need to do something about it, you’ve come to the right place.
In this blog, we’re going to discuss two things:
- How to avoid losing referrals in the first place.
- And what to do when your referrals are drying up.
We’ll also show you how we can help you supercharge your lead generation strategy with a combination of future-proof marketing tactics.
Let’s get started!
What To Do When Referrals Dry Up: Your Complete Guide – Table of Contents
- How to Avoid Losing Referrals?
- How to Replace Referrals for Marketing and Sales Leads?
- Supercharge Your Lead Generation Strategy with Lean Summits
- What To Do When Referrals Dry Up – FAQs
How to Avoid Losing Referrals?
The best way to minimize the impact of losing referrals is to ensure that you’re never in such a situation in the first place!
I know what you’re thinking: you’re already either lost or are in the process of losing referrals. What now?
Well, I’ve got some tips you can use to bring back the power of referrals to your business, and even generate more leads in the process!
Here are four such ways I always recommend to my clients based on my personal experience:
1. Ask New Clients for Referrals
Whenever you get a new client, you should have two priorities.
First, to deliver without any excuses or compromises what they’ve asked for. After all, the best way to get a referral is to provide a product or service that aligns with the vision of your current client!
Second, to secure a referral, but without being annoying or salesy. Now, I know this might sound easier said than done. But here’s how you can do it without being either of those things:
Don’t ask the client for a referral; rather, enquire if they know anyone who could benefit from your high-standard services.
This way, you’ll communicate your desire to grow as well as your eagerness to develop a better relationship with your existing client!
2. Join Local Business Groups
One great method I’ve found for generating referrals is to join local business groups. Now, this could be your local chamber of commerce or an association of people with similar business interests.
The best aspect of this method is that you share a common goal with your fellow members: to grow your business through high-value clients.
It’s a give-and-take relationship where you help others expand their network, and they do the same for you!
And if you don’t know of any local business association, I recommend performing a quick Google search or even visiting your city government’s website! More often than not, it’ll have a business directory or a chamber of commerce website linked to it!
3. Organize Educational Events
Online or offline educational events, such as seminars or even brainstorming sessions, can help you attract a lot of referrals.
This is largely because everyone (especially business owners and executives) is looking to interact with like-minded people with similar goals.
After all, what’s better than knowing that others around you are facing the same problems and concerns?
Plus, with seminars and meetings, you get a chance to meet with and introduce yourself to potential clients and prospects.
The best part about this method is that you can use it to attract B2B or D2C clients!
For instance, let’s say that you operate a moving company. In this case, I highly recommend organizing a “How to Move” seminar every week.
This is because there’s a high chance that your existing customers will refer their friends and family members who are planning to move to attend one of your weekly meetings!
4. Keep Up With Your Existing Clients and Customers
Another great way to ensure that your referrals never dry up is to always keep in touch with your existing customers.
One way to do this is to appoint dedicated account managers to ensure that your clients are always satisfied. However, this is largely applicable only to B2B enterprises like shipping and logistics companies.
For D2C businesses like retail, entertainment, and moving companies, I recommend curating weekly newsletters and emailers. This will help you introduce new products, gather valuable feedback, and boost brand visibility.
Simply put, the more your clients and customers think you care about their business, the more likely they are to refer you to others.
5. User-Generated Content
User-generated content is one of the most effective strategies for both gaining new referrals and generating leads.
It refers to the new way of content marketing, where users share their experiences of your products and services with others.
In other words, User-Generated Content is a great way to expose new clients to your offerings through the experience of old ones!
The best example of this in the D2C retail segment is Coke’s #ShareACoke campaign. However, I also believe that UGC has great potential in all different businesses.
For instance, if you’re running a logistics or moving company, you can ask your clients to shoot a video of their moving and handover process.
How to Replace Referrals for Marketing and Sales Leads?
Sometimes, it’s very difficult to avoid losing a referral. Maybe your referral has moved out of the region. Or maybe you want to expand in a new direction where old referrals simply won’t work!
In such cases, where you need to break new ground and attract entirely different user segments, referral strategies might not be the best solution.
However, the good news is that there are several marketing strategies that can help you replace and recreate the power of referrals!
Let’s take a look at 6 such strategies that can help you reduce your reliance on referrals as a major source of leads and revenue:
1. Account-Based Marketing
If you’re looking for high-value B2B clients, the best method to replace referral marketing is account-based marketing.
It’s the strategy of creating personalized sales pitches for a highly specific group of decision-makers within your ideal customer segment.
Personally, I recommend using LinkedIn for boosting your ABM efforts. It’s the largest hub of professional communication where you can build connections using several different strategies.
Lately, I’ve also noticed that LinkedIn’s rebranding as a corporate social media has really increased its potential as a source of leads.
Here are some of the ways in which you can harness the power of the new LinkedIn to generate leads:
- Use the different types of ads, such as sponsored content and messages, to directly approach your target audience and prospects
- Show your prospects examples of your work through short videos and photo stories
- Post regular updates about your company, products/services, and its latest activities
All these will help you increase your brand’s presence and awareness among your target audience. Once you’ve successfully implemented a brand-building campaign, I recommend approaching high-value prospects.
I also believe that LinkedIn marketing can help you diversify your customer base from purely D2C into B2B areas.
For instance, if you’re a logistics company, you could find a high-value B2B enterprise that needs raw material shipping services!
2. Short Video Content
Video content is the dominant media in the world of modern marketing.
In fact, studies have shown that over 90% of all organizations incorporate video content into their marketing strategies.
Plus, there are very good reasons why video content is so popular.
It’s evidence for the theory that more people learn visually than do textually. If this is true, then it’s even truer that even more people learn better through a combination of audio-visual media!
Additionally, I believe that the rise of media content is strongly supported by the growth of video-sharing applications like Instagram and TikTok. For instance, you might have noticed that all new smart TVs come with a YouTube thumbnail.
In short, video content is the best way to convey feelings and information in a viewer-friendly manner!
So, if you don’t already have a video creation strategy, I highly recommend creating one right away!
3. Social Selling
Did you know that Instagram is projected to generate over $32 billion in revenue in 2025?
And it’s not just Instagram; platforms like TikTok also have huge potential to drive profit and help you grow by leaps and bounds!
So, one way to replace the revenue you generate through referrals is to place strategic ads on social media.
One reason you can be very confident in the success of social selling is the Smart Clustering. It’s the process by which search engines and social media companies create clusters of users with similar interests, which increases the odds of successful lead generation and conversion.
Another social selling tactic that I highly recommend is influencer marketing. In fact, I’ve noticed that several companies, such as Warby Parker, have achieved significant success in increasing their brand recognition and sales through strategic partnerships with microinfluencers.
In one sense, social selling is a means of generating referrals. This is because users share products and services they like through messages or their profiles.
4. Building Brand Equity
Most of your customers and clients are probably not in the market right now.
In fact, these latent customers or clients are your greatest asset: they represent potential growth.
And brand equity is the strategy of marketing to these latent clients or future customers.
There are several ways of building brand equity. One of them is experiential marketing.
Experiential marketing involves providing potential customers with an immersive experience of your product or service, and then encouraging them to make a purchase.
You can think of it like the old car sales tactic: let the customer take a new car model home for a week, and it’ll probably sell itself!
5. Content Marketing
Content marketing is the old king of digital selling. It’s also one of the most cost-effective ways to replace referrals by driving online traffic to your website and landing pages.
It’s also one of the most efficient forms of marketing. This is because the content you create will always be on your website.
In fact, revamping old content can be a highly effective tactic for periodically increasing your online traffic.
Now, with the advent of AI Overviews in 2025, there was a general downward trend in global website traffic.
However, where others see challenges, I believe that we have a world of opportunities.
This is because with the rise of AI Overviews, there are more and more avenues of driving traffic.
This includes tailoring content to snippets, People Also Ask Questions, and AI Overviews.
In short, not only is content marketing not going away any time soon, but we have more and more avenues of boosting existing and new content.
6. High-Value Email Marketing
The last and one of the most high-ROI marketing strategies that can replace referral marketing is email outreach.
Now, you might have come across several emails in your inbox drawing your attention to new products and services.
But that’s not the type of email marketing I’m referring to!
The modern approach to email marketing is much more targeted. It also revolves around sequences of emails rather than one email here, another there. And this applies to both B2B and D2C segments.
Think of it this way: you’re not going to reply to every email you receive. Similarly, you’re not going to buy a product the moment you see one in an emailer.
However, the second, third, fourth, or perhaps the fifth time you see it? There’s a high chance you’ll at least want to see what you could be missing out on…
And that’s the power of email marketing!
In my experience, email marketing is not just very cost-effective, but it’s actually one of the best ways to generate leads and reach prospects!
Supercharge Your Lead Generation Strategy with Lean Summits
Don’t get me wrong: I think referrals are great for your business. And as long as you believe that there’s a long-term potential for referrals to generate leads for your business, you should stick to it!
In fact, we’ve already discussed how to win back referrals even as they are drying up.
But here’s the thing – sometimes, referrals are inherently not suited to the kind of expansion you’re envisioning. As we’ve seen, this might be in a new market or through a new product.
In such cases, you need more than referrals – you need a comprehensive marketing plan with the best strategies that align with your growth goals.
And more than that? You’ll need a reliable partner who can help you develop and execute a successful marketing plan.
And that’s exactly what we do at Lean Summits – we help you reach the peak of your industry, and stay there!
We’ve had a lot of success helping a wide variety of enterprises across different industries achieve their growth objectives with just the right mix of marketing strategies…
And we can do the same for you!
So, if your referrals are drying up, don’t worry:
All you need to do is connect with us for a free consultation, and we’ll help you build a future-proof marketing plan so that you’re never in this situation again…
What To Do When Referrals Dry Up – FAQs
1. What is referral marketing?
Referral marketing is a strategy that involves encouraging existing customers and clients to recommend your products and services to prospective customers. In my experience, referral marketing is one of the best strategies for growing your business through high-value clients.
2. How to compensate for referrals drying up?
In my opinion, the best way to compensate for referrals drying up is to diversify your marketing strategy. This includes shifting focus to popular marketing strategies like:
- Content marketing
- Social selling
- Account-based marketing
- Video content
3. What is the best alternative to referral marketing?
In my experience, the best alternative to referral marketing is a diversified approach to marketing as a concept. I recommend adopting the 80-20 approach: 80% focus on non-referral strategies like the ones mentioned above, and 20% on referral marketing.
