In a recent opinion research article, Ravi Bapna, a chair professor of business analytics and information systems at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, explains a theory on Word of Mouth Marketing.

Have you ever received an offer of incentive for referring a friend, peer or stranger? I’m sure you have. We all have at some point our our lives. I personally get solicited by American Express and a handful of online service providers. American Express offers a reward if I send a message to someone asking them to sign up for a credit card. Currently, they offer rewards for the giver and also there is a standard offer for the future credit card holder. Most companies will offer a referral incentive for you, meaning if you refer a friend, they will send you a coupon or an offer for you to use in the future.

In the Ravi Bapna article, “Word-of-Mouth Marketing: How to Radically Boost Success,” he explains that you can radically increase your opportunities by using a pro-social call-to-action over the traditional call-to-action methods. By offering the reward to the potential client, Ravi and his colleagues saw a dramatic increase in return. In a randomized experiment of 100,000 individuals, they found that if you use pro-social framing, opportunities increased by 60%, the probability of the senders making a referral also increase significantly to 86%, and lastly the conversion rate also increased to 86%!

So by simply offering your client the opportunity to gift someone a reward or discount, your potential will increase dramatically, compared to offering your current client a reward to promote your business.

Here is a reference to a collaborative abstract on the subject: WoM Marketing