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Powerful Strategies for Peer-to-Peer Marketing

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Peer-to-peer marketing, often abbreviated P2P, is the practice of customers engaging other customers through recommendations. It is effective because when consumers are deciding to buy a product or service, 93% of them trust their friends, families, and colleagues over other influences.

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What Makes Peer-to-Peer Marketing So Effective?

Businesses use an abundance of peer-to-peer tactics to sell their products and services. A company uses this kind of marketing, for example, when they send an email or text message to customers asking them to recommend the company to their friends.

Sometimes, the company will offer those customers something in return. This strategy can trigger conversions.

Peer-to-peer marketing is effective because it doesn’t feel like a sales tactic.

People are gravitating away from businesses that feel pushy or self-focused. They understand that a company might have given their friend or acquaintance a product for free to try out. But they also know that people who are not receiving money would rarely recommend something they don’t believe in.

Trust Is Key

In other words, there’s an element of trust that’s at play in these interactions. Simply put, people generally trust their friends to be honest with them.

As more and more people turn away from brash and overzealous marketing, P2P options lend authenticity. And that is priceless.

These tactics, though not new, are becoming even more important today.

This is because Millennials and Gen Zers are far more interested in authenticity. They understand that peer-to-peer marketing benefits consumers as well as businesses. For example, they like the fact that they can network their way to a better vacuum, a longer-lasting phone, or a more entertaining experience without initially paying for the privilege themselves.

Peer-to-peer marketing gives voice to another type of consumer as well. For example, there are those who have nothing to gain except feeling good about giving recommendations about products and services they enjoy or find useful.

Ultimately, P2P is a form of marketing that feels trustworthy and authentic. What works best about peer-to-peer marketing are the real, genuine reviews from people who wish only to promote businesses they care about. Usually, people’s motivation is simply to help other consumers with whom they feel an affinity.

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How Do Peer-to-Peer and Influencer Marketing Differ?

To explore the difference between P2P marketing and influencer marketing, let’s consider an example.

Jessica Alba’s business, The Honest Company, has a referral program where they credit existing customers $20 for each invited friend who makes a purchase.

This is a perfect example of P2P marketing as this initiative taps into the company’s existing consumers to reach new prospects.

Influencer marketing, on the other hand, refers to social influencers on online platforms who promote products and services for businesses they don’t own.

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Both are equally valuable marketing options, but they achieve different goals.

P2P marketing is likely narrower in reach. However, each person reached with P2P marketing tends to convert to a sale more quickly than do those reached by influencer marketing. This is because P2P marketing leverages the power of a company’s existing relationship with its customers.

Let’s Look at Some Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces

Surkus

Surkus is a discovery platform that aims to connect brands and companies looking for more exposure and engagement with people who are seeking access to more events and services that fit their needs.

Surkus’s approach is quite simple. They operate from a belief that consumers are first and foremost people. These individuals, moreover, have value for the brands they seek mainly because they’re real, genuine individuals. Their friends and family trust them.

Therefore, businesses should be willing to treat them well. In fact, Surkus operates from the principle that each of these individuals can be persuaded to become an informal influencer. This elevates the company’s perception of their customers immeasurably.

Flixxo

Flixxo is a video platform that lets businesses pay tokens directly to consumers for watching their videos.

This opt-in advertising system allows companies to spend their money on their ideal customers instead of using the spray-and-pray method of yesteryear’s advertising.

Bau

BAU, another company in the peer-to-peer space, is a platform where local businesses advertise for each other. This allows each business to better reach their desired customers.

BAU’s business model is based on the conviction that small businesses already have a target audience and existing relationships with customers. The company plans to make it easy for them to pay each other to advertise instead of using expensive advertising on Facebook, Instagram, Google, Yelp, and so on.

BAU is currently gearing up to launch. To learn more, follow them and sign up at www.joinbau.com/home.

P2P Marketing Represents the Trajectory of Advertising

P2P marketing is the future of advertising. As time goes on, we will see strategies becoming ever more authentic and natural.

This is what newer generations are looking for and what they are most attracted to. For this reason, you need to make peer-to-peer the number-one marketing strategy for your business.

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