The 5 House Rule or the Forced Referral Marketing Strategy

The name of this strategy is called the five house rule or the forced referral marketing strategy. The idea is if you get pet sitting clients in a neighborhood. Let’s say the client’s names are Paul and Claire.

You’re going to say how nice Paul and Claire are and how much you love taking care of their pets. It is customary for the business owner to offer a discount to all of the neighbors as a token of courtesy for your wonderful clients.

The idea is they’re going to then talk to Paul and Claire because they probably know Paul and Claire, since their neighbors, ask them about you, Paul and Claire are going to give you a review, and then you should be getting at least one out of the five sign up as pet sitting clients.

From there, you have five more houses to market to, so on and so forth. Instead of saying, “Hey, Paul and Claire, do you think you could spread the word about my business and give me a referral, tell your neighbors”, they might, they might not.

When you do this, you’re forcing the referral. You’re writing the sales letter, and then the neighbor will then ask your client about you and then give you pet sitting clients referrals that way.

Send a sales and discount letter to the neighbors left and right, and 3 across the street.

Offer them an awesome discount or some incentive to sign up for service. Usually, one out of the five will sign up, and then you’re going to have five more houses, so on and so forth.

It’s personalized.

It’s not just like a mass mailing. “Hey, check out my pet sitting business.” There are some great campaigns and strategies for that too. But this one is a personalized neighborhood, five-house rule marketing strategy.