Are consumers talking about you?
Do you know how important word-of-mouth marketing is? Did you know it can turn a business around from failure to success overnight? Well, that is if it's positive word-of-mouth marketing, negative word-of-mouth marketing can have the exact opposite effect.
Ahhh...now I have your attention.
Truth is that the trust of the consumer is diminishing quickly. Think about how many scams we see on the news and that is explanation enough of why our potential customers are very leery. This is where the power of word-of-mouth marketing comes in. As consumers we may not believe your commercials or the other venues you use to advertise with, but we will believe what someone else says about your products and services.
Look, we hear it all the time, word-of-mouth marketing is the best marketing because it comes with credibility and it costs you nothing. When I say this I see the other party scratch their head and get that serious contemplation look and I know exactly what they are thinking: "How do I generate word-of-mouth buzz for my product or service?"
Word-of-mouth marketing can be generated, but you must do a few basic things to make it happen. Let me show you five tips that you can help generate word-of-mouth marketing for your products or services.
Thanks laura for reminding us about word of mouth marketing, it’s sometimes forgotten as we get overly involved in online and other marketing tasks…good sound advice as always
ALways works for the small scale industry or shops
Word of Mouth is probably hte most powerful marketing tool any of us have …… but it often spills over into cyberspace and becomes Word of Mouse.
To find out what people aarer saying about you online set up a Google Alert and receive daily updates – you can also find out what people are saying about your competitors and clients in the same way.
Laura,thank you for reinforcing in my longtime believe about words-of-mouth.It works because i practice it and it works for me.
Interesting post and some good points in there. The comments seem to indicate that WoM is an offline entity. With the rise of social media, WoM is now a major thrust for online business.
This is one area that a lot of organisations appear to engage with, but do so badly or fail to track to know what they should change.
When people are considering WoM they should very much consider online, social and UGC as a cornerstone. You can also use innovative tools to measure positive Vs negative
Word-of-mouth marketing is probably the key aspect in modern business. But it has a serious problem: It is something you can’t quantify. It is impossible to measure the exact effect of word of mouth marketing in your sales.
What do you think?
Great post about WOM marketing. Even though we are primarily an event marketing and experiential marketing agency we recognize the importance of WOM marketing.
Thanks a lot Laura. WOM Marketing is key in our company, because we’re dedicated to build customer and users communities, and all promotional efforts in communities are based on Word of Mouth. So we have to train our communities to use WOM as a primary resource.
Thanx Laura for this advice that word-of-mouth marketing is the best tool to use in business today.
Thanks Laura – great article. We’re written a critique of word of mouth marketing and would greatly appreciate some input from you. If you can spare a few minutes, pls could you have a look at
Word of mouth advertising / marketing
And let us know your thoughts?
Many thanks
We see the far-reaching benefits of WOM marketing using the house-party model. People seem to put more trust in their friends, family, peer groups than they do companies. This channel provides a more comfortable – even fun – environment, and smart companies are taking advantage of the opportunities for them by way of sampling and other types of sponsorships. We expect to see WOM grow exponentially over the next few years as more and more organizations learn to leverage the social networks of their customers and prospects.
Great post Laura, do you ever make it across to the UK?
Hi Laura,
It is interesting, isn’t it, what goes through small business people’s heads when “word of mouth” comes up.
Your 5 tips are really good. Most advice out there is for big businesses, but yours is practical for even the smallest businesses.
Nice to see About pick up on your expertise!
Cheers,
Martin Russell