One of the most effective ways to market your company is through word of mouth. When happy customers are able to tell others about your business, you are able to gain their loyalty without spending extra money on marketing campaigns.
This article will discuss word of mouth and how to use it as an effective marketing tool. By reading this article you will learn why word of mouth is effective and how to create a campaign which will increase your customer base and revenue.
What is Word Of Mouth Marketing?
Word-of-mouth marketing is when clients or customers tell their acquaintances about a business and its great customer service and/ or wonderful products. These friends will then end up using the business as they feel as though they can trust the word of their friend.
Word of mouth marketing can be done via:
The basis of word of mouth is that customers leave your business feeling satisfied by your customer service or products and want to tell others about it.
The best word-of-mouth marketing is done organically, meaning the customer simply has the urge to tell others about your business. When this happens, the advantages can be numerous and will help lead your business to success.
Advantages of Word of Mouth Marketing
Word of mouth can be very effective as it is a great way of getting the word out about your business without you putting much effort or money into the marketing. When people feel satisfied with the customer service they receive or the products they buy, they are likely to talk about it with friends and family, which means you can gain their business organically.
Some of the advantages of word of mouth are:
These advantages can mean that word of mouth is an extremely effective way of marketing your company. Spending money on marketing campaigns is not always something small businesses can afford, so by making sure that customers or clients leave your business feeling satisfied can be the best way of increasing your revenue.
How to Start a Word of Mouth Campaign
With word of mouth being such an important marketing tool, it is important to have techniques that you can use in order to increase the amount of word of mouth customers engage in. Read through the following techniques to create your own word-of-mouth campaign.
1. Create a connection with customers
When working on your word-of-mouth campaign, you want to try to connect with your clients on a personal basis. Perhaps, you share your personal story on your website or social media that explains how you created the company. This can create a personal connection with clients that will make them more likely to come back.
Another great way to create a connection is by talking about your company’s values. For example, you can talk about your work on environmental stability and donate some money to a local environmental organization. By aligning yourself with you customers’ values, they will want to spend their money at your business and will tell their friends to do the same.
2. Provide quality services and experiences
Make sure that your staff is fully trained in customer service and knows how to engage the customer in friendly conversation. Having staff that will go the extra mile for a customer can create a kinship with your customers that they will want to tell their friends and family about.
Also, doing things like having creative window displays or a gift with purchase is a great way to enhance the customer experience. You want to have things that are unique and that customers might want to talk about. By putting a little effort into the actual customer experience, your business can increase the amount of word-of-mouth marketing it experiences.
3. Build a good social media following
Having a good social media following is one of the most important aspects of running a business in this day and age. By spending time and effort on creating engaging posts, you can increase the number of followers you have which is a great way of increasing your customer base.
For example, having posts that customers want to share with friends might bring more people to your business, which means your word-of-mouth marketing campaign is successful.
4. Collaborate with others
This can be done on social media or with neighbouring businesses. Having a good relationship with neighbouring businesses or others on social media will show customers that you are confident in your business and you never know where your next customer will come from.
An example of this is to have a similar promotion as a business online or in person. This way you can both refer clients to the other and both businesses will see the benefits of this type of word-of-mouth marketing.
Customers will often trust another business if they know that one of their favourite brands already trusts them. It might seem counterintuitive to have other businesses promote you, but it can be highly effective.
5. Collect online reviews
Having a place where you save online reviews is a way to get the good word about your business out while being able to switch up what customers see on your website or social media.
For example, you could have a file of different positive reviews and every once in a while post them to social media. This would mean you can get more mileage out of those good reviews and use different types of reviews for different occasions. You never know what type of review will appeal to different customers, so having a variety of reviews to choose from can be handy when using word of mouth.
The above techniques are a great way to use word of mouth to your advantage. Make sure to always switch up techniques so that customers always have something new to say.
Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most effective and cheapest ways to find new customers. It can help you reach audiences that you never thought of and bring in clients from around the world. When you are able to use word-of-mouth marketing effectively, it can be a successful way of ensuring success.
Related: How to Grow Your Business
