Word of Mouth Marketing
Word of Mouth Marketing
Word of mouth marketing? There is nothing to it. All of your customers think the world of you, talk about you endlessly to their friends, family and colleagues who, as you relax on your million dollar yacht in the Bahamas, are falling over themselves to give you all of their hard earned cash.
In the real world it is about enticing your customers and others to recommend your business, products and/or services effectively and widely enough that old, new and existing customers buy from you. It is like selling to one person who then sells on to two, three, four or more who, without favour, prejudice or commission, repeats the process.
Never Easy
The more persuasive, positive messages circulating about your businesses the more sales you will make. How to achieve this effectively will vary from one business to the next. It is never easy but you would get bored if it was.
Endorsements
Marketers seek to persuade the public to buy their client’s products and services through endorsements from trusted, highly thought of sports, film, TV stars and media personalities. Word of Mouth is more effective than endorsement because it often comes from someone known to the prospective purchaser. The amount of weight the recommendation carries depends upon the trust and respect you have for the person giving you the recommendation. You are more likely to be persuaded by your best friend telling to buy something than the company selling it.
Trust
Word of Mouth is persuasive as it is based upon an element of trust. The strength of the recommendation is based upon its source and detail. That is not to say your best friend is the person you'll always listen to when it comes to making a purchasing decision. You might place more faith in your accountant, doctor, solicitor or some other professional.
Word of Web® (or ‘Wow’) is winning your customers and potential customers trust by publishing recommendations from the purchasers themselves without charge to, or expecting favours from, the business being recommended.
Customer Testimonials
Self-published customer testimonials can be effective and are worth having. The downside is that they lack credibility. You could open a forum or a chat site but this can be highly risky as disgruntled customers and employees may use this medium to voice their opinions in the most destructive way. You could try to control this yourself but censorship will put you back to square one. To add credibility without endangering your good name your testimonials need to come from Word of Web®.
Detail
The level of detail is important. Let us say you are looking to buy jewellery for your partner. Do you shop with a jewellers described as 'really good' or one that 'offers great service, a wide a range of jewellery and is price competitive"?
If you are looking to buy a gold ring then the same review with details of what the jewellery specialises in (in this case gold rings) would probably get you on the phone if not in the shop. Wow offers web pages to allow you to fill in the blanks and provide more detail.
Bad Word of Mouth
Bad Word of Mouth is the dark side of Word of Mouth. It is invaluable albeit hard to take. The best reviews are usually the negative ones. That said, nobody wants to air their dirty laundry in public. Word of Web®.does not publish negative reviews. Word of Web® strives to be a source of reliable and quality businesses. Wow is not looking to scare people away from a business because of what could have been an isolated occurrence. For more on the dark side see Bad Word of Mouth.
Word of Web®
Word of Web® assists you to obtain customer recommendations and feedback and publishes the recommendations on the internet. Word of Web® is word of mouth recommendations on the web. Wow established itself a few years ago focused on the Lower North Shore in Sydney. Since then Wow has grown to embrace most of Sydney and have commenced collecting reviews from exotic places such as Melbourne.
How do you generate customer recommendations?
1 Set up a link to Word of Web® on your emails and website with an email address (which will be supplied to you) and encourage your customers to send their reviews or feedback. You may wish to add that the review can be an anonymous and any serious issues or problems should still be directed to yourselves.
2. Word of Web® will draft your own web page to complete any gaps in the reviews received and provide additional information and/or a link back to your businesses website.
3 Wow can supply you with its standard review cards or customise them to more closely reflect your business. A sample of the standard card is available at no cost.
4 There is also the direct route. Most customers are happy to respond to a brief "how are we doing" enquiry and may even appreciate being asked.
What does it all mean?
See separate piece on Bad Word of Mouth and Customer Feedback but the flip side of Word of Mouth is the potentially valuable information it can generate for your business. Word of Web® is in a position to collate that information for you and help you make some sense of it. You can never know too much about what your customers really think of you.
How much?
Links and emails to Wow - FREE
Publish initial reviews received - FREE
Anything else – Enquire
Bottom Line
Most businesses recognise that Word of Mouth is a powerful marketing tool but do little to utilise it. You do not have to wait and hope that someone will ask one of your happy customers before they have time to forget what a great job you did for them. You can do more and Word of Web® can help you to do it.
Word of Mouth Marketing - To learn more about this author, visit Colin Simmons's Website.
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Nothing to it..
Word of mouth marketing? There is nothing to it. All of your customers think the world of you, talk about you endlessly to their friends, family and colleagues who, as you relax on your million dollar yacht in the Bahamas, are falling over themselves to give you all of their hard earned cash.
In the real world it is about enticing your customers and others to recommend your business, products and/or services effectively and widely enough that old, new and existing customers buy from you. It is like selling to one person who then sells on to two, three, four or more who, without favour, prejudice or commission, repeats the process.
Never Easy
The more persuasive, positive messages circulating about your businesses the more sales you will make. How to achieve this effectively will vary from one business to the next. It is never easy but you would get bored if it was.
Endorsements
Marketers seek to persuade the public to buy their client’s products and services through endorsements from trusted, highly thought of sports, film, TV stars and media personalities. Word of Mouth is more effective than endorsement because it often comes from someone known to the prospective purchaser. The amount of weight the recommendation carries depends upon the trust and respect you have for the person giving you the recommendation. You are more likely to be persuaded by your best friend telling to buy something than the company selling it.
Trust
Word of Mouth is persuasive as it is based upon an element of trust. The strength of the recommendation is based upon its source and detail. That is not to say your best friend is the person you'll always listen to when it comes to making a purchasing decision. You might place more faith in your accountant, doctor, solicitor or some other professional.
Word of Web® (or ‘Wow’) is winning your customers and potential customers trust by publishing recommendations from the purchasers themselves without charge to, or expecting favours from, the business being recommended.
Customer Testimonials
Self-published customer testimonials can be effective and are worth having. The downside is that they lack credibility. You could open a forum or a chat site but this can be highly risky as disgruntled customers and employees may use this medium to voice their opinions in the most destructive way. You could try to control this yourself but censorship will put you back to square one. To add credibility without endangering your good name your testimonials need to come from Word of Web®.
Detail
The level of detail is important. Let us say you are looking to buy jewellery for your partner. Do you shop with a jewellers described as 'really good' or one that 'offers great service, a wide a range of jewellery and is price competitive"?
If you are looking to buy a gold ring then the same review with details of what the jewellery specialises in (in this case gold rings) would probably get you on the phone if not in the shop. Wow offers web pages to allow you to fill in the blanks and provide more detail.
Bad Word of Mouth
Bad Word of Mouth is the dark side of Word of Mouth. It is invaluable albeit hard to take. The best reviews are usually the negative ones. That said, nobody wants to air their dirty laundry in public. Word of Web®.does not publish negative reviews. Word of Web® strives to be a source of reliable and quality businesses. Wow is not looking to scare people away from a business because of what could have been an isolated occurrence. For more on the dark side see Bad Word of Mouth.
Word of Web®
Word of Web® assists you to obtain customer recommendations and feedback and publishes the recommendations on the internet. Word of Web® is word of mouth recommendations on the web. Wow established itself a few years ago focused on the Lower North Shore in Sydney. Since then Wow has grown to embrace most of Sydney and have commenced collecting reviews from exotic places such as Melbourne.
How do you generate customer recommendations?
1 Set up a link to Word of Web® on your emails and website with an email address (which will be supplied to you) and encourage your customers to send their reviews or feedback. You may wish to add that the review can be an anonymous and any serious issues or problems should still be directed to yourselves.
2. Word of Web® will draft your own web page to complete any gaps in the reviews received and provide additional information and/or a link back to your businesses website.
3 Wow can supply you with its standard review cards or customise them to more closely reflect your business. A sample of the standard card is available at no cost.
4 There is also the direct route. Most customers are happy to respond to a brief "how are we doing" enquiry and may even appreciate being asked.
What does it all mean?
See separate piece on Bad Word of Mouth and Customer Feedback but the flip side of Word of Mouth is the potentially valuable information it can generate for your business. Word of Web® is in a position to collate that information for you and help you make some sense of it. You can never know too much about what your customers really think of you.
How much?
Links and emails to Wow - FREE
Publish initial reviews received - FREE
Anything else – Enquire
Bottom Line
Most businesses recognise that Word of Mouth is a powerful marketing tool but do little to utilise it. You do not have to wait and hope that someone will ask one of your happy customers before they have time to forget what a great job you did for them. You can do more and Word of Web® can help you to do it.
Word of Mouth Marketing - To learn more about this author, visit Colin Simmons's Website.
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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