In part one of our series on word of mouth tactics, we talked about making your customers’ purchasing experience shorter and easier. Today, we’re going to expand on that theme and explain more about the power of word of mouth and how to mold it to your advantage.
Trusting The Expertise Of Others
It’s human nature to seek guidance before making a decision. People look for an advisor to share their expertise so we make the right decisions. This is how word of mouth works. By understanding everything that’s involved, you’ll better understand the advantages.
Remember this path when trying to understand this marketing tactic:
- Accelerate the decision making process, leading to increased profits
- Make the process easier to accelerate it
- Skip low-ball advertising and the used car salesman approach
- Deliver on your word of mouth promises.
The Reality Of Traditional Advertising
You could rely just on traditional advertising, but that only draws about one response for every thousand ads. Even worse, most of these ads ask customers for information before they make a purchase. This doesn’t encourage a purchase.
Instead, when you get information from a friend, you’re more likely to trust them and act. Compared to traditional advertising, word of mouth yields two purchases for every five recommendations. That’s a massive difference!
Establishing A Relationship
Let’s break down what word of mouth is. It’s a communication that happens between a customer and a potential customer. Usually, there’s a pre-existing relationship and an established level of trust.
With traditional advertising, you’re providing a message to a potential customer. The customer doesn’t know you and there isn’t an established relationship or trust. So, who are they going to take advice from? The source they trust, of course.
This relationship and trust is exactly what makes word of mouth marketing so powerful. Let’s look at why it works so well:
- The referrer custom tailors the message to the needs of the customer
- It’s more personal, relevant and believable
- It comes from an actual customer
- It’s self-generating and takes on a life of its own
- It eventually becomes part of the product’s description
- It can be more effective when coming from an expert
- It’s cost effective, saving you time and money.
Understanding Word Of Mouth
To get all the advantages of word of mouth marketing, you have to understand three main things:
- Where is the word of mouth coming from?
- What products are being talked about?
- How are people sharing word of mouth recommendations?
Once you’ve answered these three questions, you have all you need to start developing a plan to trigger more natural word of mouth marketing. To learn even more about this tactic, check out part three of our series where we cover the nine levels of word of mouth.
Need help understanding word of mouth and how it affects your business? Contact us today to learn more.