Generating Word of Mouth

As a business owner you need to constantly ask yourself - "What are you doing to make sure your potential ambassadors feel confident enough in your business to recommend it?"

What are you doing to trigger word-of-mouth?

Here are some tips to help you generate word-of-mouth:

Word-of-mouth is triggered when a customer experiences something far beyond what was expected. Slightly exceeding their expectations just won't do it. You've got to go above and beyond the call of duty if you want your customers to talk about you.

Don't depend on your staff to trigger word-of-mouth by delivering "exceptional customer experience." Good customer service is sporadic, even in the best establishments. The customer who receives exceptional service today can't be sure their friends will receive the same tomorrow, so even the most well-served are unlikely to put their necks on the line and make a recommendation. Deep down, customers know service comes from an individual, not from an establishment. And even the best people have bad days.

Physical, nonverbal statements are the most dependable in triggering word-of-mouth. These statements can be architectural, kinetic or generous, but they must go far beyond the boundaries of what's normal. If you don't want to be average, why do you insist on being normal? Here are some examples of these statements:

•Architectural. The piano store that looks like a huge piano, with black and white keys forming the long awning over the long front porch. The erupting volcano outside the Mirage in Las Vegas. A glass-bottom floor that allows customers to see what's happening on the floor below them. Do you remember when McDonalds began building attached playgrounds to all their restaurants? It's worked like magic for more than 20 years.

•Kinetic. The tossing of fresh fish from one employee to another at Pike Place Market in Seattle. The magical, twirling knives of the tableside chefs at Benihana. Kissing the codfish when you get "screeched in" at any pub in Newfoundland. (A screech is a loud and funny ceremony during which non-Newfoundlanders down a shot of cheap rum, repeat some phrases in the local dialect and kiss a codfish. Everyone who visits that wonderful island returns home with a story of being "screeched in.") While it may at first seem like a kinetic word-of-mouth trigger is a violation of #2 above, "Don't depend on your staff...," it's really not. A kinetic word-of-mouth trigger is constantly observable by management. It isn't a "customer service" experience delivered privately, one on one.

•Generous. Are you willing to become known as the restaurant that allows its guests to select--at no charge--their choice of desserts from an expensive dessert menu? You can cover the hard cost of it in the prices of your entrees and drinks. Flour, butter and sugar are cheap advertising. Are you the jewelry store that's willing to become known for replacing watch batteries at no charge, even when the customer hasn't purchased anything and didn't buy the watch from your store? Word will spread. And watch batteries cost less than any type of advertising.
Architectural, kinetic, generous: These are the flour, butter and sugar of effective word-of-mouth. Will you put these rich ingredients into the mouths of your potential word-of-mouth ambassadors?

Budget to deliver the experience that will trigger word-of-mouth. Sometimes your word-of-mouth budget will be incremental, so that its cost is tied to your customer count. Other times it'll require a capital investment, so that repayment will have to be withheld from your advertising budget over a period of years. The greatest danger isn't in overspending but in under spending. Under spending on a word-of-mouth trigger is like buying a ticket that only takes you halfway to Europe.

Don't promise it in your ads. Although it's tempting to promise the thing you're counting on to trigger word-of-mouth, these promises will only eliminate the possibility of your customers becoming your ambassadors. Why would a customer repeat what you say about yourself in your ads? You must allow your customers to deliver the good news. Don't rob your ambassadors of their moment in the sun.

What does a Word-of-Mouth Campaign look like?

A Word-of-Mouth Campaign is an integrated combination of documents, materials and events that are designed to facilitate the best possible recommendations about a client's product from people most likely to influence a positive outcome — well beyond what would be communicated by "natural" means.

Why do you need a deliberate campaign, if your product is superior and people are talking about it positively already?

Because you can multiply the effects of word of mouth if you encourage people, help them articulate what they are feeling, and provide the means and opportunities for them to express their evangelism. What happens naturally is only a small fraction of what could happen with a few simple steps on your part.

Each of these elements may look quite different for different types of products, services and ideas. But they all give people the motivation, means and/or message to talk about the product. Many of these are closely related and blend seamlessly into each other. The specifics are a matter of considerable creativity.

When you look at the following list of unconnected elements, you will probably realise that you are already doing many of these things. Please keep in mind that we are talking here about a campaign: an organized set of coordinated activities. Companies typically don’t do the following things enough, and they don't coordinate them into an integrated whole, with each element reinforcing each other, as the core of their marketing program.

Since word of mouth is 1000X as powerful as the rest of marketing put together, why shouldn’t it be the core, now that we have the communications tools to influence it?

This is a partial list of elements to give you a sense of what we mean when we talk about word-of-mouth campaigns. Yours will be different.

Designing the product for a word-of-mouth campaign.

Figuring out both the product attributes and the message that describes the product in a way that is easily repeatable, compelling and persuasive. It must encapsulate the unique value proposition in a way that people will want to — and be able to — tell each other.

Stimulating and collecting the right testimonials/endorsements at all levels: customer, influencers, experts.

Teaching employees how to get testimonials and working them into existing materials.

Tuning every conventional marketing program (advertising, direct mail, sales materials, etc.) to convey and stimulate word of mouth.

Incorporating word of mouth into conventional marketing media. Quotes, testimonials, endorsements, ratings, etc. Using that media to stimulate further word of mouth.

Asking for word of mouth

At all points of communication, finding ways to ask for — and motivate — recommendations.

“Tell a friend” programs
Motivating people to bring in new customers through reward programs. Customer referral programs.

Supporting present customers in spreading the word.
Providing support (materials, events, phone lines, fax back services, web pages) for customers who want to get their friends to try the product.

Market seeding programs
Placing product with key influencers in the marketplace and getting them to recommend the product/service to their sphere of influence.

Canned word of mouth — videos, audio, etc.
Delivering your customer recommendations through brochures, audio, video, the Web, etc.

Customer networking programs
Bringing your customers and prospects into a formal or informal network to spread the word.

Affiliation programs.
Formally joining your customers and your company together in a mutually beneficial way, giving you an opportunity to influence word of mouth, and customers an opportunity to spread it among themselves.

Discussion groups
Designing discussion groups via the web, teleconferences, etc.

Preferred customer programs
Rewarding present customers to make them feel like “insiders.”

Advisory groups, user groups, etc.
Bringing customers into advisory groups and user groups to stimulate each others’ enthusiasm.

Internet programs to amplify word of mouth.
Using the internet, particularly e-mail and list groups to regularly communicate with customers and get them to circulate information to their sphere of influence.

Outrageous story program
If you want them to talk, give them something to talk about — every day. Create stories that support the main value proposition and will be repeated. Use public relations (and other means) to spread the stories

Articles, third party endorsements.
An organized program to place favorable articles and get actual or implied endorsements.

Usage in places that will imply word of mouth endorsement.
Placing the product in places and used by people that will imply endorsement.

Creating and implementing events that will foster word of mouth.
Seminars parties, conferences, swap meets. Anything that will bring customers together.

Training programs
Using training programs to spread word of mouth.

Service programs
Organized program to use service calls to stimulate word of mouth.

Employee word-of-mouth programs
Organized program to get your employees to engage in word of mouth.

Networking
Actively using existing networks (including your own ad hoc networks) to stimulate referrals.

Customer satisfaction programs
Using customer satisfaction programs to stimulate word of mouth. Then, using the results to further stimulate word of mouth.

Rating services programs
Actively (and ethically) influencing outside rating services to rate your product higher.

About this Blog

Word-of-Mouth Publicity, WOM as it is commonly known, is the least expensive form of advertising and often the most effective. People believe what their friends, neighbors, and online contacts say about you, your products, and services. And they remember it for a long, long time.

Word-of-mouth promotion is highly valued. There is no more powerful form of marketing than an endorsement from one of your current customers. A satisfied customer's recommendation has much greater value than traditional advertising because it is coming from someone who is familiar with the quality of your work.

The best part is that initiating this form of advertising costs little or no money. For WOM to increase your business, you need an active plan in place and do what is necessary to create buzz. If your business is on the Web, there are myriads of possibilities for starting a highly successful viral marketing campaign using the Internet, software, blogs, online activists, press releases, discussion forums and boards, affiliate marketing, and product sampling.
Technology has dramatically changed traditional marketing programs.

This blog covers it all.

This all sounds great, but what is the catch? There really is none, except you must know what you are doing!

The entire process of getting you starting and sustaining is covered here: marketing, dealing with negative customer experience, writing online press releases, creating a customer reference program, bringing together a fan club/loyalist community, naming VIPs, using flogs (photos), and spurring evangelism among influential people. Included are tactics that pertain especially to non-profits, including reputation management. In addition, you'll find here, today's most successful WOM marketers.
Aside from learning the basics you will be privy to their secrets and proven successful ideas.

If you are interested in learning essentially everything there is to know about WOM and start earning enormous profits, then this is the blog for you.