How do you do word of mouth marketing?

Posted on June 25th, 2009 by Kindling Spirits and currently 1 commenting.

This post comes from Matt Reese (Keeper of the Gates)

This question came from a very nice woman I met at a cookout who was starting a company that specialized in home veterinary visits. It’s such an interesting question and there are a lot of different ways to answer it. You could focus on the tactics of word of mouth marketing, or talk about social media but I think what gets lost is what makes people talk about your product or service in the first place. For people to talk about you in an authentic way you have to give them a reason, and that reason should be how much they loved using your product or service.

Negative, positive and ambivalent word of mouth can happen for a lot of reasons but in general they fall into a few different categories. According to a study from Wilfrid Laurier University, which I think is right on point, people will engage in negative word of mouth for three reasons- anger, disappointment and regret. When people are angry, they’ll talk negatively about you to get revenge. If people are disappointed they’ll talk about you in a negative way to warn others and when people regret doing business with you they turn to their social circle to make themselves feel better. Then there are the customers who are merely satisfied- who won’t talk about you at all unless asked and even then their comments won’t exactly inspire anyone.

The people who will spread the word and preach to the streets how awesome you are, are the customers who are amazed by your product or service and also feel that they can trust you. These are the people that will stick by you when the economy sucks and these are the people that will help grow your roots and help you weather the storm so your tree isn’t the first to tumble. (Link to Tallest Trees Post)

Most examples of a company encouraging you to talk about them while simultaneously selling a sub par product are local, since most of those companies don’t make it long enough for others to find out about them. I’m sure you have your own but a great example in Greenville was a small shop that was so busy trying to convince people to talk about them, they forgot that people weren’t willing to pay eight dollars for a mediocre fried hot dog! Needless to say- they didn’t make it past a year.

Negative word of mouth is a killer for new businesses, it’s tough to overcome a loud critic of yours when there are only a few people talking about you. By the same token, having a loud a proud advocate of yours telling everyone about your service can be a huge boost to a new business. So before you focus the tactics of word of mouth, focus on having an amazing product or service that will blow customers minds without fail!