So, we’ve all recommended something to our friends and family. It could have been a recipe, a beer, some sort of software or tool, it happens all the time. These little conversations and praises actually happen a lot more than you’d think and if you didn’t know it, that’s called “Word of Mouth” marketing. You’ve probably heard of it, but did you ever stop to think about what that means, today?
Social is Word of Mouth too
Think about it, we’re in a ‘social’ world now. Everyone and everything seems to be connected in one way or another with something. We add locations as filters, we check-in, tag places, share playlists and openly review small businesses. We mention companies on Twitter when something is wrong and sometimes we use Facebook messenger for support. Oh yeah, we are still talking to each other too, right? Shit, I hope so, true word of mouth marketing does involve mouths, I guess.
The hard part of word of mouth is that we can get put on blast when we make any mistake. Take blunders by starbucks, where one year they had people arrested for being in their store, forcing and the entire company to get trained A year later, they asked cops to leave, triggering another shitstorm. Plus they can never win with their holiday cups.
Word of mouth only needs one word to work
It’s easy to think that the only mouth that matters would be that of an influencer. That would be dead wrong. Everyone influences someone. Not that influencer marketing can’t be valuable, but you don’t always have to make up some unicorn dish just to appeal to a single person that may or may not really care about what you do every day.
Generating word of mouth does involve the triggering of emotions, which leads to conversations. The idea is that the conversations are in a positive light and satisfactory tone. If people are pleased and delighted, they’ll keep coming back. The cycle continues.
What does that mean then, for a business owner who has to worry about an online presence and his ‘word of mouth customers? Do you just continue with the ways of the past, hell, it’s worked to this point? In a sense, that’s not wrong, you do need to continue to give people a reason to talk about your products or services and make it a damn good one too thanks. But, you also need to actively respond and react to your customers online. This can be difficult, too. On one hand customers can be completely unreasonable, on the other the best things ever. These small little interactions can have big impacts not only online but offline, as well, between many groups of people. These impacts drive conversions and overtime spread your word of mouth reach. That all makes sense, doesn’t it? No matter which service or product you’re providing, the overall impression you probably wish to make is a pleasant one or it better be at least, because most of the time you are being graded and people will know.
You know who does this well? Disney. The key reason that they’re so good at it is a simple change in mindset. They don’t have customers, they have guests. How you treat a guest is much warmer than a walking wallet. The key strategy isn’t something obtuse. It’s simple. Care.