Businesses and marketers employ a variety of free and paid marketing strategies to attract prospects and customers and increase revenue. However, they often tend to overlook a powerful area, which is word-of-mouth marketing. People rely a lot on recommendations from friends and family, customer reviews and rating, and suggestions made by influencers they follow and trust.
It is the authenticity of word-of-mouth that adds magic to it and makes people to trust it. So, it excels in bringing a lot of sales and conversions. It is also one of the cost effective and tangible marketing strategies that bring concrete returns and quantifiable results. However, to get people talking about your brand and convert them into your loyal customers, it has to be done right.
This blog discusses six marketing strategies to get your word-of-mouth promotions effective in 2021. But before that, let’s get to know the types of word-of-mouth marketing and how it works.
Types of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Word-of-mouth is a form of marketing that has existed since time immemorial. However, brands and businesses didn’t have much control over word-of-mouth promotions in those days. These were just natural instances where happy customers spread the word about a brand in their circle.
Today, with advanced marketing techniques and extensive social networking, word-of-mouth has evolved into an elaborate marketing technique. The growth of online communities has facilitated the easy conversation between people across the globe, hearing their suggestions, and reading their opinions.
It is categorized into two types- amplified word of mouth and organic word of mouth. The former is unpaid whereas the latter is paid. The former brings better results. However, both have their own benefits and should be incorporated into your strategy.
Organic word of mouth
When your users are happy about your brand or business, they naturally talk about it and share it among their circle. This is organic word-of-mouth marketing. It banks on brand enthusiasm and boosts conversions. In the modern era, organic word-of-mouth takes the shape of online reviews, comments, ratings, etc.
Amplified word of mouth
When you incentivize referrals using rewards, discounts, freebies, etc. or partner with influencers to promote word-of-mouth promotion of your brand, it is referred to as amplified word-of-mouth.
The Importance of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Word-of-mouth is a powerful marketing technique. This is because your credibility and market reputation increases when your customers talk favourably about your brand and recommend it to their circle.
Word-of-mouth exposures boost social engagement and buzz, build brand affinity and trust, and foster customer loyalty. Besides, these reach the older generations that aren’t adept at using the internet for making purchases.
Many studies have proven that a vast majority of consumers (more than 90%) trust brand and product recommendations from friends and family members before buying online. Some studies have found that many people (one study reports 88% of them) read online reviews and ratings before buying from an e-store.
However, despite its immense potential, word-of-mouth marketing is employed by only 33% of online businesses.
6 Effective Word of Mouth Strategies for your Business
1. Provide quality service and experiences
The ultimate key to the success of word-of-mouth strategy is to provide something worth talking about. The vast majority of consumers would be ready to spread a brand whose products, services, or experiences they are happy about.
So, make sure that you source and sell only high-quality products. And train your sales staff to treat your customers well and to ensure a thoroughly positive experience for them. You can leverage the following techniques to create functional and unique in-store experiences for customers.
- Visual merchandising: Plan, design and display products aesthetically to highlight their features and benefits to help the products sell themselves.
- Window displays: Creatively display selected products on your store’s bright and well-lit windows to catch the attention of passersby and turn them into buyers.
- Retail signage: Create quality signage for your business to get noticed, attract customers, and drive sales. Use your retail signage on your brick-and-mortar stores, websites, letter pads, emails, etc.
- Suggestive selling: This includes cross-selling and up-selling, where your salespeople motivate buyers to purchase more items that are complementary to purchase or select a more costly product altogether.
The key is to get your customers to love your products so that they recommend them to their family, friends, colleagues, and people on the internet.
2. Promote your brand’s a unique selling proposition
Unique and innovative products tend to go viral at a lightning-fast speed. Likewise, hot topics become trending quickly online. Having a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) helps you stand out of the crowd, get immense word-of-mouth exposure, and generate sales and revenue.
One of the best examples of USP is that of Dominos’. Their slogan went as “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less or it’s free.” As soon as Dominos’ made the deal official, it went viral in no time and became the talk of the town.
So, come up with an exciting, clear, concise, and value-providing USP for your brand and use it in your campaigns. While creating your USP, remember the following:
- Be specific and compelling offer: Rather than having a generic quote such as “Our products are of high-quality”, create something specific to stand out of the crowd and be memorable.
- Focus on what your customers value: Your USP should be something that your customers care about.
- Take it beyond a mere slogan: Your USP should be something that can manifest in other areas of your business, like your product pricing, shipping charges, return policy, etc.
Going by the above-given instructions will help craft a simple, yet powerful USP that will cement your position in your marketplace.
3. Encourage User-Generated Content
The content created and shared by people about a brand or its products/services is known as User-generated content (UGC). UGC is far more effective than brand advertisements as they aid the audience in perceiving your brand as more authentic.
Your UGC can take different shapes like reviews, comments, ratings, blogs, testimonials, photos, infographics, videos, etc. These are trustworthy and memorable; and can be an exciting avenue for improving your word-of-mouth marketing.
So, do consider incentivizing and sharing UGC through giveaways and reposts. Prominently display customer testimonials on your website. Provide people with a hashtag to curate those posts that you want them to talk about on social media.
If you are running an e-commerce site, do empower your customers to rate, review and comment on each product listed. Most buyers look for these before making a purchase. While people buy only if there are 4-star ratings and praising reviews, people only trust sites that also have a few negative reviews.
So, encourage buyers to post reviews and visual content (like the videos or photos of them using your product). Ask for these as soon as the product gets delivered to them so that they review your product before their excitement dies.
All these will help build business reputation, customer loyalty, and increase conversions.
4. Partner with influencers
Another sure-fire way to boost word-of-mouth promotions, generate trust and credibility, and build your brand’s reputation is influencer marketing. Go for a celebrity or influencer in your niche who has a decent following on social media. Request him or her to talk about your brand on his or her channel.
You may have to pay the influencer a reasonable amount that can add up substantially over a while. So, paying someone on social media is quite an expensive thing. There are also other ways to get them to be your brand advocates. These include:
- Product gifting: Send one or a few of your products for free to your choice influencers to motivate them to talk about it online. However, do not demand or expect anything in return for that gift. If they share about your brand, it would be great. If not, try someone else or some other tactic.
- Connecting them with a worthy cause: Influencers often want to exhibit their favor for causes they believe in. You can make use of this in getting their word-of-mouth exposure for your brand. For instance, if your business deals with organic produce, partner with an influencer who supports organic eating and healthy living.
- Giveaways: Partner with one or more influencers to provide the followers of that influencer with something free. For instance, some influencers on YouTube talk about a brand and announce coupon codes, which their followers can use to avail a discount on that brand’s products.
5. Build a Social Media Community
Social media networks are excellent word-of-mouth marketing channels. Studies say that 71% of consumers tend to buy based on social media referrals. A single happy customer on Facebook, for instance, can influence hundreds of users there to purchase the same product.
You can gain more word-of-mouth referrals by building your own social media community. For, communities on social media foster a feeling of sociability around shared goals and interests. They also increase visibility, promote engagement, build trust and attract followers, inspire customers, and connect people to your brand.
Start conversing with your customers and prospects on different social media and messaging platforms. If outsourcing this step would be convenient for you, partner with a marketer or a marketing firm (depending on the size of your consumer base).
Ensure that your marketing team responds quickly, aptly, and concerning any queries or concerns posted by consumers on these UGC platforms. Only when you ensure such a good experience for the consumers, they will actively share your brand or business with their circle.
You can even share a series of topics in your niche over social media channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. Make sure that you stand out of the crowd by posting unique and interesting subjects which people would be inspired to share.
6. Show your care
Showing your consumers that you care for them can generate word-of-mouth promotions for your brand. For, it assures customers that they have made the right choice by doing business with you. Here are several ways to do it.
- Involve them in your brand’s development process: Get to know their experiences and stories that can help you in improving your products, customer services, etc., and thus in adding value to your brand. Asking their opinions would let them know that you value their feedback. You can send out post-purchase surveys to gather their feedback.
- Live stream with subject matter specialists: Livestream useful videos in your niche with subject matter specialists. For instance, if your brand deals with organic agricultural produce, you may bring in experts to talk about the harms of specific chemicals in inorganic farm produce, the goodness of organic produce, how to grow plants organically at home, etc.
- Thank them: Send your customers a handwritten thank you note along with their order. You may wish them to have a nice day. This will let them know that you value them more than their money.
- Remember their big days: Wish your customers a personalized message on their birthdays, anniversaries, etc. This can improve your relations and keep your customers coming back to you. Use automation software to take care of this effortlessly.
There are also other ways like focusing on customer service, giving discounts, etc. that can show your care for your customers.
Wrapping up
Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful technique to boost social engagement and buzz, build brand affinity and trust, and promote customer loyalty in a cost-effective and tangible manner. It is the authenticity of word-of-mouth that generates people’s trust. You need to get your word-of-mouth marketing right to get people talking about your brand and become your loyal customers.
So, follow our six effective strategies- providing quality service and experiences, promoting your brand’s unique selling proposition, encouraging User-Generated Content, partnering with influencers, building a social media community, and showing your care for them.
