  People are naturally inclined to talk about their likes and dislikes, and to share their experiences with others they care about. (John Foxx/Stockbyte/Getty) |
Word of mouth marketing is about encouraging others to talk about you, harnessing their excitement and their positive experiences of you. Effective word of mouth is usually spontaneous, and the fact that someone volunteers information or honest feedback or opinion is what makes it valuable. People have a tendency to listen to and trust people they like, so building on the ‘any friend of yours is a friend of mine’ is a smart thing to do.
The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) www.womma.org lists ten types of word of mouth marketing (and suggests that that is just a partial list). Who knew there were so many, right?
Some examples of word-of-mouth include:
Buzz Marketing which consists of using high-profile people or television personalities, entertainment or news to get people to talk about your brand.
Viral Marketing invovles creating entertaining or informative messages that are designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion, often electronically or by email.
Influencer Marketing identifies key communities and opinion leaders who are likely to talk about products and have the ability to influence the opinions of others.
Product Seeding places the right product into the right hands at the right time, providing information or samples to influential individuals.
People are naturally inclined to talk about their likes and dislikes, and to share their experiences with others they care about. Feeling that they are saving someone else time, trouble, or money is also motivation for some people to use word-of-mouth. Because the word is usually being passed from one friend to another, trust is an issue. People are most likely to give honest opinions to those they care about and those people in return are likely to trust their friends to give them good advice and information. This very positive aspect of word-of-mouth marketing can also be damaging because when someone passes on negative feedback about you since those they are telling also trust that the not-so-flattering comments are true too.
Word of mouth marketing is based almost entirely on customer service. In order for someone to speak positively about you, or your product or service, they must have had a positive first-hand or personal experience with you, or your product or service. Keep in mind that someone who has never actually used your product can still sell it inadvertently, by saying positive things about you personally.
To encourage word of mouth marketing, you have to be deliberate about educating people about your products and services, ask for opinions (and then actually listen to the answers) and identify people who are most likely willing to share ideas and opinions. In addition, presenting yourself as someone who will give honest, constructive feedback to others is helpful too. One other way to encourage word of mouth is to provide reward or incentive to those who do pass on your name.
