Traffic Blaster

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If your company is currently successful, you might not see the need for a word of mouth campaign.Each month you make a larger amount of sales, and your customers seem to be entirely pleased with your company.Here is the real deal…if you don’t employ a word of mouth campaign, your sales won’t grow as fast.  This is the case even if you use more expensive advertising methods, such as television or radio.

With that being said, how do you create a successful word of mouth campaign?  Well, you need to think about two audiences: your customers or clients along with your employees.

Ideally, your customers will be the easiest of this entire group.This is due to the fact that there are a plethora of marketing research tools available to you.These could range from online surveys to an offline consumer survey.

So, surveying your employees will be a little harder, though you can use researching tools more than once.  So, it’s not that there’s a lack of resources available for you, but rather the fact that some companies don’t think about employee satisfaction as much as they think about customer satisfaction. 

Many businesses still promote the old saying: the customer is always right.If you want the most success, think of this point, although customers bring in most of your profit, employees keep your business going.Something to think about, if your employees aren’t happy, chances are they won’t make your customer satisfied either. 

With that being said, you’ll need to know the basics behind conducting an employee-based word of mouth campaign.  Fortunately, the principles aren’t much different than a consumer-oriented word of mouth campaign, though you’ll have to use a different mindset.You want your existing employees to feel excited about your business, but you want them talk about your company to others in a positive way.

For example, some companies give incentives based on an employee’s performance.If they sell a certain number of products, or if they get the highest customer satisfaction report, they receive extra cash incentive to keep up the good work.  

Consider my own personal experience with my last employer, (a SEO writing firm).If writers got all their work in on time, they got some form of incentive.As a result, employees more productive and they also felt more respect for the company.So, they got an opportunity to work from home and get even more incentives.  This created a type of psychological bond that encouraged them to spread even more buzz about the company.

In many respects marketing by word of mouth can be said to be the “hidden statistic” for all programs, as it’s well near impossible to actually gauge the effectiveness of marketing done this way. It should be mentioned that every product in this digital age has relied on this marketing methodology to drive public awareness of a product or service.

A recent study exemplified that two thirds of online marketing is expected to be done this way next year, which when coupled with the advent in leaps of Web 2.0.0 social networking and social marketing sites point towards promoting your product by word of mouth may be both more cost effective, and have an increasingly better ROI than more “traditional” online advertising media.

Consider the business model of any of the current online social networking sites. There has yet to be a successful site of this type that charges monthly, relying instead as they do on ad generated income. While there is no metric that can be used to measure marketing by word of mouth, there is one method of knowing if your campaign is worth while – sales.

A company must know from their output exactly the difference between pre campaign, during a campaign and post campaign. This in itself gives businesses a measurable statistic to show effectiveness of this marketing methodology. It is true that not all businesses need or desire this form of sales technique, but is also through that not one business turns away prospects garnered from the by word of mouth method either.

Whatever you sell, a great study completed by Hill and Knowlton in February this year showed that decision makers are largely influenced by personal experience’s (58%), with recommendations and industry reports coming in at 51%. Coming in third was direct marketing at 21% with internet advertising at 17%. These figures may only reflect the purchasing habits of key decision makers, but a young lady in Oregon deciding to buy one car insurance or another IS the key decision maker for that purchase, and her buddy Becky telling her to go with this company over that company will have a greater influence than any gravel-voiced actor pushing the product in a TV advert.

In essence, this statistic may be calculated into any industry, any niche, if every person is classified as the key decision maker. This makes the re-appearance of the world’s oldest method of marketing a no brainer – so get talking or tweeting, but tell everyone!

The implication of sales by word of mouth is that influence has been exerted on a decision making process to alter a previously held view, or to be made aware of a new position or product, on a specific subject matter, be it tangible or not. These types of statements are ambiguous, as nothing in anyone else’s mind can be taken as a fact. What does this determine?

An example of sales by word of mouth would be a personal experience relating to an event or an imparted understanding. John went to have his oil changed, but when he got to the service provider, he was alerted to other defects in his vehicle that needed to be rectified for the vehicle to be driven safely. Now, knowing that the service station took higher than normal care of their clients prompts John to recommend them to a co-worker, April, who uses that station as her service provider for the next time she needs a vehicle service. That’s a basic word of mouth sale, as far as the service station is concerned.

The ancillary products and services provided are also benefactors from this sale, as consumables are also used to complete April’s vehicle service, thereby continuing to bring an extension of consumption into a multi-level business transaction. From the illustration above, you can see how sales by word of mouth can snowball to other areas also, which is the main reason why all industries should take heed of this strategy and plan accordingly.

It’s worth noting here that almost all large, successful companies have at some time or another, usually at inception, relied on purely word of mouth sales to drive their business – and those that grew this way are shown to have a greater life span, and the accompanying ability to weather most if not all economic storms, successfully.

The ability to gather word of mouth sales frequently is a combination of exceeding customer's expectations with a high quality product or service which is offered at a reasonable price point, which then in turn translated into high consumer satisfaction.

Sales by word of mouth is probably the most influential of all types of sales, for the simplest of reasons – people do not recommend bad products or services. This in itself has been the downfall of many companies through the years, so it is definitely to be taken seriously for all types of marketing and sales.

There are several ways that you can use word of mouth advertising to your advantage. Word of mouth advertising is what you can achieve by simply how well treat your clients and customers, they will do the rest for you.

Word of mouth is one of the quickest ways to gain new clients. It is also one of the oldest ways, which means that it has been tested and re-tested for a very long time. Word of mouth will allow you to make sure that you have what it takes for advertising, because it is the most easy way for people to talk about you and for others to be introduced to your company. Word of mouth advertising happens when someone says something good about you, or passes on a story about you, to someone else. This is free advertising – you aren't paying anything for it, and you are reaping the benefits of it.

There are a few ways to make sure that word of mouth works in the right manner for you. Make sure that you are doing something that sets you apart from your competition, this is a key factor. If you can be controversial or unique, or if you can do something that others find interesting, you'll be someone that everyone is talking about. The more that everyone talks about you, the more that they are going to see your company brand and the more that you are going to increase your sales.

Another way that you can benefit from this specific is by encouraging others to spread the news about your company. You can offer them incentives for talking about you or your company, and the quicker you reward them, the better. Much of the time, these things known as testimonials, otherwise called referrals, are great ways to make sure that people are spreading the word about you.

By far, the best way to use this form of advertising is just to make sure that people know about you and that they have the chance to talk about. Remember that you can get a negative reputation as well, and if that happens, the word of mouth advertising that is done can actually harm you. Keep in mind, its always best to provide your customers and clients with the very best that they can get, and to make sure that each experience is one that is worth talking about - this will encourage more great word of mouth!!!

Do you really need viral marketing software? Let’s review the five best elements of any effective strategy. After you learn these, you may realize that what you require is something completely different.

Give something useful for free. What you choose to give might be simply information, an ebook or even software. For example, you might offer a free download of a “basic” software program that you have created. However, to get the “premium” version or membership, the customer would have to pay for it.

Quite a number of video game providers use this method. You can play their games free on the web, but to get certain features, you must buy their “complete” version. People that love the game and get addicted to it in the trial, will often pay for the extended version. Viral marketing software cannot tell you what to give away. Only you or a company that offers personalized service can determine that.

The second element is to design a method that allows your specific offer to be transmitted from a single person to everyone they know. Typically, this is done via e-mail. The information gathered from numerous surveys prove that when people find relevant, interesting infomation on the Internet, they share it with an average of six people. You can see how the number of people that you can contact grows exponentially, which makes the next element very important.

You must be able to effortless and effectively handle the increased influx of business. Quite often, this would mean that you need an auto-responder. You may need to upgrade your website to handle the traffic or increase your stock, if you are selling an item. If you are providing a service, you will need to figure out what your ability is to handle new clients. Is is possible that viral marketing software do that? No.

The fourth element is to benefit from common reactions. So, for example, a reaction to a picture of food that looks tasty is hunger. If you sell food, you want photos in your e-mails and on your websites that are “appetizing”. Another great example is the “what will it do for me” mentality. People don’t want to know that a car has reinforced side beams. They really just want to be sure that the car will be as safe as possible in the event of a collision or accident. Tell a person what your product will do for them and you will have a customer.

Lastly, is to become part of and use existing communication networks to gain an advantage. That’s the one thing that viral marketing software might be able to do for you. For various reasons, it cannot provide the tools that you need for a highly successful campaign.