Word Of Mouth Marketing – getting it right.

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Word Of Mouth Marketing – Steps To Turn a trickle into a stampede

Word of mouth marketing creates an awareness campaign where your business information travels from person to person, creating a world wind of awareness. For a new business start-up, word of mouth marketing is often the best and most effective advertising method.  The best thing about word of mouth marketing is that it is free.

Newspaper print and classified ads can get very expensive, and have lost much of their effectiveness with the popularity of the internet. New business owners often can’t even consider radio or television advertising as a viable option as it can be very expensive though there are some very cost effective methods of promoting your business through the radio media if you know what you are doing and the stations are willing.

What generally is left for a home businesses or small start-up business owners is to to do to spread the word about their products and services?

Here are some steps that you can take to start a viral word of mouth marketing campaign about your business:

Acquaintances: Approach your friends, family and neighbors initially, followed by contacting other people you know in your community and beyond. To begin your campaign, you may take a broad approach to spread your information; ultimately streamlining your message to your target market. Do not bug the life of them going on and on about what you do and try to sell what you have to your friends and family as your relationship with them can break down.  Tell them about what you are doing now, how great your product and service is and mention one of your top special offers if you have any on.

If they are impressed or interested and want to be a client all the better, but the purpose of this is to get them to tell others about what you are offering.  If you are providing a service which you can offer to give them for free all the better, people like nothing more than a freebie and will tell everyone they know about it.  Offers could include a free manicure, pedicure, coaching session, massage etc and ask for a testimonial afterwards.

Networking: Both online and off, networking is the backbone of the word of mouth marketing. You need to have a large network to build a database of prospective customers. Find forums and other groups where your target market ‘hang out.’  Make regular postings, offer to help others out.  I am active on forums and on occasions I offer to help out other forum members.  If I offer my services the prospect gets some free coaching / mentoring / consulting however if they request my services (without my offer) or contact me with an enquiry then I will charge for my services.  Do not use the forums you join to push your services and products onto others as this is a fast way of getting a bad reputation and could lose you loads of business in the future.

Website: It’s the Internet age. Establish your website with good, focused keywords to get favorable results from the search engines. Ensure your website is user-friendly with easy navigation and complete updated information about everything regarding your business.  Better still use a Blog as your website or to support your website and keep it fresh and up to date.

Freebies: Everyone loves to get something free. Create a free report or ebook related to your idea or product and give it away to potential customers, asking them to give the item to their friends and family as well.  This is called Viral Marketing.  You give something of quality away and encourage people to pass it on in hope you get future business from end users.

Mail shots: You can use email or postcards or pamphlets about your business to inform your acquaintances prior to calling them.  Beware though some people do not like the amount of leaflets and pamphlets arriving through their door daily and will often put your promotional material straight in the bin. When designing promotional material decide what you want to say, make sure your message is clear, include a ‘call to action’.  If you are marketing to businesses dont sent your flyers into peoples homes and vise versa.  If you market to both personal and business users consider using more than one promotional leaflet and using the most appropriate to target the prospects.

Word of mouth marketing has stood the test of time and is effective for every business. There are simple, affordable methods of starting a viral marketing campaign that will spread like wild fire. By putting into place some or all of the ideas mentioned above, you can create a world of advertising for your business.

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