Last night I’m eating dinner with my family. We got some hot wings from a local shop with a horrible location. Everyone’s talking about how much they love this wing shop but know it’s going to go out of business since they aren’t advertising and they have a horrible location.
Then my grandma says “we have to get the word out for them because word of mouth advertising is the best advertising.” Of course I kept my mouth shut because I don’t want to sound like a Mr. Knowitall OR WORSE contest my grandmothers ultimate knowledge of pretty much everything in the universe! 
However, I start thinking about word of mouth advertising and all the other sources I’d much rather use instead. Here’s my thoughts on word of mouth advertising…
Google Analytics Code In Your Mouth
Last I checked you can’t really copy/paste some analytics code into anyone’s mouths! This makes it very hard to track the effectiveness of any WOM marketing. One of my mentors, Matt Bacak, always said “No Numbers, No Business.”
What he meant was if you aren’t tracking your metrics in business then you don’t really have a business. People will argue but if I asked them for the ROI % on their latest WOM campaign they’d have their thumbs up their ass for a few weeks trying to figure out how to answer me.
What I love so much about Internet marketing and the rainbow of advertising sources that comes with it is that you can track them down to the penny. When I start a campaign for myself or a client, I can tell them how many impressions they had, how many blog mentions, twitter tweets, click throughs, opt-ins, sales, and blah blah blah.
With Internet advertising you can track everything which means knowing whether it was successful or not and how successful it or not it was. If you can’t track your marketing success then how do you know they are successes?
Confused Surgeons Are Pretty Scary
The other thing that bothers me about WOM marketing is; Where do you start? It’s like a surgeon standing over you and wondering where he should make his first slice. Then if he misses he makes another slice. How many slices before you bleed out?
I’m not saying WOM doesn’t have it’s place and that it doesn’t work. I do agree that when it does work it is very powerful. However, starting a WOM campaign is a lot like playing the lottery.
There are tools and systems you can start out with but really you’re still throwing a hail mary pass hoping that you’ll make the catch needed to rocket your business virally. My feeling is WOM became so popular because it’s the first and really the only thing a rookie entrepreneur knows how to do in a marketing sense.
They ask their friends and family to tell their friends and family. Then they hope and pray that it continues. Maybe it works for a little while but then how do you keep it going. Now you start using some flyers or something and tell your staff to tell your customers to bring someone new with them next time. Maybe that works too and you have another wave… If that wave dies then what?
Success with WOM is 100% possible but there are just so many more ways that have definite starting points and scalability. For example, Pay Per Click marketing…
With PPC I can go to Google Adwords, create a campaign, and have definite targetted visitors to my marketing materials within hours. Can you pinpoint target your WOM marketing?
“Hey Nana, please only tell your friends that are between the ages of 19 – 35, females, interested in teaching parrots to speak, and have incomes of $75,000 or more per year.
I can however target those specific traits if I wanted too with Internet advertising. Then if I wanted I could increase the volume multiple times to effectively double, triple, and quadruple my business. The whole time I’m tracking it’s effectiveness and tweaking the results to maximize profits.
Wrap Up
Word of mouth marketing is good for getting started, but if you don’t have something else in your marketing arsenal you’ll soon be word of mouthing how your business idea failed.
Comments & compliments go down below… For complaints please press ALT + FX
{ 67 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Justin
An old mentor of mine said ‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Same concept really I guess.
What frustrates me somewhat is that I do a lot of work with small business owners and their websites, and most of them don’t even know how much traffic they are getting to their website. So long as they can say that they have a website and it looks OK they are pretty much happy with that.
You must take some ownership of your website and the marketing that you are doing and know your numbers if you are ever going to be successful in business. The great thing about the internet is that the numbers are easy to track. The challenge with the internet is that there is so much information you must focus on what is important.
Absolutely man, it’s just impossible now a days to run a business and not take initiative to physically market that business.
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You can measure word-of-mouth, just not as accurately. I’m a copywriter, my application form asks “Where did you hear about me?” It’s often from a referral. I’m sure you’ve seen many campaigns ask for this information before.
Of course, not everyone will answer. But you may be able to extrapolate some based on your other data.
Word-of-mouth advertising may not be as easy to create… but the conversion rates are much higher. And that makes it one of the best forms of advertising.
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Yeah dude over lots of time some systems have been created. I’m not saying WOM is crap… Just that there are much more effective, easy, and trackable ways to market a business.
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I don’t think anyone has every said “I wanna start a WOM marketing campaign…” i don’t think you start them…
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I think you do a great job marketing withing your campaign (whatever channel that maybe, seo, ppc, social media, banners, whatever) & I believe that WOM is created if you have a product or service that people can get passionate & excited about.
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I’ll rarely jump out of my seat & run to a movie because I just watched a commercial. But if someone tells me the movie is good, I go watch it.
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Just like the movie Twilight, I didn’t buy into the buzz online & on TV, but I went to watch it SOLELY because you said it was the best thing since slice bread. The movie SUCKED but WOM did it’s thang
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Don’t take my word for it, look at what the big researchers say:
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http://asiapacific.acnielsen.com/news/20071002.shtml
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http://en-us.nielsen.com/main/news/news_releases/2007/october/Word-of-Mouth_the_Most_Powerful_Selling_Tool__Nielsen_Global_Survey
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When asked the questions “To What Extent Do You Trust the Following Forms of Advertising?”
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78% Recommendations from consumers
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Even our good ol buddy Joel Comm thinks the same thing:
http://www.joelcomm.com/the_webs_most_powerful_form_of_1.html
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Disclaimer = Justin & I are like Online BFF’s so it’s okay to have a little friendly debate.
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Alejandro Reyes’s last blog post..Successfool.com Turns One on April Fool’s Day – Birthday Bash LIVE ONLINE
“I don’t think anyone has every said “I wanna start a WOM marketing campaign…” i don’t think you start them… ”
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I’ve sat in on dozens of local business networking meetings and watched 90% of the room everytime say that WOM or referrals was their only source of marketing… Then in the next breath they would say how they need as much help with it as they can get because it’s not working good enough.
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Alejandro is an exception to the rule since he lives and breathes WOM
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I’ll rarely jump out of my seat & run to a movie because I just watched a commercial. But if someone tells me the movie is good, I go watch it.
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But the commercial is what got you to take the action of asking a friend how they liked it or to go read a review. The commerical is the one who started the marketing in that instance.
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WOM = best sales closer… Not best lead generator!
follow @justinbrooke on twitter
Nah you guys missed it and it’s right here in front of you:
>>>>>>>> Tilted avatar photos and either no hair or pointy hair styles – it’s the best advertising
Seriously, affiliate marketing seems to be hopping during the recession. I guess it’s at least better than the yellow pages…
Later bro,
Peter
Twit me up
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I can see your point to an extent but I agree with Alejandro… WOM isn’t on purpose it’s a viral thing. And besides, if WOM doesn’t work then why do you have a section on your blog asking people to tell others through Twitter if they like what they see on this blog? LOL!!
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And you know what it’s ridonkulously hard for me to track any success on whether that form is working or not. THAT is my case!
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I thought I was the only one that said “ridonkulous.”
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I just saw “I Love You Man” last weekend and one of the actors said it… Then I said exactly what you said! I guess it’s more popular then we thought. Glad to see you stop by, one of the best ladies in the game today.
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You’re not the only one Michelle. I say it too…
Found this on urban dictionairy:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ridonkulous
Word.
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Interesting article, and some good points. I’ve been looking into ways to track offline WOM for a while, and while it’s not as easy to track as online WOM, I still think it’s possible to get a good picture of how a “campaign” is going.
Studies (I think it was a Keller Faye one) have shown that offline WOM is responsible for 70-80% of total WOM, and is one of the top influencers in customer intent to purchase. Difficulty to track aside, this shows to me that it’s a field ripe with opportunities.
Tracking can be done in a couple of ways:
1. Asking customers how they heard about you
2. (If you have a word-of-mouth network platform, like BzzAgent.com), using a diary method and asking members to report their word-of-mouth interactions.
Neither (especially the first) are perfect, of course, and certainly not as trackable as online.
Just hoping for word-of-mouth and talking to people rarely works – but improving your product in ways that will make people talk about it, bringing in a targeted customer base and encouraging them to talk about it will, I feel, lead to substantial word-of-mouth marketing gains.
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Absolutely, social media has given WOM some real power. Like you say though, offline WOM, good luck tracking that. Especially down to the exact source and amount of click throughs or impressions.
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Well, I’ll have to say that I agree with you both (Alejandro and Justin).
I definitely believe you shouldn’t ever have all your eggs in one basket.
Spread your marketing efforts out!
WOM seems to be best used more to build strength in your brand. Don’t
force the WOM thing by making campaigns out of them. Instead be so
incredible that people are inspired to share your business and thus give
authority to your brand. All the while your other campaigns are building
the business.
Now, Justin you said in this post…
“When I start a campaign for myself or a client, I can tell them how many
impressions they had, how many blog mentions, twitter tweets, click
throughs, opt-ins, sales, and blah blah blah.”
Actually the internet is the best place to be able to quantify WOM. For
instance… blog post mentions and tweets can be measured.
So can a blog post mention or tweet about campaign be considered WOM?
follow @JasonSMarshall on twitter!
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When I made this post I was more so talking about offline WOM. I don’t put WOM in the same category as Social Media… Because I can track social media down to the click thru, exact source, and impressions.
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I also think we’re both right on this one, Alejandro and I
follow @justinbrooke on twitter
Tend to agree with you Justin that it is not a basis for building a business but it can be a nice add on especially when it can often be done like your Twitter form as a one time thing.
Adding those even if not trackable as we would like usually do pay off even if it is only occasionally. So you can’t build a business on it but it sure can’t hurt.
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For sure, if a WOM campaign DOES get the traction then it blows away anything else. It’s just getting that traction thats so unreliable. Where as an Adwords campaign I can be the puppet master during the whole life of the campaign. As much or as little as I want.
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I agree with @alejanroreyes on this point – that “WOM is created if you have a product or service that people get passionate & excited about.” There’s no doubt it starts there.
We see the explosive effect WOM can have all the time in our space where the WOM professionals play, moms and mom bloggers. Seriously, there is no other community better at it than them.
Like Alejandro said, (today) people don’t roll out of bed and say they want to launch a WOM campaign and as you point out…part of the reason is that they cannot be measured which is why there’s still concerns marketers have about launching isolated social media campaigns alone.
That said ~ I predict a new business model will rise from the ashes of quantitative WOM obscurity. One that delivers positive and measurable WOM, but in a way that’s surrounded and reinforced by the more measurable advertising and marketing efforts you mention.
This new model (and this is the key to what will make WOM more measurable and explosive than we have ever witnessed) will be powered and fueled by influential online communities. These communities will be empowered via the latest developments in social web tech: social network, social ranking/voting, user-based content aggregation, etc.). They will exist solely to capture and spread WOM, but in a way that brings value to the “collective voice” of members of those communities and also others outside those communities who are like them.
Today, WOM is powerful – just not measurable, but that doesn’t mean that business models will not emerge that make it so.
My two cents.
Cheers!
Josh Unfried
@joshunfried
Founder
MomFaves
WhyMomsMatter (The MomFaves Blog)
Josh Unfried’s last blog post..Cold Stone Creamery
certainly he’s right that WOM is powerful… and you said it yourself that it’s just not as measurable as other forms of marketing. Maybe one day it will be and thank goodness for Social Media, finally a trackable WOM source. (which is exactly why everyone’s raving about it)
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To answer your question, yes you are correct that WOM is unreliable and untrackable…
However that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a viable marketing ave. I mean it’s free, the last report I read said that someone is 7-10 times more likely to check something out because it was recommended to them by a friend….
Looking at a PPC ad, listening to a radio spot, or reading a flyer, isn’t going to make as big of an impressions as having your prospects friend telling them to go check out “X” because it rocks! or whatever…
You’ve made a strong argument in this post, and I agree with you btw, lol…
See you in a few weeks!
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Agree with you 100%… Can’t wait to see you at our workshop. I’ve got tons of extra stuff I want to share with you all.
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I’ll bite – (Twylight:) I thought it sucked too) and jump in here. I believe a good measurable marketing campaign that we know, love and use online CAN lead to WOM. There! I said it!
Love you guys,
Patricia
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Darn it Justin – now I know what Alt+FX does. So much for being so curious all the time :p.
Great post once again. What do you think about word of mouth + referral info?
It’s just not as trackable as other forms of marketing… Not that it’s not effective or not powerful – it is. Just not as easy to manage.
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I think Wom Marketing is effective…
Here’s the best scenario…
You start a business and You are so impressive that everyone tells their friends and you go viral just because you are so awesome.
Going viral may not be easy… But once you do it’s definitely powerful.
Try to encourage WOM in your biz…
Great post man!
I think this blog is going to start growing very quickly!
David
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Yeah now if only someone would create a course on “secrets to guaranteed awesomeness the moment you create your business” haha
Glad you stopped by dude… You’re doing good things in your biz, I been watching.
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Justin, you lost me at puppet master.
What I think it really comes down to is whether you’re looking for one-hit wonders or if you’re looking for repeat customers. For me, and the companies I consult, most of us are approaching our business as relationships we have with our clients and customers. The stronger the relationship, the stronger the WOM. And that is true online or offline. Sure, you can do an adwords campaign…but WOM is much more effective and profitable if leveraged in the appropriate industry.
After all, there is a reason why we see so much blogger outreach (online) and the popularity of sites like http://www.HouseParty.com (offline) by PR firms and brands both big and small. Because it works.
My two cents.
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Jessica – Jessica Knows’s last blog post..Oprah: Social Media Fantasy Campaign
Oh I didn’t mean puppet master in a coercive persuasion sense… More of a testing and tweeking the results of a campaign. Add the keywords, add the bids, track the clicks, track the sales… I can puppet master all of those things.
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But you are right, Social Media has given us a trackable version of WOM and now WOM is all the rage. Not that it wasn’t before but it was much much more hit or miss before social media.
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Hey Justin, just tweeted your programmer JV request on twitter hope you find who your looking for. As for WOM well this is the way I see it.
Depends if you are talking WOM literally. I mean if you are someone who uses the computer a lot and your target audience does as well, I would say that twitter would be the 21st century word of mouth equivalent and it is proving hugely successful for many people.
Maria Andros is launching her Social Media Traffic Blueprint via twitter and having a huge success purely through viral retweeting.
As for the old tell someone you know WOM. I find that to me more effective localised which is where it is generated the most anyway.
Somethng to think about, but good topic.
Have a great day
Pam
Your grandmother is correct: word-of-mouth marketing *is* the best. Seems to me that your gripe is that you cannot control it, nor can you measure it.
But, then, you can’t control what I searched on to find your offer, either. Oh, you can analyze the hell out of keyword stats. You can even quantify sales letters, subject lines, headlines … you name it.
WOM is emotional, and not quantifiable in fine. Not even certain it’s qualifiable – I might not answer your survey, or might think it’s none of your business.
And WOM, if you discount it entirely, can certainly skew your stats, so that what you think was a killer methodology doesn’t work the next time.
It is serendipity, naught more and naught less. Just accept it, and the advantages it might bring.
If you insist upon measurability, WOM will screw you up. You are dealing in an inherently emotional realm, and while tracking works in large, in fine it’s the pits.
An example? FORD is arguably the most reliable US vehicle extant – yet I have a number of friends who won’t touch one because of the acronymn, “Found On Road Dead.”
That’s WOM. You can’t control it, you can’t campaign it … just put up with it, and if it works for ya, be grateful [chortle /].
P.S.
You’re on Twitter. That’s what Twitter is – word of mouth.
Of course I am… Twitter is trackable word of mouth. That’s the best of both worlds and why it’s blowing up right now.
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I dunno man, I’d take a referral over a random “targeted” prospect any day. You can’t “start” a wom campaign, that’s just it…it comes from having a great product, great service, being extrodinary.
Especially offline! You can put ads in your local paper, run all the campaigns you want, but if the customers are not telling other customers then the biz will fail, point blank period.
I think wom goes on top of, or works with all the other forms of advertising. How do you measure it? Dunno…money in the bank I guess lol, that’s all it comes down to anyway.
Do you think people come to you just because you advertise? Sure, maybe someone does, but guess what they do? They tell others, and guess what they do? They tell more people, and then the become your affiliate, they are out there telling others about you…
wom gives you that “staying” power. Use all the ppc and other methods as well…but the bottom line remains, if people stop “talking” (which online means more than just words, they are linking, retweeting, bookmarking, and everything else that is “word of mouth”) your business will stop growing.
It’s a different type of marketing, it’s what you want, it’s what everyone doing every other method of marketing wants. You want people talking about your business, period. What form that “talk” comes in, various online and off, but the concept is there.
that’s my take on it anyway.
follow @jkswopes on twitter
Normal Joe’s last blog post..IMwithJoe.com Last Update…
Definitely everyone wants WOM but just like you said…. If people stop talking. You see my Adwords account never stops talking unless I tell it too!
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yeah man, I’ll take em all personally, but if you can get some good WOM going all the better.
You’ll still do fine without it, but with it you can do some outstanding things.
But you can’t just say “I’m starting a wom campaign” lol. However, you can go setup an adwords campaign right now and see traffic pretty quick lol
use all the tools man! Use em all!
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Good WOM is nice, but God help you if you get BAD word of mouth. A few pissed off customers on a mission to tell everybody and their brother that you suck can do some major damage, no matter how well-targeted your Adwords are
It really depends on the product, and type of business.
As a copywriter, I’m hardcore about testing. I agree overall that it’s all about testing and monitoring in order to make improvements quickly and effectively for solid business growth.
A place that serves food requires targeted geographical marketing, which can be done with PPC methods — but doesn’t really work for places like a local Hot Wing Shop. Of course, there are other better locally targeted ad systems online besides Google Adwords, but again, they don’t always work either depending on your product, price points and competition.
Just know this. Most of your online ‘social media’ marketing is just that: ‘Word of Mouth’ Marketing — and it works. But I NEVER rely on only one method of advertising. To be complete and effective you need the trifecta. Internet marketing methods combined with Direct Mail, Radio, etc.
And let’s not forget about the ‘Guerrilla’… Especially for localized businesses.
Here’s a scenario my buddy Brent Hodgson, a highly skilled and successful marketer and copywriter, wrote that explains how sometimes PPC advertising just won’t work — and why it didn’t in the particular case he explains. It’s slightly off-topic from the WOM topic, but I think you’ll find a lot of value in reading the article.
http://is.gd/pZNc
Anyhoo…
Lots of really good points in your article here. Well written, and a great topic to discuss
Peace,
-RLM
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I think you’ve got the argument in the bag… “Never rely on just one form of marketing.” If we only rely on Adwords – here comes a slap. If we only rely on WOM – what if it doesn’t catch. We use a combination of SEO, PPC, Social Media, CPV, Banners, and Affiliates – it does well for us.
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All this talk about counting beans and you’re still not listening to Grandma, Justin.
How do we get to the hot wings joint?
xearther
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I believe in word of mouth advertising. I use it a lot in my appliance business. It may be a slow process, but I find it the best method of advertising and does not cost anything. Every time that I do a sevice call I leave several business cards with a happy customer, and I get most of my referals this way. This accounts for about 95% 0f my business.
follow @normz2 on twitter
Wouldn’t you agree that if you had a #1 in Google, some PPC ads, road side signs, and join ventures with other businesses sending you referrals – That you would probably double the amount of clients you have?
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Hi Justin,
I come from a lifetime successfully marketing bus to bus and direct. In my experience WOM comes into play on a local basis. .. great for your little takeaway shop. Brilliant for tradespeople,technicians,dentists (ugh), house painters etc. At a function over the Christmas holiday break I had a conversation with a retired builder who proudly informed me that in his entire career he advertised in the yellow pages in his first year and the local paper for his first month in business. When asked, he told me his work always was from his local area in Sydney.
In my marketing workshops I taught that WOM should be taken into account on a daily basis bearing in mind that people generally tell 4 others about a good experience and 44 people (in vivid detail) about a bad one!!!
Now that I’m about to honor a long standing promise to myself and enter the IM arena,(which I’ve been observing for some little time) I feel that a blog has WOM features on the basis that people have the ability to express their feelings at the site. So reading articles and reader comments on blogs has enlightened me more than somewhat.
From an IM perspective I feel my second para comments are the most applicable (with my respects to those who make a worthy contribution by way of WOM)
Good work Justin.
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You make some great points, glad to have you around.
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Wow. Great debate.
Not being a marketing expert, I can’t quote facts, figures, “measurable” stuff. What I do know is that in my “regular job” as a programmer/consultant, I would guess at least 50% of our business over the years has been a direct result of referrals. Of course, it’s a bit different in a business that is primarily service based rather than product based (although we do sell a lot of equipment).
Ironically, if it weren’t for WOM, I would have abandoned my job years ago, and would likely be knee deep in IM at this point in time, rather than treating it as a side business. In light of the topic of this post/debate, I’m really not sure what to make of that.
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Please don’t take offense to this, we all have to start somewhere and I applaud your determination. However, this is exactly what I was saying “Not being a marketing expert… WOM gets me most of my business.”
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WOM is free and requires no tools, but if you new how to use 10 other marketing systems effectively I’ll bet they would drive much more traffic then your referrals. But then just the same if you add WOM on to those 10 marketing systems as a follow up tactic then you’ll have explosive growth.
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No offense taken. But, the fact is we had more business than we could handle because of WOM. If we had actually been marketing our services we would have too quickly reached a point where – I believe – our services would have lost that “personal touch” with our clientele, and our reputation would have suffered. So, as long as WOM was working for us (and it still is, although to a lesser extent in this economy), there’s no reason to change.
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Offline WOM is great but it’s like when a pretty girl flashes a genuine smile at a dorky dude, it’s a nice fuzzy feeling but can’t count on it everyday.
Like Justin alludes to, the fact you can’t measure it like online efforts means that focusing on this channel is a less efficient business strategy.
I’m working with a resort in Brazil who have clung to an offline WOM model for new business and experienced very slow growth for a fantastic niche product. But, they are finally seeing the light and beginning to try new mediums like social marketing, PPC, etc.
Sure WOM is effective and converts very well, and ultimately it will grow as your product grows in quality and recognition. But the efforts to grow this offline just doesn’t seem worth not being able to track the numbers.
Thanks Justin for the post
AMEN BROTHER!
follow @justinbrooke on twitter
Word of mouth depends on the company being worthwhile to talk about, so you can’t really put them in the same boat as PPC or other methods.
One does not create a WOM ‘campaign’ that would be the same as real people genuinely recommending a business that they love.
Just sayin!
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Way off track .
You were eating in this place right?
Why?
Did you see a google ad for it?
NO!!!
Word of mouth is far more influential than other methods.
Get bad WOM and you are screwed!!!
I got six figure deals through WOM and just then an email from someone who I knew 22 years ago emailed me to mention she was just talking about Internet Marketing and my name got mentioned.
Good controversial link bait blog post though – they work well too!!!
Keep em coming!!
Regards
James
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Link baiting… Who’s link baiting?
(hee hee)
follow @justinbrooke on twitter
I hope people are paying attention to the REAL traffic system in play here. Great stuff ;D
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I agree with you Justin. Furthermore… I believe WOM was sentenced to die the minute the Radio came around. TV was an other nail to the coffin and the Internet just put it six feet under.
The only “surviving” WOM today is if you are giving some sort of service.
If you’re Joe PC and doing great fixing, repairing, etc you always will be getting people telling you “Max” told me you do a good job…”
WOM ? Having Craigslist, ebay, Google, Kijiji, Oodle,USFreeadds, Walmart all for Free..?
Justin, I’ll see you April 25th !
Cheers,
George from Miami
See you at the workshop George!
Me again. After thinking about it a bit, I think I agree with Joshua above. WOM is an animal I don’t think can really be planned – at least not in the traditional “scientific” sense. If you are good at what you do, and the right people notice it, it can be very powerful. But, asking someone to pump up you or your product, without “it” already having legs, should normally be an exercise in futility. WOM is like an unintentional “super-Digg”… it has – and SHOULD have – a life of its own.
As far as WOM being dead – well, that’s just a load of BS. All you need is to have Oprah or some other celeb mention a website, and suddenly you have to upgrade your hosting account and bandwidth.
An interesting WOM advertising model would be this – start a WOM campaign, and then funnel money into whatever areas would pump up the WOM campaign itself. Something like the “pay it forward” movement a couple years ago – if there was a product at the end of that (besides the movie/DVD), it could have been a real money maker….
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Justin,
Great post, and even better debate here. I just can’t resist weighing in.
I think a lot of commenters have made some great points here. Part of the debate, however, comes from the familiarity a majority of your readers have with marketing.
When you mention the local wing joint, or a local mechanic, or something along that line, you have to remember that a majority of those businesses are not opened by marketers. Someone with a great wing recipe and some cooking talent probably opened that resturant. Someone who was working as a mechanic in someone else’s garage probably opened the new garage.
They are not marketers, or managers, the are as Michael Gerber described, technicians. They are good at what they do, but know very little about running a successful business. And the majority of them are bombarded every day with new places to advertise.
The problem here is they become overwhelmed. They do some ads in the beginning, and put their name in the yellow pages. Maybe they even get a website, but they don’t know the first thing about marketing. And they don’t want to.
That is why many of the people reading this can also do well selling marketing services to these business owners. If you can show them how you are bringing them more business and justify the expense for them, they will be happy. A fortune to be made organizing and tracking marketing efforts for local businesses, both online and off.
When the get yet another call asking them to advertise in some local penny saver newspaper they never heard of, and they don’t know the first thing about tracking, they don’t know if it is a good idea or not, and after a while they feel like they are just wasting money.
Well – I believe if you are in the service industry then there is nothing better than word of mouth. I have been so busy for the last 3 years from clients who recommend people who turn into clients. what better tracking method is that than work that is continual and money in the bank??
OF course if you are depending on affiliate commissions or e-commerce — Tracking is very very important – it is important period.
But I still stand by my reputation and word of mouth – after all isn’t it a form of viral marketing??
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WOM advertising is not what it used to be and over the years has lost much of it’s value. Why? Well because opinions are like butt holes, every one has one so now WOM has to be aligned with where it is coming from and do they have the same tastes and or opinions as you. Forget the reviews because marketers have made use of them as marketing tools and they are rarely more then some hyped up scheme used to garner traffic.
It also does well to consider that not all businesses benefit from rapidly increased traffic. Example the much cherished chicken wings that you enjoyed may lose their quality if the restaurant had to scale up their operations to “Handle the Traffic”, lines would increase in size, parking could become a problem, hiring more personnel may be detrimental to food preparation quality. Even the most prepared IMers have suffered from overloaded servers, most recent major launches from big names like Mike Filsame among others have fallen prey. In this example of course recovery is usually faster on the internet than brick and mortar and without a quick recovery any progress made with high traffic will soon be wiped out by dissatisfied customers.
Summary: In my opinion WOM advertising has little value in the high speed world of the Internet and in the Brick and Mortar world as well.
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Hmmmmmmm Word of Mouth, scenario the cook who cooks those lovely wings goes sick or on holidays and another cook takes over – does not do such a good job – they say you will tell 22 people if you are unhappy to the ratio of 10 if you’re happy.
WOM has its place, but to reply entirely on that – Man, just undo the plug in the bath, adn be sucked down with the bath water.
All forms have their drawbacks, but I for one would rather be able to measure the results than any other methods.
Great article! Food for thought for us all and everyone we know who runs a business.
Love and Light
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Hi all
This is an interesting debate and here’s my point of view.
I’m big on measuring, testing and tweaking things to see what works best. In the old days (pre-Internet) it would take ages to try things out and generally costs of doing it were far higher as well.
My main point about this debate is that you could and may be should do both things. Set up systems and measure the results and also use word of mouth but in a very specific way.
For too long much has been written about the need for compelling copy and I would agree it is vital. It’s also vital that there are conversions from lookers into buyers.
The biggest and best business become brands in their own right. If the focus was to create a world class business and deliver a great service people would talk about it. To some extend the need for long sales pages and clever copy goes away because people trust you, they trust what you deliver and they want you to have their business.
There is a different timescale though – Building a world-class service takes time and in a way it never stops but what happens is that it creates it’s own momentum.
This momentum helps to lower the cost of client or customer acquisition.
My business partner and I have a mortgage broking business (we are based in the UK), it is highly regulated and has suffered from the current credit crunch. The UK mortgage market has dropped by between 70% to 80% and a lot of brokers have closed up and gone bust.
We haven’t though, our numbers are slightly down on the year before but we are still going.
We are not able to advertise without everything going through the Financial Services Authority. Trust me I am not allowed to write promotions in the way that I would want to.
We focus on delivering a World-Class service and offer a possibly unique guarantee. We charge a broker fee and always have done where a lot of our competitors don’t.
I honestly believe it’s our attitude to go above and beyond the call of duty that keeps us going. No tricks, nothing clever just a great service.
That for me is Word of Mouth but…. not in isolation because it’s really hard to measure in the short term.
Cheers from the UK
Steve
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how to track WOM:
1. start a rumor that if you ask how jerr’y baby is, they give you extra hot wings.
2. see how many people ask how jerry’s baby is!
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Hi Justin,
good post – as always. Thanks for the ‘heads up’ and putting WOM into perspective marketingwise.
But I have a heads up for you, too. It concerns readability of your blog and the font that you use.
The font of your post is quite small but still o.k. (maybe my ma has her opinion about this…) But the font of the comments appears TINY on my screen. Especially with this serif font it is almost UNREADABLE and makes my eyes flicker. I have much better eyes than average but still I have to get as close as 10 inch to the screen to be able to read it…
Anyone else have this problem?
Cheers,
Kiya
Word of mouth works best when you do two things:
1 ) create a product worth talking about
2) Tell people what you want them to say. ask them for testimonials, and referrals, don’t leave WOM to chance.
It’s about authenticity, right? WOM is MEGA-powerful—if it’s coming from the bottom up and isn’t an overt buzz creation attempt.
It’s a crapshoot if you’re trying to orchestrate it. It’s a godsend when it “just happens”.
I am currently involved in a Network marketing company. A lot of the UK high flyers have looked at the net for promoting their wares but have not done due diligence.
In a way traditional networkers I have come across have applied internet marketing as they would learn a foreign language by translating the words on the fly instead of thinking in that language. I see no reason why Networking cannot be done via the internet as you still need rapport and the ‘know, like and trust’ approach.
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I would say, in Internet Marketing, it`s pretty easy to make this whole thing work, and even track it.
See, if you are working in some niche, and create a super-duper ebook, packed with a bunch of valuable information. You give it away for free. It can eventually go viral. And if you have your links in there, you can add tracking, and voila – you have some stats.
Just look at FireFox – I am sure the word of mouth plays a HUGE role in how many people use this browser all around the world.