Did you ever play the game Telephone? It’s a lot like Word-of-Mouth Marketing. You put a bunch of people in a line, whisper something to the person on one end, then watch as they turn and whisper the message, person-to-person, right on down the line.
There’s almost always something lost in translation.
Now imagine that telephone game as Word of Mouth (WOM) about your business. Can you see why it might be risky for you?
Word of Mouth Marketing is a very appealing marketing strategy.
- There’s the popularity factor – the idea of hundreds of potential clients talking about your business.
- There’s the laziness factor – the possibility of your clients doing your marketing work FOR you, by spreading the word about your business.
- There’s the free factor – the steady stream of clients who flow through the door at no cost to you.
Free, easy and tons of people doing sending you business? Word of Mouth sounds pretty good – maybe even too good to be true.
The real truth is: there are risks associated with WOM, and all your marketing efforts should not rely on this one strategy.
WOM is the sole strategy of many of the small business owners who come to me for help attracting more perfect clients to their business. Frequently, it’s not working for them — not translating into business and they don’t know why. Here’s your answer …
Why WOM doesn’t (always) work:
- Not enough “mouths.” Very often, new businesses with small marketing budgets decide that WOM will help them grow. However, if only a few people have experienced your brand, it may be hard for them to talk up enough business for you.
- Wrong “words.” They say hope is not a strategy, and yet what do businesses do? They hope their clients will recognize a good prospect and talk to them. They hope their clients will describe how they benefited. They hope, but they don’t manage the conversation.
- Too haphazard to rely on it. This is my biggest complaint about WOM. If you can’t do anything to influence or control it, then it’s not a strategy. It’s an accident. A happy accident when it works and a struggling business when it doesn’t.
You CAN reduce the risk and put more WOW in your WOM!
Now that you know the risks, you can take intentional steps to get better results from WOM.
1. Build a larger WOM base to get traction and momentum. While the best WOM comes from clients or customers, there are ways to impact a broader audience with your brand.
Speaking, networking and teleseminars give a personal experience of you, while web sites and blogs help you get your message out and build a following. All of that results in more mouths spreading the word.
2. Send clear, compelling marketing messages. If you have a good brand, you can trust that your target audience is clear about the problems you solve and the unique way you do it. Your message is unlikely to get garbled in the Telephone game of WOM, and more likely to reach the ears of those who seek you.
3. Create a system that sparks WOM. What takes WOM from accident to strategy are three things: intentions, plans and actions. Make them repeatable, and you get a system.
Don’t leave word of mouth to chance. Take charge of your brand message and get your customers talking!
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