Today we’re going to talk about
how to harness the power of word of mouth. Including the six step process to
success and the 30 (that’s right, I said 30) ways to harass the power of WOM.
So, let’s get started!
There are six steps to harassing
word of mouth:
- Understand
your customers’ values and priorities, this will help you understand why
they would buy your products.
- Understand
the different adopter types: innovators, early adopters, middle majority,
late adopters and laggards.
- Identify
which decision stages are needed for your product to be adopted.
- Use
the information from steps 2 & 3 to figure out which wording and word
of mouth tactics are going to work using the Decision Maker Matrix (we’ll
talk about this in a minute).
- Put
together the resources for the highest word of mouth impact.
- Create
and implement your word of mouth campaign.
The Decision Maker Matrix is based off years of trial and error by George Silverman. It essentially charts to different concerns you may come across when working with different adopters and putting together a decision process for each one.
We are now going to move on to
the 30 ways to harass the power of WOM:
Use Experts
Experts can come in many forms
and all their opinions should be taken into consideration when putting together
a WOM campaign. Some experts to gather information from include:
·
Customers
·
Suppliers
·
Experts
·
Salespeople
·
Experts' roundtables
·
Experts' selling groups
Seminars, Workshops & Speeches
These venues are a perfect
opportunity to gather information. People who attend these types of events are
used to giving feedback, so you can use a survey or other method to gather
information you can look over later. Some events to use are:
·
Speakers program
·
Seminars
·
Group selling
·
Dinner meetings
·
Peer selling groups
·
Teleconferenced experts' panels
·
Trade show events/opportunities
"Canned" Word of Mouth
The concept of “canned” word of
mouth is using hard and online products to get feedback and offer information
at the same time. Some ideas for these are:
·
Videotapes
·
Audiotapes
·
World Wide Web
·
CD’s
Referral Selling
As we’ve talked about before a
referral program can help with a variety of things in building your business.
By using some of the following tactics and opportunities you can find out
exactly what you need to do to generate positive word of mouth. These tactics
and opportunities are:
·
Testimonials
·
Networking
·
Referral Selling Program
"New" Media
The concept of “new” media is
the use of up and coming media sources and opportunities to get the word out
about your products and services and listen for the feedback about them. Here’s
some of the “new” media options:
·
Hotlines
·
Faxback services
·
Web-based word of mouth, such as forums, e-mail, etc.
·
Call centers
Using Traditional Media for Word of Mouth
Using traditional media is a
great way to get feedback. These are still considered main stream ways of
interacting with the public and consumers. Some traditional media outlets are:
·
Customer service
·
PR
·
Placements
·
Events
·
Promotions
·
Word of mouth in ads, sales brochures, or direct mail
·
Salesperson programs, sales stars, or peer training,
·
Word-of-mouth incentive programs ("Tell-a-friend" programs)
·
Customer gifts they can share with their friends (articles, how-to
manuals)
Internal Word of Mouth
·
Encourage employee word of mouth and sharing feedback with family,
friends and others
·
Offer rewards or commission for word of mouth success
As you can see there are tons of
ideas you can work with to increase your level of positive word of mouth
marketing. If you need help with any of this, please try our FREE test drive to
access our exclusive resources that can help you put this whole thing together.