Ok, so there’s nothing new about me telling you that word of mouth and personal recommendations influence customers purchasing decisions.
It’s fair to say that most of us at one stage or another have decided to buy a certain product or service based on hearing friends and family rave about it. Thinking about it, most of my day to day lifestyle decisions are based on word of mouth referrals I’ve received at some time or another – Airbnb, Starbucks, Uber, TV shows, restaurants, holiday destinations, latest tech gadget, apps – I base these decisions on word of mouth referrals from a genuine, authentic and trusted source – My friends and family.
The true strength of the referral comes from a genuine, authentic and trusted source – friends and family.
In business terms, word of mouth is known by many different names, Peer2Peer marketing, ambassador marketing, referral marketing and influencer marketing. This type of marketing and branding is more often than not organic but can be product incentivised also. Even if you do not have a dedicated word of mouth marketing strategy in place, your business is likely to already be benefiting from word of mouth. Kissmetrics reports that the average small business gets 60% of its customer inquiries via word of mouth with Neilson reporting that 92% of customers trust referrals from people they know.
There’s no doubting the power of word of mouth marketing and you can be sure your competitors are already focusing on word of mouth marketing.
Many companies already understand the value of word of mouth marketing and may already have defined and measurable word of mouth marketing strategies. We all know that consumers rave about certain brands, products and services, your word of mouth strategy needs to ensure that these consumers rave about your company and not your competitors. Tomoson research shows that Influencer marketing was rated as the fastest-growing customer acquisition channel in a survey of 125 online marketers. In a report from Womma, 79% of brands are planning to increase their investment in online word-of-mouth marketing, and 29% plan to increase their offline word-of-mouth spend. Influencer marketing was rated as the fastest-growing customer acquisition channel in a survey of 125 online marketers.
Conclusion
Word of mouth marketing allows businesses to cut through the noise like no other marketing medium, be it paid or organic. Of course, it’s not just about getting in front of your customers. It’s also about earning their trust. Today’s consumers are both increasingly skeptical of traditional marketing channels and increasingly elusive when it comes to reaching them by paid means, like online advertising and TV commercials. A Forrester report states that only 15% of consumers trust content created and shared by companies while a report from Neilsen states that only 33% of consumers trust the messaging conveyed in online ads. Fortunately, word of mouth is still the number one marketing channel customers continue to trust. Having family and friends instead of brands effectively selling or up-selling via trusted word of mouth is a marketing channel that your business simply cannot afford not to do.
See your sunrise.
Lee.