Word of Mouth Marketing – Where to Start
Word of mouth marketing is perhaps the oldest and most pervasive form of marketing in the world- it existed before corporations, before coordinated, national marketing campaigns, and perhaps before there were proper storefronts. Word of Mouth marketing is the most elemental of methods because it answers the most elemental questions, like: What do you think? What should I do?
It happens as part of the way people communicate with each other anyway, and turning word of mouth into word of mouth marketing is really the art of knowing how to nudge the right people in the right places to do the right things- often it’s just a matter of talking to the people who talk to a lot of people. With that in mind, here are a few places to start if you are considering using the word of mouth marketing techniques as part of your next online campaign.
Word of Mouth Marketing
1. Start where you spend your time.
I’ve talked to people who want to market their new iPhone app or their new game and they complain about how hard it will be to get Pete Cashmore to write a feature article on Mashable and tweet 5 times a day about their new product… of course it will. I tell them, as I tell you, that word of mouth marketing does benefit from having a strategy that maps out who you want to be talking about your product and where, it is essential to start with what and who you know. If you went to the hassle of creating a product, you obviously love it. Start by talking to the people you know in the places you know about it, and include that classic marketing technique- the call to action. As you are telling someone about your new product and they ask how they can help, tell them to tell someone. Do that with a few dozen people and see what happens.
2. Social Networking Specialization
Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, blah blah blah. Yes, you should get out there on all of those. Content is free and easily passed on- it’s also abundant and noisy. For word of mouth marketing purposes, your best bet is to find and talk with micro-communities. Whatever you made, there is sure to be an online community that would LOVE to use it. Find them and give them some samples, then be there for feedback.
3. Access Denied
It may sound counter-intuitive at first, but a great word of mouth marketing technique to get people talking about your new product is to make it seem limited or exclusive- If you are online, you can make your beta version invite only. It your product is physical, have street teams pass out limited numbers. Either way, you are creating desire in consumers.
Using your experience, extending your network and creating desire through exclusivity- these are the first steps toward creating a word of mouth marketing campaign.
