Word of Mouth Marketing in Digital Channels
Word-of-mouth marketing is a process that influences people’s conversations about your brand.
Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) should be managed consciously by companies, not by chance.
According to a global survey conducted by Nielsen in 2015, nearly 83% of people listen the most to recommendations from their family and friends.
66% of people around the world trust referral posts created by real customers, which is why real customer-generated content is increasingly used in corporate marketing activities.
So word-of-mouth marketing should not be taken too lightly, because statistics show that most buying decisions are made on someone else’s recommendation.
Word-of-mouth marketing plays an important role in a marketer’s toolbox because it helps create demand for other ideal customers through a positive customer experience.
Word of Mouth Marketing is a recommendation
The recommendations fall roughly into two:
- a recommendation from someone who has used your product or service and is satisfied with it;
- a recommendation from someone who has never used your product or service, but he or she knows you as an expert in the field and therefore dares to recommend you to acquaintances.
For existing satisfied customers, the customer will heroize you once you have created value for them. In addition to your successful cooperation, he or she will share your achievements with your acquaintances who are thinking of using your services to solve similar problems and achieve results.
In other words, the recommendation of existing satisfied customers creates a social reference. This shows that you are trustworthy and that in the course of working with you, you will inspire and help your customer to grow as well.
People who have never used your products or services recommend you because they would like to work with you if possible.
Cooperation is often stuck for something – for example, you are too expensive for his company, but because your team is made up of experts in your field and has made a very good impression, you seem to like him. There are also general recommendations.
WOMM needs constant attention
Recommendations should always be kept in mind. Both positive and negative.
If customers have given feedback with suggestions that something could be done better, it’s worth keeping that in mind and responding immediately:
- if something is wrong – do everything you can to turn a negative experience into a positive one;
- if something is fine – ask your customer, maybe you can do something even better to increase customer satisfaction.
Therefore, we recommend that you regularly measure the effectiveness of your strategy.
A good way is to ask your customers directly how they heard about you – either at the first meeting or after contacting the website.
It is recommended that you include this information in your CRM. This will allow you to analyze exactly which contacts or channels work the best for your company.
For example, almost 70% of Molivery’s new customers have reached us through a recommendation from existing customers. If we hadn’t asked our customers about it we would have never knew it.
Now, I am going to point out 6 main activities that Molivery will use to manage its word-of-mouth marketing on digital channels in the coming years.
01Highlighting our customer success stories
Your customers are the most effective and fierce salespeople in your organization. Highlighting your customer’s success stories gives them a chance to be part of your success story.
By doing it skillfully, you will get the attention of your potential customers. It gives them a better understanding of what value you’ll bring to the table.
For example, one way to heroize your customers is to create video feedback. By filming and editing this material, you get a lot of content to share on digital channels – on social media, in a newsletter and on a website.
If you’re in the service business like we are, heroizing your customers is the only way to build a social reference for your business.
02Uniqueness creates word-of-mouth
The concept of your company must be different from other competitors, otherwise, you will not be noticed.
The same goes for content posts – grab people’s attention, keep them up to date, and over time, they’ll tell others about this cool campaign, product, or experience.
03Create events to spark a conversation
By creating digital events, you can create experiences that people voluntarily want to share with others.
Be it a webinar, a podcast or even a real conference that you broadcast live on social media. By building relationships with people and giving them a chance to be a part of your success story helps to spark the conversation between your existing and potential customers.
04Own your own following
Do you have your own following or are you actively using someone else’s track record to succeed?
Yes, even using a Facebook group that is not in your possession is exploiting someone else’s followers.
Creating your own audience could be the goal of any sustainable business.
Being present in the buyer’s information field is necessary to keep yourself in the picture – build relationships with them and help answer their questions.
There are many ways to interact with your audience – a newsletter, a Linkedin group, a Discord channel, or a personal brand.
Your audience is a group of people who are passionate fans of your personal brand or company. Constant communication with them will help you keep up to date with what is happening in the market and thus react to situations many times faster than your competitors can do.
05VIP clients
Experience shows that the recommendation rate goes to the ceiling when customers are included in exclusive programs. Why?
Because you have made them feel special. They are one of the few that got involved. You are creating scarcity.
Word-of-mouth is a set of emotions that get created with experience. It is the experiences that create positive feelings and a sense of belonging in people, which help to give impetus to the recommendations.
Analyze your customer base – who talk about you positively? Create an exclusive program for them to help boost your recommendations.
06Use Key Opinion Leaders
Key Opinion Leaders often attend trainings and conferences with your potential customers.
Work with them. Give them a reason to talk about you (positively, of course) and you’ll reach high-quality leads.
Conclusion
As you can see, managing recommendation marketing in companies is not an easy task. It takes a lot of work, creativity and patience to work for yourself.
But in the long run, it gives your business a strong competitive advantage.
