Build word of mouth

With an effective word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing strategy, brands can organically reach more people and promote their products.

People come across hundreds of advertisements daily, but when they need to make a purchase decision, they often choose the product their family and friends suggested.

According to Semrush, 64% of marketers find it the most fruitful marketing tactic. Word-of-mouth marketing can drive five times more sales than paid ads.

 These are the reasons more companies are getting interested in this marketing method. Continue reading to learn how to develop a killer WOM strategy for your brand.

What Is Word-of-Mouth Marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing means actively influencing to generate organic word-of-mouth discussion about a brand or product. Simply put, marketers try to create something worth talking about so that people are encouraged to talk about it.

Before making a purchase, people want affirmation from reliable sources, usually family members, friends, and colleagues. This marketing strategy aims to start an exponential referral chain that continuously drives traffic and sales for the brand.

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Word-of-mouth marketing and natural word-of-mouth references are different. In WOM marketing, the references are usually the result of a company’s campaign, promotion, or encouragement.

Some examples of WOM marketing are people telling others personally or via social media about new recipes to use tomato ketchup or being amazed by the unique style of serving food at a restaurant.

Also, this marketing does not end here. It is followed by a cascade of interactions. Here, the role of the company is to encourage others to talk — usually by providing them with a reason. 

Types of Word-of-Mouth Marketing

#1. Publicity

It is the most common and organic type of WOM marketing. This type of marketing focuses on increasing the public visibility of the brand and making more people aware f the services you offer.

#2. Buzz or Viral Marketing

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This WOM marketing aims to create a buzz around the products or promotions. Companies spark conversations on social media or in personal circles by making a viral promotion or campaign.

#3. Blogging and Online Marketing

Another type of word-of-mouth marketing can be done through blogs and video content. These self-published contents allow conversation on public forums where customers talk to each other about their experiences.

#4. Social Media Marketing

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Since word-of-mouth marketing can reach customers both online and offline, social media is a popular channel to promote this marketing. It allows you to reach the target audience and integrate other types into this platform. 

Companies must properly use their social channels to reach the maximum number of people. You can use different social media calendar tools to schedule your posts. 

#5. Emotional Marketing

Emotional marketing uses emotional triggers to influence consumers. This word-of-mouth marketing type is usually image-based and based on recent news or events.

#6. Referral Marketing

Referral marketing is a kind of WOM marketing that offers incentives in exchange for promoting through word of mouth. It is a great way to encourage existing customers to share their feedback and opinion with others. 

Importance of WOM Marketing

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For any marketing strategy, word-of-mouth should have a crucial place. The reason is simple — one satisfied customer can encourage a group of prospective buyers to purchase the product they have referred.

The more you can influence them to make a recommendation, the higher your chance of having a larger customer base. The importance of WOM marketing is as follows:

Promote Products

You might be promoting your products through various online and offline channels. However, not all could be as effective as WOM marketing.

It involves real people speaking about your products and brand, so it does not even look like a traditional promotion to the audience. Nevertheless, it has a better impact on your potential customers.

More Sales and ROI

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Companies can get more traffic or leads through the FOMO marketing strategy, but to turn them into customers and make more sales, they need WOM marketing. People rely on good reviews from the people they trust, which is why this marketing strategy can help you achieve your target sales and revenue.

Build Brand Trust

Making a new customer trust your brand is not easy. Relationship building takes time, and one-time purchases are often not the only thing a company is looking for. Word-of-mouth marketing ensures the reliability of your company to new customers. Once the trust is in place, you can maintain the relationship.

Build Customer Loyalty

While adding new customers to your customer base is getting more difficult and expensive, companies focus more on loyal customers. With a group of happy customers actively promoting your products, you can easily get more new patrons loyal to your brand.

How to Build a Word-of-Mouth

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As mentioned, WOM marketing is not about leaving it up to chance that someone might spread good words about your products and brands. You need to have a defined strategy for WOM marketing to make people talk about your brand. Here are some steps for building a WOM strategy for your company:

#1. Set up the Right Triggers

Your products and services should contain X factors or triggers. These are usually memorable or exceptional feelings to make your existing customers talk about your business.

If you manage a restaurant, you can make it pet-friendly. Thus, pet lovers and pet owners will talk about your restaurant to like-minded people whom you can count as your target audience.

#2. Use Visual Triggers

Word-of-mount should not always be verbal. You can reach more people through vibrant visual experiences. Suppose your company manufactures cruelty-free cosmetics or green technology.

In that case, you can ask your customers to take photos with their pets or in natural landscapes and share those on social media. 

#3. Develop or Do Unique Things

Standing out in a crowd is another way to ignite WOM marketing. You can do that by selling unique products, bending industry norms, or adapting new marketing or shipping styles. While selling eco-friendly products, you can use biodegradable packaging. It will trigger people to talk about your brand.

#4. Provoke Customers Emotionally

Emotion is the best way to make a place in their heart and speech! Marketers need to go the extra mile to make people emotionally attached to the products. For that, you can make invisible people present in your advertisement. 

#5. Promote User-Generated Content (UGC)

In this era of social media, people prefer user generate content over branded promotions. As a brand, you can guide the customers to create and share content that will contain word-of-mount marketing. 

Such content also helps you establish social proof. You can also ask happy customers to share their content with your brand hashtag, and the winners will get attractive prizes.

#6. Encourage Customers to Give Ratings and Reviews

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Customer reviews and ratings are a key part of modern WOM marketing. You can create a feedback channel to collect testimonials such as social media reviews, emails, and surveys. You can promote rave ratings and reviews on your website and social media.

#7. Start the Referral Program

Another way to promote WOM marketing is to start a referral program. It will encourage happy customers to promote your brand for incentives. These could be discount coupons, gift cards, cash back, or gifts.

Inspiring WOM Marketing Examples

#1. Netflix

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Netflix is an OTT platform that uses social media for WOM marketing. It creates memes out of its web series and posts them. These trigger the users to share their views on those web series. These user-generated contents work as a positive review for potential viewers.

#2. Forever21

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Forever21 is an apparel brand that asked customers to share their outfit photos along with #F21xME. Thousands of people participated in this Instagram promotion, and the hashtag gave the brand the expected promotion without investing in influencer marketing.

#3. Wendy’s

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Popular fast-food restaurant Wendy’s created a popular WOM marketing event on Twitter in 2017. They claimed to provide a customer one year of free chicken nugget service if a post gets retweeted 18 million times.

The post got retweeted more than 3 million times by now and gave Wendy’s the word-of-mouth promotion they were looking for.

#4. Dropbox

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To attract new customers, cloud storage company Dropbox offered a referral program for existing customers. According to it, a customer will get 500 MB of free space if they can invite a friend and make them install Dropbox.

Concluding Words

Word-of-mouth marketing can enhance your brand promotion naturally. There are different types of WOM marketing that you can choose for your products.

Here, we discussed some successful WOM marketing strategy examples for you. Also, you can easily create one for your company using the steps mentioned above.

You may also want to read about other marketing strategies, such as guerilla marketing and trigger marketing.

In my last blog we established the importance of Word of Mouth in building your brand.  You can have a great product or service, but if people don’t know about it then it does no good.  We know it is important to keep track of what people are saying about you and your brand online and off, but how do you insert yourself in the conversations?  MarketShare calls this overall Word of Mouth (conversations occurring online and offline) your brand’s Social Voice.  It is more than just creating a Facebook and a Twitter page.  Successful Word of Mouth requires strategic thinking and serious work.  Here are the most important steps to take when carving out your Word of Mouth strategy:

1. Target Influencers— Make sure you are speaking to leaders and influencers in your space.  These can be journalists, public figures, bloggers, or even trendsetting fans.  The age of Social Media has given everyone the power to broadcast their opinions and some bloggers and YouTube sensations have amassed strong followings.  It is a good idea to make a target list of influencers that appeal to your key demographic and make sure that they know about what you do.  This does not mean badger them with calls and emails—but rather take the time to learn about them and why they are influential, then open up a dialogue by engaging with their content in ways that are relevant to your brand.
2. Build a Close Knit Social Media Community—The easiest way to directly communicate with your audience is to engage with them via social platforms.  Social Media has exploded in recent years, and a study conducted by Pew Research Centers in 2012 found that 65% of internet users use social media.  Of users on Facebook, 58% liked a brand page in 2011 and 41% shared content about that brand on their wall.  Sharing content with friends online is even more valuable as  verbal word of mouth.
3. Be a Thought Leader—Not only do you want to target the influencers in your space…You want to be one!  Figure out what makes you and your business unique, and tell people about it.  This can (and should) be communicated on your website, but also figure out where to best reach your target audience.  This might be on social media, but maybe it is through speaking at a conference or starting a blog.  Figure out the medium that best supports your ideas and develop a strategy to grow your presence there.
4. ALWAYS be honest—The success of Word of Mouth marketing depends on customer’s trust of the brand.  You have to earn enough merit to become a worthy topic of conversation.  You can do this with an exceptional product and by maintaining integrity across online platforms (your website, social media, and mobile).

If you master these 4 tactics then you have set a strong foundation to build and grow your word of mouth marketing.  Imagine the WOM new Pope Francis is generating!  If you can’t be a Pope,  remember that Word of Mouth should be a real aspect of your marketing strategy, and it takes planning and monitoring!  Your brand is only as good as what people say about it.

Do you know what word of mouth reputation is? You should. Word of mouth marketing is an incredible reputation tool. In fact, it’s one of the most trusted forms of advertising and an excellent way to build and support a great reputation online.

Nielsen reports that 92% of consumers worldwide trust earned media like word-of-mouth or recommendations above all other forms of advertising. That number is up 18% since 2007.

Closely related, online consumer reviews are the second most trusted source of information: 70% of consumers trust these messages.

Word of mouth is the number one driver of sales and competitive advantage.

How You Can Build Word of Mouth Reputation for Your Business

How exactly can you invest in your word of mouth reputation? There’s plenty of advice to choose from. We’ve found the best tips for developing a strong reputation with word of mouth from marketing and customer service experts.

You may also find value in our post about the best and worst reputation management companies.

Introducing Enterprise ORMReputation management for enterprise companies and large organizations.Learn More

Steps to build word of mouth reputation

• Listen to your customers: Encourage customers to write reviews about your business.Online interaction is a two-way conversation. Listen to what your fans say about you before jumping in yourself. Listening means that you can better understand the feedback you’re likely to receive — and can inform your strategy for accommodating (and wowing) your customers in the future.
• Inspire your customers to be your biggest promoters: It’s essential to deliver great products and service. After all, you’ve got to give them something nice to say about you! You’ll need to far exceed expectations to really wow them. But it’s also important to join and facilitate customer advocate conversations.
• Obsess over customer service: Nailing customer service is essential to getting better at word of mouth marketing. Making customers happy should be part of your company ethos. Give customers your undivided attention and make them feel special — and satisfied.
• Engage with your customers: Even after the purchase is made and products or services delivered, you’re not done. It’syour job to continue to develop a relationship and engage in a conversation with customers. Don’t let them forget about you: stay in touch with relevant contacts, like follow up emails, surveys, and notes about new products or services. By maintaining an active relationship with customers, you’ll be on their mind and ready to refer when the moment is right.
• Offer experiences that tell a story: Experiences need to be both emotional and topical to encourage word of mouth.
• Identify your influentials: Influentials are people who are enthusiastic and connected. These are the people who can share your message with your target audience. They may be bloggers, part of an evangelism program, new customers, or just big fans. Find them and give them something to talk about.
• Take a genuine interest in your customers: Go Digital tells the story of Joe Girard, a car salesman who is listed as the world’s greatest salesman in the Guinness Book of World Records. Girard realized that most customers have about 250 people that are close to them, and a great job on one sale could lead to 250 more. He took a genuine interest in getting to know more about his customers: he went so far as to visit a customer who worked at a screw machine shop to see firsthand how screws are made. Girard’s visits to the shop often ended in more sales as his customer enthusiastically introduced the inquisitive car sales man to his coworkers. You may not need to visit factories regularly: picking up the phone and personally connecting with your customers sends a powerful message of interest as well.
• Know your sources: Once just a verbal exchange, word of mouth marketing is now on Facebook, Twitter, review sites, blog posts, message forums, brand mentions, customer testimonials, and more. It’s essential to build an active and engaged social community by encouraging dialogue, offering loyalty programs, organizing events, and hosting contests.
• Don’t forget to connect offline, too: While online word of mouth is an important factor to consider, The Venture Edge insists that offline word of mouth is far more valuable. Why? Offline referrals are typically more personal, emotional, and trusted: factors that can really make your word of mouth stand out and deliver new customers.
• Offer an incentive: While good services or products may be enough for some to share their positive word of mouth recommendations, others often need a little more convincing. But don’t just offer cash; consider special gifts that everyone wants. For example, limited stock private label wine offered in exchange for referrals.
• Be authentic: While offering incentives can be an effective tactic, paying people to write reviews is never a good idea. Make social media marketing organic. While you might get away with fake reviews, you’ll also be creating unnecessary reputational risk. Your online reviews should be genuine — not fishy — so that customers will put faith in them.
• Build trust with consistency: Create a trustworthy product that customers can rely on. They should be able to expect the same experience (or better) with each purchase. Consistently delivering a positive experience build customer loyalty, and encourages your customers to share their great experience with others.
• Give your word of mouth room to grow: Once you’ve earned word of mouth referrals, don’t keep them to yourself. Feature customer testimonials and reviews on your website with photos to encourage authenticity. You should also share word of mouth on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, where customers can share their reviews on their social channels.
• Be visible: Businesses should go the extra mile by participating in the community and being visible outside of the office or shop. Patronizing local businesses yourself (and giving them good word of mouth) can build your profile and encourage others to support you.
• Ask employees what they think: Those working on the front lines really know what your customers want. It’s a great idea to ask for their opinions and follow suggestions for better resonating with your customers.
• Give loyal customers special perks: If you’re launching a new product, give die-hard followers first dibs. You’ll likely get great feedback that can be used for quality control, and they’re also likely to help you get the word out.

Reputation marketing through word of mouth may sound like a lot of work, but it boils down to a few basic principles: make your customers happy, be trustworthy and consistent, and encourage word of mouth by staying connected with your customers. As referrals and personal recommendations continue to be more important, the investment you make in word of mouth marketing is practically guaranteed to improve your online reputation and your bottom line.

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Work With Us

11 minutes read

So, hear me out.

You’re at a lovely coffee shop with your friends. Before going there, you just received the product you ordered two days ago. It came in an exquisite box that made the unboxing process a delight. The product is exactly how you pictured it, maybe better.

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Once you arrive at the meeting spot, you feel like talking about your experience with the product. If not from the start, you’ll surely find the right moment (or create one) to insert your product recommendation.

We rarely recommend products or services that are average. Perhaps only when they have a huge discount. Otherwise, it has to impress us, make us happy, and only after we’ll spread the word.

This excitement is what triggers word of mouth marketing, aka WOMM.

We’ve all heard about word of mouth marketing but let’s also see how you can take advantage of it.

First, we should lay down the basics.

What Does Word of Mouth Mean?

Word of mouth is one of the fundamental ways of communicating, and it refers to passing information from one person to another through oral communication.

To understand word of mouth meaning even better, think of this. Everything you discuss with a person can be considered word of mouth communication—from giving simple directions to creating a powerful brand using word of mouth marketing strategy.

What Is Word of Mouth Marketing?

Word of mouth marketing (WOMM), also known as word of mouth advertising, is the digitized version of traditional word of mouth.

To put it simply, your customers are so amazed by the experience they had with your company that they feel compelled to do a bit of free word of mouth advertising for you.

Traditionally, wom marketing occurred only organically, from one person to another, based on recommendation. Today, we can also include the brands’ targeted actions to determine customers share their experiences.

Therefore, we can say there are two types of word of mouth marketing:

• Organic WOM marketing occurs when your brand already has an extended customer base, which is satisfied with the products/services you offer and wants to share the positive experience with other people.
• Targeted campaigns, which are created by marketers to quicken WOM marketing among their customers. You can do this through social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), on review platforms (Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Google My Business, etc.), blog posting, or influencer marketing.

Word of mouth marketing works naturally on word of mouth, as its name suggests. But in this modern age, social media and other digital platforms are the new mediums for WOMM.

And because we are so connected and all the information we need is shared online, a single excellent recommendation can lead to wom marketing, increasing brand awareness.

What Is Word of Mouth Marketing Strategy?

Word of mouth marketing strategy refers to a company’s actions that trigger consumers to talk and share information about a brand, products, services, or significant experience.

Word of mouth marketing strategy also includes customers’ actions, which refer to sharing their experiences and influencing others in trying a particular product or service.

How Effective Is Word of Mouth Marketing?

Word of mouth marketing still remains one of the most effective marketing tools because consumers rely on other people’s recommendations, especially when it comes to new brands they haven’t tried yet.

To be more precise about the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing strategy, here are some statistics from Cision:

• 74% of consumers say word of mouth is the main influencer in their purchasing decision
• Word of mouth is the most powerful influencer among Millennials
• 63% of social media users believe ratings are essential in their purchase decision
• Word of mouth brings in five times more sales than PPC

These stats point out the advantages wom marketing will bring to your business. In time, you’ll increase your sales without spending that much money on ads.

Moreover, you’ll build a community of engaged and loyal customers that will recommend your brand further.

Don’t think that word of mouth marketing will stop after a single interaction. Opinions, ideas, and images of your products/services will be passed from one person to another, continuously creating word of mouth promotion and increasing your brand’s exposure even more.

And this is why WOM marketing is something worth investing in.

There are a few things to consider before starting to rely on word of mouth marketing strategy, and they’re all related to what kind of customer experience you’re willing to offer.

Lay the Foundation for a Great Customer Experience

Before creating a word of mouth marketing strategy, the first thing you need to do is make sure you provide an outstanding customer experience.

Here’s what you have to focus on.

1. Offer quality products or services

I can’t stress enough how important it is to offer your customers only quality products or services.

Even if the rest of the experience is positive, starting with the moment a customer found you, if the product or service is not what they expected, it will trigger a series of frustrations and negative reviews.

Not to mention the impact this will have on your effort to build brand trust.

The bottom line here is that offering quality is the first step towards building a loyal customer base so you can receive positive reviews and recommendations from them. Only with quality products/services, you’ll start a word of mouth promotion.

Among word of mouth marketing examples, here’s a positive experience a client had with Sofitel Paris Arc De Triomphe, a hotel from Paris, which they shared on Booking.com:

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2.  Make your website easy to navigate 

Your website needs to run seamlessly and be visually appealing, as this is one of the key deciding factors for a customer upon purchase. A study by Intechnic showed that 23% of customers who had a positive experience told another ten people about it.

A visually pleasing website will increase the customer experience and trust in your brand. This is because they will recognize your professionalism and interest in offering your customers a great UX experience.

Besides, just think about the feeling you get when you enter a new website and discover an old design, like in the 90s. I bet it doesn’t inspire you too much confidence.

The same study shows that 70% of customers abandon purchases because of a bad user experience.

Here’s an example of an impressive website design.

If you scroll on Desponde’s website, the visuals go to the left, offering their customers an eye-catching journey.

If you run an ecommerce business, it’s a must to implement a smooth checkout process across all devices. Don’t make it too long, and keep the steps as straightforward as possible.

Adidas has a simple checkout process. You can see at the top of the page the progress you’re making at every step, and also how many it will take for you to place your order.

3. Deliver on your promises

If there’s one thing people hate, it’s when they receive something other than what a company promised to deliver. This rule applies to products and services alike.

So if you promise to deliver your product in 48 hours, then make sure to do so.

To understand just how important delivery is, 84% of customers said they would not return to a retailer after a negative delivery experience.

It may be difficult to send all the products on time, but it’s even harder to re-establish a lost connection with a customer.

This means you’ll have to make sure all your company processes are in place and running smoothly for the customers to have a flawless experience.

To deliver on your promises doesn’t mean just sending the product in the specified time or at least a decent amount of time, but it also refers to the product’s quality as advertised. We probably all know about those pictures of what I ordered vs. what I got.

Don’t be that kind of company.

If, for instance, you’re selling clothes, make sure the product your customer ordered looks the same as on the website and also has the fabric as mentioned in the description.

Here’s a good example from GAP. The shirt’s description matches the quality, and this review shows us the client is happy about it.

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4. Exceed expectations

Consumers remember brands that do things differently.

If you’re in the retail business, I find it incredibly thoughtful to add a handwritten note to the order and address the customer by their name. I’ve experienced this in the past, and it was the most personalized order I received.

With a thing like that, you have all the changes to get your customers to display the note on their social media accounts, increasing your brand exposure.

You can also use an elegant box, just like Manissi did, packed with a message inside that will bring a smile to the person that unboxes the product.

This is the free word of mouth advertising you need.

Once you have loyal customers, keep pampering your relationships with them by offering discounts, coupons, and other incentives that will keep them coming back.

When you’re sure your brand is ready to offer what customers want and expect, you can start working on the word of mouth marketing strategy.

How To Build a Word of Mouth Marketing Strategy

So you checked all the things I mentioned above and provided people all the reasons to talk about your brand.

In its essence, word of mouth is something that happens organically. Still, you can do certain things to encourage this behavior, which is what we’re going to talk about next.

1. Start within your company

You can start directly at the source within your company. Your employees are the ones that know (almost) everything about your business.

A happy employee who understands your company’s values will always share their thoughts and feelings with their close friends and on social media.

Content shared by employees is seen as a reliable source of information.

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, an employee or an external, impartial person is more trusted than even the CEO of that named brand.

So, if your peers are not doing this already, find a way to entice them to be more active on social media and spread the word about your brand.

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2. Build word of mouth triggers

A word of mouth trigger relies on your business’ uniqueness. Offer your customers a memorable experience, and they will return the favor by offering you free advertising in their circle of friends.

The best part about these triggers is that you can link a concept to your product or service. The concept can refer to a personalized service, employers treating customers with empathy and respect, responsiveness towards your customers, or your brand’s attitude—all the core values and uniqueness you worked for will pay off.

A great example of a word of mouth trigger is Hilton’s famous cookies.

For over 25 years, DoubleTree by Hilton hotels has welcomed their guests with an in-house made chocolate chip cookie. Once someone stayed at the hotel, they most likely talked about the delicious surprise.

The staff kept their cookie recipe a secret until last year when the pandemic determined them to reveal it so people can create the cookies at home.

And this is how you create wom communication triggers.

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3. Spark WOM with great visuals

Since the dawn of time, people have responded and communicated through visuals. Besides being an excellent medium for passing information, visuals appeal to people’s emotions too.

Think of paintings and how each painter used specific shapes and colors to convey a sentiment or an idea.

Coming back into digital realms, you can use eye-catching visuals on your website, backed up by a smooth UX design.

When I came across this website, I had the immediate feeling that I have to share it.

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4. Help your brand stand out 

You can either create an innovative product/service or wrap and sell it in a new way.

The thing is, you should think of creative ways to make your brand remarkable.

The best places you can try creating something unique are your products/ services, the company’s core values, and the marketing advertising strategies meant to promote your brand.

When I think of creative ways of making your product/service stand out, the ads from MintMobile come to my mind. Ryan Reynolds, the owner of MintMobile, knows how to create a unique ad without putting in too much effort.

This is because he uses his way of seeing and doing things, which, let’s be honest, is very catchy.

5. Tap into people’s emotions

One of the most potent ways to help your brand get out there is to use emotional advertising.

We respond to the emotional part of the ads because it’s something we understand and feel. And basically, this is a natural, human response, through which you can create the basis for wom communication.

The ads that convey strong emotions are also sharable and easy to go viral. Every year, there’s a cute Coca-Cola ad for Christmas with that awww effect on people.

Among the word of mouth marketing examples triggered by heartwarming ads is the 2020 Christmas ad from Waitrose & John Lewis.

6. Take advantage of trending topics

Use trending topics to get your brand out there. This doesn’t mean you have to forget everything your brand believes in, but you can tweak your usual content from time to time and reach more audiences with these trending topics.

They can be related to events or holidays. To see the hottest trending subjects connected to a specific event, use Google Trends to perform a quick search and find the topic that interests you and has the potential to be connected to your brand.

Or, you can also rely on memes.

You probably know about Maurizio Cattelan’s $120,000 banana. Burger King knows too, and it created an ad based on that super hot trending topic.

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7. Invest in brand trust before anything else

Brand trust comes with time, and your attitude towards your customers sets it. This means you have to take all the necessary steps to reach brand trust. With that come loyal customers that will become your brand’s advocates, creating organic word of mouth promotion.

With the decaying trust in brands over the years, you’ll have to make an extra effort and put your customer in the center of all actions.

If you invest all your time and energy into keeping your customers because they’re showing trust towards your brand, you’ll also establish yourself as an industry leader.

There are a few ways to gain or maintain brand trust:

• Build a brand for your clients based on their constant feedback. This means you have to understand your clients’ feelings towards your product/services and where there’s a need for improvement. With continuous improvement comes a great customer experience.
• Always be authentic and accept the good and bad reviews, focusing on solving your clients’ frustrations.
• Be part of your community and get involved in societal issues. Your customers will trust you more when they see you’re interested in a cause.
• Once you create a brand identity (style, logo, colors, fonts, etc.), be consistent. If you’re not making drastic changes to your brand too often, it means it works, and people will trust it. Moreover, your customers will get used to your brand, and the feeling of familiarity will encourage them to choose you in the future.
• Keep analyzing your buyer personas and offer them what they need according to how their purchasing behavior changes. Each year and with all the new products/services out there, customers’ expectations tend to be higher, demanding more reviews and more information regarding a product/service before making a purchase.

One great word of mouth marketing example triggered by a brand’s stand on social issues is Stella Artois’ partnership with Water.org. Every bought Limited-Edition Stella Artois Chalice provides five years of clean water for someone in need in the developing world.

This is an excellent way of creating word of mouth promotion while, of course, helping someone and making a change.

8. Maintain an engaged community 

You can foster word of mouth marketing through a social media community in which you can engage in dialogues with your customers, host contests, giveaways, and loyalty programs.

You can also announce upcoming events and feature releases in this customer base community first and make them feel special and cherished for being your loyal customers.

If you take a look at Adobe’s Instagram page, you’ll see they mention a lot of artists featuring their work. Besides this, they also host contests, giveaways, or challenges, like the one below.

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Final Thoughts

A proper word of mouth strategy can propel your business into the big league, with you as the leader.

But this doesn’t happen overnight. Word of mouth is based on a genuine connection, and it has to work both ways—from your brand and only after from the customers.

First, understand the real word of mouth meaning for your brand, and then you’ll have a clear picture of what you’ll have to do to trigger it inside your customers’ base.

Give consumers plenty of reasons to talk highly of your brand.

Let’s start with the facts. 92% of consumers will believe a recommendation from friends and family over any other type of advertising. That simple statistic casually hides one of the most powerful truths in marketing: Your biggest marketing asset is your existing customer base

Today, many businesses spend millions on advertising to new audiences, while completely neglecting the marketing potential of their existing customers. And while there are many different ways to harness your existing user base, few are as powerful as word of mouth marketing, and that’s the strategy we’ll be discussing today.

What Is Word of Mouth Advertising?

Word-of-mouth advertising (WOM advertising), also called word of mouth marketing, is the process of actively influencing and encouraging organic word of mouth discussion about a brand, organization, resource, or event.

Word of mouth definition: Influencing and encouraging organic discussions about a brand, organization, resource, or event.

To put it most simply, word of mouth marketers and advertisers seek to create something worth talking about and then actively encourage people to talk about it.

As we noted earlier, people love referrals and they tend to trust the opinions of their friends when making purchasing decisions. Word of mouth advertising is essentially seeking to kickstart an exponential referral chain that drives continuous traffic, leads, and sales for the brand.

Word of Mouth Advertising Statistics: Why Does WOM Work So Effectively?

While some customer marketing tactics require a strong pitch, when it comes to word of mouth advertising, the statistics speak for themselves.

Just take a look at a few of the top statistics, and it doesn’t take long to see how powerful word-of-mouth marketing really is:

So what makes it work?

Essentially, it comes down to trust. People trust what others have to say, which means when they hear about something from a friend or previous consumer, they’re more likely to buy. But there’s more at work.

Studies by marketing expert Jonah Berger have found two driving factors that power WOM marketing content. These factors are social currency and triggers.

Top 2 Reasons Word-of-Mouth Marketing Works:

1. Social Currency
2. Triggers

Social currency relies on the idea of exclusivity. In short, we like to feel special. Hearing about an underground club or secret menu item triggers our need to belong to an exclusive group.

Insider knowledge gives us social currency that we then use to spread the word to other friends.

Accordingly, an easy way to encourage word of mouth discussion is through marketing strategies that pick up on the social currency factor, offering insider secrets or exclusive information (ex. secret menus). Triggers are a natural social mechanism that remind us about a brand or product even when we don’t see advertising.

For example, imagine your friend told you about a special happy hour deal on Tuesdays at a bar near your house. On Tuesday, when another friend mentions grabbing drinks after work, you will be triggered to remember the place you heard about with Tuesday specials. Tuesday becomes the trigger amplifying the effect of WOMM. In this way, word of mouth can also be a way to improve existing customer engagement strategies.

Word of mouth marketing & user-generated content

Another reason why word-of-mouth marketing works is because of the same principles that marketing with user-generated content is so successful.

Word of mouth marketing and user-generated content marketing are closely related.

User-generated content is voluntarily created and shared by everyday consumers, while word of mouth is the organic sharing of information or opinions about a product, company, or brand, from one consumer to the other.

One powerful type of user-generated content is reviews — and getting customers to write reviews is one way to facilitate the spread of word-of-mouth marketing. When potential shoppers read reviews, it builds customer trust by showing them that a verified customer offers their endorsement of your brand.

Related post: Learn how to use consumer generated media to amplify your word-of-mouth marketing.

How to Build a Word of Mouth Marketing Strategy

Successful implementation of word of mouth campaigns can’t be accomplished via cookie cutter tactics.

There is an inherently creative element to the process that must be artfully and uniquely applied to each brand.

As I mentioned earlier, word of mouth promotion tends to incorporate two key components:

1. Create something buzz-worthy
2. Encourage the buzz

In other words, word of mouth promotion doesn’t simply attempt to get people excited about a business’ logistics, daily operations, or profit model.

The key to a successful word of mouth marketing strategy is to either identify something about a brand that can generate organic buzz OR create something that will generate that buzz.

To find out how to do this effectively, look to successful word of mouth marketing examples for inspiration.

Top 3 Word-of-Mouth Marketing Examples

One of the best ways to build a successful strategy of your own is by looking at what worked for other brands.

TOMS: Creating organic buzz by doing good

As you are no doubt aware, TOMS became a famous, massively profitably shoe company thanks to the viral popularity of their One-for-One business model.

When you buy one pair of shoes from TOMS, one pair is also donated to a child in need of shoes. This model was touted and received as a form of consumer-driven charity, and as a result, the company exploded, reaching a valuation of over $600 million in 2014.

In the cold reality of hard numbers, the Alpargatas shoes TOMS sells retail for around $2-5 in South America, indicating an incredibly low manufacturing cost.

With a price point of $60, its fair to say that TOMS shoes’ actual charity contributions are relatively marginal.

Despite this, TOMS realized that “company gives shoes to those in need every time you buy” made for a far more buzzworthy headline than “company donates money to poor people”.

As a result, the company focused its branding around this buzzworthy portion of its business model, and then blitzed the media with its message, generating tons of news coverage and hundreds of thousands of backlinks.

While TOMS opted to build its business model around something it could make buzzworthy, this isn’t an option for most businesses. Instead, these businesses have the opportunity to create something interesting that people will get excited about and then spread the word.

Chipotle: Creating WOM Buzz Through Storytelling

Casual dining chain Chipotle has somewhat distinguished itself being a national chain that sources its ingredients locally.

That said, “ingredients sourced locally” isn’t necessary something that is going to blow up anyone’s Facebook feed.

In order to spearhead word of mouth, Chipotle created a haunting video, with an accompanying iPhone app, depicting a dreary, over-processed world run by machinery.

The video and app combined have generated over 614 million media impressions, according to Cision, making it a major WOMM win for Chipotle.

Coca-cola “Share a Coke With Friends”: Omnichannel WOM

Coca-cola’s campaign asked for consumers to participate by sharing a personalized soda bottle with friends, in person and on social media.

Coca-cola even supported the campaign with events where consumers could create their own personalized Coke bottle.

Learning from these brands:

The processes from these examples can be repeated by virtually any company looking to generate grassroots word of mouth coverage of their brand.

When coming up with word of mouth marketing ideas, it’s important to see what worked for other successful brands.

Get ideas for your word of mouth marketing campaign by looking to successful brands who did it right.

Conclusion

Very few marketing strategies can match WOMM in terms of viral potential or cost-efficiency.

The right strategy can explode a company onto the scene for mere pennies, but it doesn’t just happen by itself.

Word of mouth marketing requires a genuine and meaningful customer engagement with the target audience. It’s a two-way participation.

Use the strategies we discussed here today, but remember that ultimately, it’s meaningful connection, rather than technique, that motivates customers to become brand ambassadors.

Looking for new ways to grow your customer base? Don’t forget about wowing the customers you already have, to generate word-of-mouth marketing.  Think of the last time you recommended your favorite restaurant, clothing item, or other product to a friend. You probably shared because you loved your experience. The same goes for your company – when customers are wowed by your business, they naturally want to spread the good word.

This excitement to share is what drives word-of-mouth marketing (also called WOM marketing, WOMM, or word-of-mouth advertising). And this sharing leads to new customers, because the people who hear your customers’ word of mouth highly trust the word of their peers. So, word-of-mouth marketing could be your secret weapon for growth – especially because it often happens for free.

Athough word-of-mouth marketing depends on your customers and fans, it’s not out of your control. There are many ways to further your word-of-mouth marketing strategy. Below, we cover everything about the power of word of mouth, from what sets word of mouth apart from all other types of marketing to how you can harness word-of-mouth marketing to scale your own business.

What prompts word-of-mouth marketing?

Usually, word of mouth is prompted by an above-and-beyond positive experience someone has had with your brand. Think about the last time you ate an amazing dinner out, or tried a cool new product that easily solved one of your problems. You probably couldn’t help but share this standout experience with your friends.

Why is word-of-mouth marketing so important?

Word-of-mouth marketing stands out because of its high level of trust.

Why do people trust word of mouth?

Usually, word-of-mouth recommendations come from friends, family members, and others within someone’s close circles. When someone sees a friend or family member raving about a particular brand, they’re much more likely to buy. That’s because peer recommendations are seen as especially valuable.

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Word-of-mouth marketing benefits

According to a Nielsen report, 92% of people trust word of mouth referrals from those they know, more than they trust all other forms of advertising.

Word-of-mouth marketing means your customers and other fans are essentially doing the marketing for you, at little to no cost to your business! They are promoting straight to their network, usually in person or on social media. This makes word of mouth not only cost-effective, but highly valuable.

Plus, thanks to social media, what someone shares can reach millions in mere seconds. And word of mouth doesn’t just stop after one interaction – one person will tell another, and another, and so on. With every share, repost, or retweet, word-of-mouth marketing carries the potential for exponential growth.

All this happens at a very low cost to your business – often, for free.

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Word of mouth statistics: How effective is word-of-mouth marketing?

These word-of-mouth marketing statistics further prove how successful word-of-mouth marketing can be:

• 83% of Americans say that word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know make them more likely to purchase a given product or service.
• According to Nielsen, consumers are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend, so word of mouth produces high conversion rates.
• When it comes to products they have purchased, 74% of people identified word of mouth as a key factor in their purchase decision.
• Marketers rate the quality of leads brought in by word of mouth as a 4.28 out of 5.

Check out more word-of-mouth marketing statistics in the infographic below.

What are the types of word-of-mouth marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing (word-of-mouth advertising) can be divided into two main types or categories: amplified word of mouth and organic word of mouth.

Amplified word-of-mouth marketing is directly encouraged by your business via a marketing campaign. Within the campaign, businesses will usually use some sort of reward to motivate this word of mouth. Amplified word of mouth strategies are also easy to track, since they are tied to a campaign.

Examples of amplified word of mouth include:

• Referral programs
• Affiliate programs
• Brand ambassador programs
• Influencer marketing campaigns
• Other customer endorsements you encourage with rewards
• Other campaigns and contests to encourage social media sharing

In contrast, organic word-of-mouth marketing occurs when someone recommends your brand naturally and without direct prompting from your business.

It is much harder to motivate and track. But this type of word of mouth isn’t fully out of your control. It is usually triggered by an event experienced by the customer. Whether that’s amazing customer service or a free gift with purchase, triggers set your brand apart from the competition and keep you top of mind. Plus, they make for great talking points and organic word of mouth.

We’ll dive into common ways to trigger word-of-mouth marketing in the next section.

Examples of organic word of mouth include:

• Spontaneous social media sharing (user-generated content)
• Reviews and comments from satisfied customers
• Natural sharing of a product through any type of conversation
• “Dark social” sharing in DMs and private emails, that doesn’t have a tracking tag

6 word-of-mouth marketing strategies for any campaign (+WOMM examples)

With the right word-of-mouth marketing campaign, you can successfully create a steady stream of referrals and repeatable word of mouth for your brand.

Fortunately, there are plenty word-of-mouth channels at your disposal: referral programs, influencer programs, brand ambassador programs, affiliate marketing, and many more. Whichever channel you choose, however, it’s important to develop an overall WOMM strategy to encourage organic sharing.

Here are a few proven WOMM strategies to help get you started, along with some word-of-mouth marketing examples that show the strategies in action.

1. Create triggers for word of mouth

Triggers are little cues that remind your audience about your brand, even without any actual advertising.

Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger gives this example: What immediately comes to mind when someone says peanut butter? Was it jelly? In this case, peanut butter acts almost like an advertisement for jelly.

This is the type of association you want to create for your brand. One famous example is a KFC campaign that ran in Japan in the 1970s. Translated to “Kentucky is Christmas,” it promoted a party barrel of fried chicken as Christmas dinner. The campaign was so successful that until today, many families in Japan order Kentucky Fried Chicken when the holiday season rolls around.

Create your own triggers by finding something your audience sees or does on a regular basis. By associating your brand with these, you increase the likelihood of people remembering and talking about you.

2. Appeal to your audience

Like all marketing strategies, word of mouth works best when it puts its audience first. Think of what digital marketing content would appeal best to your audience – would it be an interactive contest, a behind-the-scenes video, or something else? By continuing to give your audience what it wants, you’re able to add to your social currency and generate word of mouth.

Social currency is all about reputation. People share what they think will make them look good in front of others, because every share puts their reputation on the line. They’ll only “spend” their social currency on your brand, and spread the word about you, if they think it will give their reputation a boost. So, make sure you’ve created something your audience loves, and will think it’s cool to share with others.

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3. Provide value to customers

The brands worth talking about are ones that provide value. Whether that means solving a problem with your product or delivering an unparalleled customer experience, a customer that sees value in your brand will both stick with you and share your brand with others.

Providing value is also one of the best ways to gain a customer’s good will. If you can offer value – and in a way that stands out – you may just earn a positive customer review, promote brand loyalty, and maximize your word of mouth.

4. Tap into emotion

Emotional attachments are one of the biggest drivers of word-of-mouth marketing. If people feel strongly about a brand or product, they are not likely to drop it, even if a more logical option comes along.

People respond more to emotions, as well. Whether it’s something happy, sad, funny, or otherwise, they instinctively want to share it with others.

If you can create experiences that result in positive emotions, your word of mouth efforts can go a long way. For instance, think of how Always fought against stereotypes and empowered young women with its #LikeAGirl ads.

And if your brand has a unique personality, this can also stir up emotions. Use your personality for emotional appeal, in a way that stands out from the crowd, and customers won’t be able to stop talking. This works especially well if you’re appealing to humor. Think back to Wendy’s – they went viral thanks to their signature snarky, humorous tweets.

5. Tell your story

Creating a compelling story goes hand in hand with giving audiences what they want, offering value and appealing to emotions. If customers love the “why” behind what you do – your mission and values – and that “why” is packaged in a story that’s moving and easy to tell, customers will share your story with others.

One example is 4Ocean’s story: they pull plastic from the ocean daily to help marine life, and then recycle much of that plastic into bracelets and other products.

6. Create exclusivity

Making people feel like they know secrets or insider information is another recipe for generating sharing. Think of how Starbucks “secret menu” drinks have gone viral on social media, and how In-N-Out Burger got people talking both online and offline with their own “secret menu” items (which were key in driving the brand’s overall success).

Secrets don’t just work for food brands, though. If you share new and exciting products with your most loyal customers first, or create a sale that people can only access with a code you emailed, people will want their friends to get in on the action, too. They’ll tell their friends quickly, meaning more buzz, and more sales, for you.

How do online reviews affect word-of-mouth advertising?

As we’ve outlined above, you can build word-of-mouth advertising in many ways. But one of the best ways is by getting positive customer reviews. A majority 90% of people read reviews before deciding whether or not to visit a business, and 72% will only push through with a purchase after reading positive reviews.

Plus, good reviews help build your brand’s social proof and boost your online reputation – both terrific ways to gain exposure and get even more people talking about you.

Customer reviews also allow you to expand into other channels and platforms. Say, a happy customer writes a review about you on Yelp. That review can then be searched and shared across other channels, as well. You can share some of the best reviews on your own social media accounts, or even post them as testimonials on your own website.

Here’s a step-by-step example of how reviews can play a role in word-of-mouth advertising:

• Winter season is about to start, and Ken and Val are talking about chimney sweeping services.
• Val tells Ken that she needs to hire someone to come to her house some time in the next few weeks.
• Ken shares that he’s also been searching for someone and found a few chimney services with good reviews online (thanks to previous word of mouth). He mentions a few that looked especially promising.
• Val takes a look at a few of the services, and ends up picking one that did an amazing job.
• Val starts telling all her friends, including Ken, and even posts a picture of her cozy fireplace with a newly cleaned chimney (further generating word of mouth!).

How to build word-of-mouth marketing on social media?

Stop collecting and start connecting. This is a key guideline for any strong word-of-mouth marketing strategy these days.

Sure, you can have millions of social media followers. But to effectively use social media platforms to drive word-of-mouth marketing, you have to be active and engaging.

This means providing valuable information, responding to comments and questions, and encouraging and sharing some of your audience’s user-generated content (UGC).

The more connected you are to your followers, the more likely they will become true fans and supporters. And what do true fans usually do? Share your brand with others and increase word of mouth in new markets you may not have been able to reach otherwise.

Social proof and social media: Get others to show, not just tell

People decide what to do based on what they see other people doing. If they hear someone talking about how good your product is, this word of mouth will make them more likely to try the product. But when they see someone using your product in their everyday life, this social proof gives word-of-mouth a bigger boost. And social media shares of your product mean many people see how your product is used, all at once.

Ambassadors’ and influencers’ posts using your product, affiliates’ product reviews on social networks, and UGC images and videos from any customer show off your product and further inspire people to try it for themselves.

How is WOMM different from referral marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing is all about getting people talking about your brand or business. It looks for the best ways to promote sharing, often through general consumer interest or unique content. WOMM is all about spreading brand awareness to your audience. Depending on the types you choose to focus on, though, you may have difficulty tracking and controlling it.

Referral marketing is a segment of word-of-mouth marketing. It’s common for word of mouth to occur naturally in the process of referring others. But at its core, referral marketing is a proactive way to gain new customers, focused on key targets and specific results.

Referrals occur when someone who uses or knows your brand recommends it to others in their network, usually friends, family members, or colleagues. Since they are sharing your brand with others, they are generating word of mouth. But this recommendation is direct and purposeful, not just casually mentioned.

Combining word of mouth and referral marketing

Most types of marketing use word of mouth in one way or another. Referral marketing is no different. In fact, word of mouth helps companies get new customers all the time – which is the main aim of referral marketing.

Instead of doing a mass shout-out, however, referral marketing allows you to get more personal.

Referral marketing is all about motivating individual customers to share a product or service with others they know, by offering incentives whenever these recommendations bring in first-time customers. In time, this type of marketing works to build customer loyalty and establish long-term relationships, both among existing and newly referred customers.

Referral marketing also allows you to monitor your conversions, engagement, and other metrics.

With a formal referral program, businesses can incentivize customer sharing and organize their entire referral process. The right referral software can also generate automatic referral links and track each step of the process, so you know exactly where referrals are coming from.

Using referral marketing with other word of mouth strategies maximizes brand awareness and increases the odds of  creating a viral sharing effect. By integrating diverse types of word-of-mouth marketing into your overall marketing strategy, you increase the odds of achieving success.

To learn more about referral marketing, check out our referral marketing guide or learn essential referral program tips.

Other related word-of-mouth marketing terms

As a major business strategy, WOMM can be seen alongside many other marketing concepts. Here are a few common ones you may come across:

• Buzz marketing: This involves getting key ambassadors or influencers to spread the conversation about your brand. It’s focused on building viral growth around certain products or campaigns, usually using attention-grabbing techniques (i.e., videos, memes) and generating online buzz.
• Viral marketing: This type of marketing relies on one’s existing network to spread information from person to person in a rapid manner. This often occurs online or using social media, with content so compelling that people can’t help but send it with others.
• Blog marketing: When used for word of mouth, blog marketing involves blog posts that an influencer or brand ambassador creates. With a few strategic ads or sponsored posts, bloggers create content that quickly travels to their followers, who in turn, share it with their friends. By recruiting the right bloggers, a business can generate fair amount of word of mouth through their content marketing.
• Social media marketing:  Thanks to hashtags and rapid shares, the content created on social media has a way of reaching people outside of the original group following. And as we’ve seen, shared content has a higher value when it comes from someone people know and trust.

Wrapping up

Don’t sleep on word-of-mouth marketing, because recommendations and referrals are powerful. People trust the word of their family and friends. This makes them more likely to purchase from you when their peers recommend your products.

The best way to use this to your advantage is to leverage multiple types of word-of-mouth marketing, including by encouraging user-generated content, asking for reviews, and starting a referral program.

No matter which marketing tactics you use to generate buzz, it’s key to apply the fundamental word-of-mouth strategies: creating sharing triggers, appealing to your fan base, offering value, and stirring up an emotional response.

Ready to generate word of mouth in a way that’s easy to measure? Check out our complete guide to starting a referral program. 

Word of mouth marketing isn’t just about getting customers to talk about your brand. It’s about turning your customer into a raving fan.

Look at someone like Taylor Swift. She didn’t build her empire by getting someone to buy her album one time. Nope. She built her empire by building relationships. She occasionally sends flowers, gifts or special event invites to her hardcore fans.

And what do those fans do? They don’t just buy an album. They’ll also get their friends to buy albums, go to concerts with them, and more.

Her hardcore fans usually don’t just buy one album either. When she was promoting her 1989 album, she added five different sets of 13 imitation Polaroids, which were 65 pictures of her with song lyrics written on them, inside each CD. 

And what did fans do? They bought several of the same album. Why? To collect all 65 Polaroids. The result? She sold 1.287 million albums in one week.

Not bad.

While the marketing strategy on its own is quite clever, it never would’ve worked unless she had built up a hardcore fanbase.

So if you wanna know how to really get people talking about your brand to the point of obsession, in this article you’ll learn all about word of mouth marketing. This includes, what word of mouth marketing is, the importance of word of mouth marketing, the benefits, and word of mouth marketing strategies, alongside much more.  

Word of mouth marketing is a form of promotion that relies on happy customers and fans to promote a brand organically. This can be done through many forms of media like images, video, vlogs, etc. Word of mouth marketing is a great way of championing your product as those who create organic content around it genuinely care for it. As this form of marketing is free and can result in additional sales without your staff needing to do anything, offering a top-quality product that is easy to capture and describe can sell itself through your customers.

What is Word of Mouth Advertising?

By contrast, word of mouth advertising can result in the same impact as word of mouth marketing but typically involves payment to an influencer. Word of mouth advertising is a form of paid advertising where brands have control over the content pushed out by other people about the brand. The important thing to consider as a brand is if the person pushing out the content is the right person for the job. Do they represent the brand? Do they believe in your brand as much as you do? Are you willing to put your reputation on the line to use this person? There is much to consider before going down the route of word of mouth advertising.

Benefits of Word of Mouth Marketing

If you’re on the fence about whether or not to try increasing your word of mouth marketing, these benefits will help you consider trying it out.

1. Free marketing: Unless you’re doing word of mouth advertising, word of mouth marketing is free. You’ll still need to put effort in to get customers and build a strong enough relationship. However, their word of mouth promotion doesn’t come at a cost for you unless you’re paying for a loyalty app on the Shopify app store. For the most part, if you’re offering a shopping experience worth talking about, over time some customers may start raving about your brand to their friends.

2. More Sales: You benefit from the additional sales from the free referral your customer made. But you also get a few sales from the customer who recommended your brand. Why? Because if a customer loves your brand enough to recommend your brand to their friends, they’ll likely keep shopping with you. Learn how I made $743.65 with a customer loyalty program.

3. Grow brand at a faster rate: Word of mouth marketing has a viral marketing element to it. If you add enough hype around your brand or build an epic experience for your customers, it’s possible that a popular customer will help your brand go viral. When starting out, word of mouth may only lead to a couple of sales. However, as your brand grows bigger you might notice that more people start tagging friends on your social media posts, forwarding emails to friends and more. Over time, you’ll find your brand grows at a faster rate than if you were to just rely on Facebook advertising or social media marketing.

Why is Word of Mouth Important?

There are many benefits of word of mouth marketing but why is it so important? Well, according to SDL, about more than half of all consumers (58%) share their positive experiences with a company on social media.

What does this mean? It means that after buying from your store or interacting with your brand, your customers are engaging in word of mouth promotion online.

It can come in the form of posting a photo of a package they just received or taking a selfie wearing your product. They might tag you in a post to thank you or to show off their product.

On top of that, Nielsen shared an article where they found that 84% of consumers say they completely or somewhat trust product recommendations from those around them like friends, family, and coworkers.

Not only do customers share their experiences but their network are also likely to trust those recommendations. Organic Word of mouth marketing is not forced like word of mouth advertising, therefore, it is easier to interact with.

So, word of mouth marketing can be a powerful way to help you build your brand and customer base.

10 Word of Mouth Marketing Strategies

#1. Influencer Marketing

If you’re looking for a word of mouth advertising tactic you can have control over, influencer marketing is for you.

With influencer marketing, you’ll need to pay an influencer to feature your products on their social media. Since you’re paying them, you can have some control over what they post, when they post and how they post it.

The best thing about word of mouth advertising is that you can pay to start creating conversations around your product and potentially gain some sales from it.

The downside? It’s not really organic. Having real customers honestly rave about your products is a great feeling. And while you might get excited about getting sales this way, over the long haul this word of mouth tactic can get expensive.

#2. Hashtag Effect

Whenever I create a new Instagram account for my store, I always create a hashtag. It’s never anything super fancy, I usually just do my business name after the hashtag like #businessname.

At first, all the posts are my brand’s posts. However, every time without fail, eventually other people start using that hashtag too. Customers and fans of the niche end up using the hashtag for their posts too. Hashtags are a subtle but easy way to get your customers to do word of mouth marketing.

And as a result, it ends up making the hashtag more popular. While it can be hard to track whether the sales came from the hashtag or some other channel, this simple tactic helps build a stronger brand awareness.

Since the hashtag is the same as your brand name, you’ll be more likely to get found on Instagram. Plus, if your posts are dominating the hashtag feed, you’re more likely to get found. If you’re more likely to get found, you have a better chance of getting more sales.

#3. User-Generated Content

As your store grows, customers will start sharing user-generated content. What’s that? It’s content they create. It could be an Instagram post showing them wearing your product or a blog post on their website where they rave about your products.

You can take simple steps to encourage word of mouth by getting customers to create content. How? Post customer photos on your social media or on your product pages. Don’t forget to credit them in the post!

Offer incentives for promoting your brand. Maybe you have a referral or affiliate program where you offer perks or points for various types of content customers create.

Create a contest where you ask customers to send pictures of them with your product for a chance to win a free product or gift card to your store. You can even ask them to get their friends to vote on their post to help them win which can also boost your word of mouth outreach. Be careful with this type of marketing to ensure that it is not perceived as word of mouth advertising by tracking interactions closely.

#4. Get Reviews

Reviews work as an effective word of mouth strategy. The customer leaves a product review on the product page for the product they purchased. Then, store visitors end up seeing the post and may become influenced to buy the product based on the reviews they’ve read from real customers.

You can use Shopify apps like Product Reviews Addon to automate the collection of product reviews on your store. The emails are sent directly to your customers for you. If customers leave negative reviews, they’ll be redirected to your customer support team so that you can improve their experience.

#5. Create a Referral Program

A referral program can be designed to help you increase the success of your word of mouth marketing campaigns. You can offer perks for different levels of promotion. For example, if your customer refers a friend who purchases, you can offer a financial reward as a token of appreciation.

You can also offer non-monetary perks for other levels of promotion such as sharing user-generated content, posting product links on social media, tagging your brand on product posts and more.

You can use Shopify apps like Smile.io and Referral Candy to easily build a referral program on your online store.

So about a year ago, Carter Wilkerson tweeted Wendy’s asking how many retweets he’d need to get free nuggets. Wendy’s tweeted back saying an astronomical 18 million and while he didn’t get 18 million tweets, his tweet still became the most retweeted tweet of all time.

Imagine if Wendy’s didn’t respond to his tweet. That word of mouth campaign never would’ve happened. Becoming the most retweeted tweet of all time is a pretty big deal. It ended up amassing a ton of free media coverage because of the nature of the tweet, the record he broke and the nuggets he ended up receiving despite not achieving the goal.

As you build your store, you’re going to have countless interactions with your customers. If you can be positive, playful and active with them all, you may have a home run one day. It might not be as big as ‘the most retweeted tweet’ but it could still help boost your brand’s success.

#7. Give People No Choice But To Talk

There’s no brand who can get people talking as much as Red Bull. They often do these extreme stunts that go viral just because of how insane they are. Felix Baumgartner skydived from the edge of space. Paul Steiner climbed off one plane onto another while in the air. Basically, every stunt Red Bull does is fast and dangerous.

Naturally, when you do something extreme to get attention, you’re going to get people talking. While most brands don’t have the budget to do extreme and dangerous stunts, you can still get a similar impact with easy to execute ideas.

Some ecommerce brands hand deliver packages if customers need it delivered by a specific deadline. You can also surprise a customer with a free gift on their birthday using the Happy Birthday Email app. Your customer support team can respond to emails with video responses instead of text or talk in silly accents like a pirate.

#8. Surprise with Freebies

Shoppers love free stuff. And Sephora uses that fact to their advantage.

Multiple times a week Sephora sends emails with discount codes customers can use to get a free product. If a customer spends a certain amount of money, they can even use that money to get even more free stuff.

On a customers birthday month, they can collect their free gift from any Sephora location for free or with purchase if buying online. But does it result in word of mouth promotion? Yup, on my birthday back in January, even I posted about my free gift online.

You might think that freebies cost more money than they make. However, the 2017 birthday gift I got resulted in me buying that free gift multiple times. And now two years in a row I’ve spent over $300 each year on Sephora’s website. And I’m just one example. Truth is, the freebie can hook a person in and build their loyalty.

#9. Host Giveaways

Giveaways and contests are a great word of mouth marketing idea for those starting out. You can give away a free product on your store. You can have entries that require customers to share the giveaway on social media for a chance to win the prize. This helps you reach a newer audience organically.

You can use Shopify apps like ViralSweep or Social Boost to create contests and giveaways on your store.

The best part? After your contest has ended, you can reach out to everyone who lost and offer a runner-up prize. The runner-up prize could be a $5 gift card to your store. That way you can incentivize people to buy from your store despite not winning the contest. Just make sure that customers can’t score any freebies with the free gift card so you don’t lose money.

#10. Affiliate Networks

Affiliate marketing can help you increase your word of mouth marketing. You have a few key options you can experiment with.

First, you can get customers to sign up for your affiliate program. After a customer has made a purchase on your store, you can ask them to refer their friends and receive a commission for the sale if their friend using their referral link.

Second, you can reach out to niche bloggers. You can ask them to write articles about your products and brand. They can include affiliate links that allow them to monetize the post.

While you’re offering a monetary incentive, the reality is the risk is low as you only need to pay a commission if a sale is made. Also, even when sales aren’t made a brand awareness is being created by affiliates to help make more people familiar with your brand. 

Word of Mouth Marketing Statistics

Why should you believe us? Word of mouth marketing is a great strategy for some but how do you know if it is worthwhile for your business. Statistics can answer many of your questions and tell you if word of mouth marketing is the right strategy for you.

1. 51 percent of marketers say that Word of Mouth marketing outperforms brand-created content

   

Searchers, and indeed customers, have increasingly found it hard to believe branded content due to the rise in companies claiming to be the number 1 service provider in their area, or the best in the business without providing proof behind the claim. It is only fair to believe a customer’s word over a brand’s for this very reason. Customers can give a great first-hand account of their experience with a brand and be 100 percent truthful as they have nothing to lose.

2.  40 percent of desktop searchers use ad-blockers

Ad-blockers are making it harder for brands to advertise their products to potential customers. Due to the ever rising use of these plug-ins companies need to find other ways of generating new leads. Word of mouth marketing is the obvious first choice to replace ads as it is honest and organic.

3. Searchers need, on average, 2-6 reviews to instill trust in a brand

Reviews on Google, Yelp, and other review sites have never been more important, especially for smaller and local businesses. Reaching out to happy customers and asking them for online reviews can help increase trust in your brand among people who are thinking to buy from you. By having more than two reviews online you can increase sales of your product without doing any work yourself.

4 Great Word of Mouth Marketing Examples

1. ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

   In 2014 ALS released their ice bucket challenge as a fundraiser presented in the form of a challenge. Nominees poured a bucket of ice-cold water over themselves, capturing it in the form of an image or video, and donated money to the charity. The challenge was then posted over social media, and friends or family members were nominated to do the challenge. This campaign blew up with videos coming in from all over the world. The campaign was partaken by celebrities also. The biggest success for the campaign, of course, was the money raised which amounted to $115 million during the 8-week period in 2014

2. Dunkin’ Donuts

   Dunkin’ Donuts is an important part of America culture. Locals and tourists alike enjoy the delicious treat and it has become a beloved brand to the US. Because of their great product, they have earned staunch followers across the world and Dunkin’ Donut’s have found great ways to utilize word of mouth marketing through these great people. Using social media to launch competitions and post unique content, followers engage with them regularly. They engage in different ways like liking content, sharing it or even creating their own content around the brand to portray their experience of it. Their hard work paid off with their social media profiles growing hugely –  15 million Facebook fans, 1.5 million Instagram followers, and 1.2 million Twitter followers.

3. Netflix

   Using customer information to really understand what customers want on their platform, Netflix has not only been able to recommend shows to users but they have been able to create Netflix originals that are tailored to the biggest interests on the platform. Using this information in a smart way the company has been able to grow their customer sentiment positively creating an army of Netflix influencers who rave about the brand over the many social media platforms available to them. This free publicity has allowed the company to grow exponentially over its competitors like Amazon Prime, Hulu, and even YouTube.

4. Lush Loyalty

   Lush, as a beauty brand, offer ethical products that have not be tested on animals. Fighting for both social and environmental causes like animal testing and fair trade the company has collected an army of cult-like followers who believe in their values. These young followers are comfortable on most social media channels and also have more disposable income than the generations before them. Using unique content and promoting gifting Lush products, the company has been able to grow its profits year on year without needed to splash out on any advertising.

Word of Mouth Marketing: Conclusion

Creating a word of mouth marketing campaign can help you build brand recognition and get sales in the process. Turning your customers into raving fans isn’t easy. But you can apply the word of mouth marketing ideas from this article to help you start getting your customers talking. You may need to invest in word of mouth advertising in the beginning to build the hype but as your brand continues to grow, you’ll start to notice word of mouth happening on your social media quite regularly. Encourage customers to tag friends on social media posts, share their product photos online and leave product reviews. These little steps done regularly can help you master word of mouth marketing, even if you’re just starting out. The benefits are endless when you use word of mouth marketing alongside other forms of marketing.

Want to Learn More?

• 50 Most Inspiring and Successful Shopify Stores
• 9 Marketing Strategies That’ll Level Up Your Ecommerce Store
• 20 Great Customer Service Ideas to Surprise and Delight Shoppers
• Customer Retention: 8 Tips to Keep Your Customers Coming Back

How have you been building up hype around your brand? Share in the comments!