Word of mouth is still one of the best ways to market your business. While direct response, branding, and social networking all have their place, word of mouth is like referral advertising.
You’re just not going to get a better customer than one who came to you because of something one of their friends said about you. Here’s how to amp up your word of mouth marketing efforts.
Give Loyal Customers Videos
Videos are inherently viral – you just need the right content. Giving loyal existing customers videos to share with their friends and family is one way to spread the word about what it is you do. It also takes the pressure off of your customers to say something nice about you.
Some people just don’t know what to say about you, even if they’re thrilled with your service. A non-sleazy, non-sales oriented video can be the perfect introduction to your company. To avoid any video mishaps, don’t rely on video to be streamed from the Internet. Upload the content to a site like YouTube so that there’s always the option of watching online, but then use something like YTD to download the video to your customers’ mobile devices.
That way, they can watch the video right from their hard drive without worrying about buffering.
The Value Of Humor
Humor can be dangerous when it’s done incorrectly, but it can also boost sales. People like to laugh and, especially if you’re in a traditionally boring industry, humor can be the edge you need to spread the word about your company without sounding desperate.
You don’t have to be a stand-up comic, but if you can incorporate humour into professionally made videos or other content, it’s going to give it that “share factor” that is absolutely required for referral marketing to work.
Provide Real Value
Provide real value without necessarily selling customers additional services. When you give away free information, the perception is often that it’s worthless. Audit all of your freebies. What are they worth? Would you pay for any of the content you’re sending out to past customers? If not, then you need to rethink what you’re sending out to them.
Consider putting together content that has an actual dollar value. For example, let’s say you run a home carpet cleaning business. Hand out a free report to your existing customers about how to keep their carpets cleaner between professional cleanings so that they can stretch out the time between cleanings.
Afraid of losing business? Don’t be. Why? Because, if you can show them how much money they’ll save by not hiring you as often, and you make a deal with them to pass your name around to their friends, you’re going to pick up more business.
If you do this right, the amount of money you make off the additional business will more than make up for the decrease in cleaning frequency. In other words, by doing this, you’re giving your customers real value, not just selling them a service. They’ll thank you for it with repeat business and referrals.
Remember to respect IP: http://www.stopfakes.gov/consumer-tools/ip-resources-educators-and-youth.
Paul Moss is a word-of-mouth marketing expert. He loves writing about how to compel audiences to share information on small business blogs.
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