What is Word-of-mouth marketing?
Abbreviated as WOM marketing, it is a form of marketing wherein the consumer’s interest in the company’s offering is shown in their day-to-day dialogues. More precisely, it is free of cost promotion that takes place out of customer’s experiences, when they use the product offered by the company and get more satisfied with it than expected.
A kind of business exposure resulting from the audience talking about the brand, product or company to others. Credibility is the basic feature that makes it an amazing and effective force in the market. It encourages people to communicate the marketing message to others.
Further, it results in an exponential rise in the exposure of the message and its influence. The reach of the message multiplies and everyone gets the message in a small span of time.
It won’t be wrong to say that is free advertising, which companies get when customers speak positively about it.
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Example
You might have seen people asking for reviews of cars from their friends and relatives when they want to buy them.
Do you know?
As per the article published by McKinsey in 2010 – Of all the purchasing decisions shoppers make, 20-50% are based on word-of-mouth.
In another study by Nielsen 2021, Trust in Advertising Study, more than 80% of participants said they trust product and brand recommendations from their pals more than any other marketing.
Concept of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Every company strives for such publicity and makes their products the talk of the town, because that’s what generates business for the company, without any marketing effort. This leads to the emergence of word-of-mouth marketing.
There are instances when our family members, relatives, friends or acquaintances tell us about their experiences with the product. It is the most effective form of advertising. This is because the advertising is carried out by the people they trust and not by the conventional media.
It is supported by various publicity activities organised by the companies or by getting a chance to arrange consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-marketer interactions.
But, one must note that this strategy is based on the experiences of the customers with the products or brands they have used. The customers share these experiences with people they know which ultimately acts as a promotion.
It is a strategy which companies use to result in spontaneous discussions and recommendations about the product.
Here, one must take note that effective word-of-mouth marketing relies mainly on the nature of rewards which the company offers. Different surveys have revealed that when companies use the wrong incentives for instigating consumers for disseminating positive information about the company’s offerings, such campaigns can sometimes go wrong.
Ways to use Word-of-Mouth Marketing
- Consider influencer marketing: In influencer marketing, all you need to do is pay an influencer to feature your brand or product on their account. You have full control over what they post about you, when they post and how they will post.
- Create hashtags: Creating hashtags is one of the trending ways to make your product buzz. People and fans also start posting these hashtags, which ultimately act as a free promotion for you.
- User-Generated Content: When your business starts growing, customers share their content about you. It could be a tee-shirt they wear by your brand or a laptop they use for their work. So, what’s happening here is that they are just promoting your brand. And that’s what you want.
- Get reviews: Do you know, reviews are the best marketing tool for your business? How many times you buy a new product online, without checking its reviews? We all check the reviews at least once before clicking that buy now button. So, if you also want to ensure word-of-mouth marketing for your offerings, reviews will do it for you for free and get more consumers.
- Offer freebies: People love free gifts and indeed it’s a wonderful idea to make people talk about your brand. Many marketers are offering freebies to their customers on the products they buy to ensure that they buy more of their product and that too repeatedly.
- Carryout giveaways and contests: Though it may sound like a new concept giveaways and contests do a great job. For this people are asked to share their posts, tag their people or comment on it to participate in the giveaway or contest and win prizes. In this way, you reach a wider audience with just a few giveaways, which are worth a million.
- Create referral programs: Such programs are meant for companies to increase the effectiveness of their word-of-mouth marketing campaigns. In this program, if a customer refers the product to their friend who in turn purchases it. And then the customer gets a cashback or discount on future purchases.
- Be social on social media: If you want to build your brand, you need to make your online presence. When people have seen you multiple times while scrolling social media, it creates a recall value in the minds of people which ultimately makes them buy your product.
- Affiliate Networks: Affiliate marketing is also one of the ways to increase the reach and network. In this, you need to get your customers to sign up for this program. Once the customer has done purchasing from your store, you can ask them to refer this to their friends and get rewards, when they also purchase from the referral link.
How to influence word-of-mouth marketing
In word-of-mouth marketing, the primary aim is to connect with the customers and build a positive image of your brand. The simplest way of doing this is to listen to what your customers say. After that use this information to create the strategy that works for you.
- Reply to complaints as soon as possible.
- Get in communication with your customers.
- Provide tips and solutions to frequently asked questions
- Make people suggest you their ideas.
Benefits of WOM
- It accelerates the process of decision-making for customers
- Provides authenticity to the message, because people trust the source from where the message is passed on.
- Free-of-cost promotion
- Helps in creating an image of the company and the brand as well.
- It can override communication messages which companies send directly.
Wrap Up
Word of Mouth marketing involves actively promoting organic spoken communication in the form of discussion among people, concerning a brand, company or product. In this, the advertisers attempt to mark their impression on people by developing something worth talking about.
