Harness the Power of WOM
Today we’re going to talk about how to harness the power of word of mouth. Including the six step process to success and the 30 (that’s right, I said 30) ways to harness the power of WOM. So, let’s get started!
There are six steps to harnessing word of mouth:
1. Understand your customers’ values and priorities, this will help you understand why they would buy your products.
2. Understand the different adopter types: innovators, early adopters, middle majority, late adopters and laggards.
3. Identify which decision stages are needed for your product to be adopted.
4. Use the information from steps 2 & 3 to figure out which wording and word of mouth tactics are going to work using the Decision Maker Matrix (we’ll talk about this in a minute).
5. Put together the resources for the highest word of mouth impact.
6. Create and implement your word of mouth campaign.
The Decision Maker Matrix is based off years of trial and error by George Silverman. It essentially charts to different concerns you may come across when working with different adopters and putting together a decision process for each one.
We are now going to move on to the 30 ways to harness the power of WOM:
Use Experts
Experts can come in many forms and all their opinions should be taken into consideration when putting together a WOM campaign. Some experts to gather information from include:
Customers
Suppliers
Experts
Salespeople
Experts' roundtables
Experts' selling groups
Seminars, Workshops & Speeches
These venues are a perfect opportunity to gather information. People who attend these types of events are used to giving feedback, so you can use a survey or other method to gather information you can look over later. Some events to use are:
Speakers program
Seminars
Group selling
Dinner meetings
Peer selling groups
Teleconferenced experts' panels
Trade show events/opportunities
"Canned" Word of Mouth
The concept of “canned” word of mouth is using hard and online products to get feedback and offer information at the same time. Some ideas for these are:
Testimonials
Youtube videos
The Internet
USB pens
Referral Selling
As we’ve talked about before a referral program can help with a variety of things in building your business. By using some of the following tactics and opportunities you can find out exactly what you need to do to generate positive word of mouth. These tactics and opportunities are:
Testimonials
Networking
Referral Selling Program
"New" Media
The concept of “new” media is the use of up and coming media sources and opportunities to get the word out about your products and services and listen for the feedback about them. Here’s some of the “new” media options:
Hotlines
Social media
Web-based word of mouth, such as forums, e-mail, etc.
Call centers
Using Traditional Media for Word of Mouth
Using traditional media is a great way to get feedback. These are still considered main stream ways of interacting with the public and consumers. Some traditional media outlets are:
Customer service
PR
Placements
Events
Promotions
Word of mouth in ads, sales brochures, or direct mail
Salesperson programs, sales stars, or peer training
Word-of-mouth incentive programs ("Tell-a-friend" programs)
Customer gifts they can share with their friends (articles, how-to manuals)
Internal Word of Mouth
Encourage employee word of mouth and sharing feedback with family, friends and others
Offer rewards or commission for word of mouth success
As you can see there are tons of ideas you can work with to increase your level of positive word of mouth marketing. If you need help with any of this, here’s your opportunity to learn from the latest in world-class, cutting-edge strategies and tactics designed to take your business to the next level.
Our weekly training videos are content-rich, straight-to-the-point instructional presentations that will enable you to generate more leads, attract more clients and make more money.
Next time we’ll talk about the next three areas of multiplying your resources. They include: Olympic-Size Sales Staff, Open Sea Fishing and Call for Back-Up.
Glenis Gassmann
Australia's No.1 Business Strategist Amongst Coaches
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