Three Pillars for Word of Mouth Success

by smallbizbee · 9 comments

This is part two in our series on Getting Word of Mouth Marketing to Work for You. Be sure to check out part one and get caught up!

We started the conversation yesterday on how powerful and cost effective word of mouth marketing can be.

Today we want to look at what goes into a successful word of mouth marketing campaign, what factors you’ll need to be successful, and then we’ll discuss the elements you can implement to make word of mouth work for you.

What is the Goal of Word of Mouth Marketing?

Simply put, your goal with any word of mouth marketing campaign is to get conversations started and shared about your product or service within your target consumer market.

Everything you do from a word of mouth marketing perspective needs to support that goal. Plain and simple.

You want consumers talking about your product, sharing their experiences, and selling for you in the course of their everyday conversations.

Once you understand this, the only other questions become:

1) Why are they having the conversation?
2) How and where are the conversations taking place?

Answering those two questions, with the goal in mind you want the conversation to be about you, sets your entire word of mouth plan into action.

Three Pillars for Word of Mouth Success

The first question was 1) Why are the consumers having the conversation? The answer is due to at least one of the following three pillars. The most successful word of mouth campaigns will strike on all three of the below.

Content
Your content is the key to your message, and will be the foundation on which word of mouth is spread. Without killer content, you’re sunk.

What do we mean by content? Content is what you produce, what you sell, what you want people to buy. Awesome products, services, and delivery methods will get people talking.

Unless you know why your product is superior, or what makes your service special, you will never be able get your consumers to sell it for you.

Think for a moment – when was the last time you were excitedly telling a friend about an average product? It doesn’t happen, and it won’t happen for you. Know what makes you special, what sets you apart, and what your consumers will tell their friends about what you do.

Shareability
Maybe I just made that word up, but the point is how easy it is to share your content, and your message, will partially determine your success with word of mouth marketing.

There are numerous ways in which something can be shared. Verbal, face to face conversations. Physically giving your content to another person. Emailing, or digital dissemination. All are ways in which we share, or converse.

But why would a consumer share your product or service?

It tells a story they can relate too

Illicit a feeling or emotion

The benefit or experience one would gain is obvious

There is a shared understanding of it’s importance (and importance could be any utility it provides, whether it be functional, emotional, humor, or practicality)

Tell me a story that I will feel good retelling. Have a product that hits an emotional chord with me. Sell me a benefit, or an experience. Those are going to be easy for me to share.

Call to Action
The final pillar to a successful word of mouth campaign is a call to action for your consumer. What do you want them to do?

In this case it’s spread the word, and many times it can be as easy as asking them to. Most successful word of mouth happens due to the consumers being told it’s “okay to share” in one form or another.

Don’t let your marketing efforts fall flat because your consumer doesn’t know they are supposed to be spreading the word! We’ll touch on some specific ways you can “ask” them to spread the word in upcoming parts to this series. For now just understand that without a call to action for the consumer, you risk the chance of them not knowing what their next step should be.

Putting it All Together

Once you understand the goal of word of mouth marketing is to get your consumers talking about you, and you understand why those conversations are happening, the final piece in getting this to work for you is to look at how and where those conversations are taking place.

You want your word of mouth campaign to infiltrate where the consumers live, and be communicated in a manner that they want to hear. This is where the rubber hits the road – and is the next part in our series…

Up Next:

Elements in a Successful Word of Mouth Campaign

Creating buzz – get them talking about you

Understanding social networks

Using the influencer

Social media’s role

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