On your friend’s birthday, you went out to a dinner party. The restaurant served the finest food you’ve ever had, with the best service you’ve ever been given, along with a beautiful ambiance. What do you do next? You share that experience with your other group of friends, your colleagues at work, and your family.
So, when we enjoy something, we naturally talk about it, tell people, and promote the idea that they should try it too! This is what we call word of mouth marketing, one of the oldest yet foolproof strategies used for marketing, by businesses all over.
Word of mouth customers converts faster because they already have a degree of faith and trust in your company. After all, it has passed to them through the person who recommended your brand to them. Research has shown that 92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than advertising.
Following are some word of mouth strategies that can enhance your sales and get people talking about your brand:
Provide Quality
Nothing is gossip among people if it is not attractive. First, focus on providing top-notch services to your customers. If what you offer is not up to the mark, it’s hard to create a positive impact.
So, delivering quality products and services is a crucial part of any business.
Encourage User-Generated Content (UGC)
When customers share about your product, it means that they love it. This adds to the credibility of your product.
A market study showed that UGC is seen as the most authentic type of content by 60% of consumers. It also stated that nearly 52% of customers published social media updates on items they bought at least once a month.
You are just required to find consumers in that demographic and encourage them to share your content. It can be through reviews or even through the creation of engaging shareable content on your social media pages.
Connect With Your Niche Community
A quick way is to find influencers in your niche community. You can simply connect with them through their Instagram handles or hire any marketing agency if you wish to! Budding influencers with a significant amount of followers are more than willing to promote products on their pages.
You can provide them with freebies and discount coupons with their unique codes to earn a small amount of commission. In addition to this, you can offer some perks, like sending a hamper regularly. This way, it will motivate them to create posts on their social media pages, without any direct partnership.
Set Word Of Mouth Triggers
Linking your product with a punch line or jingle can make people remember your brand unconsciously. For example, whenever, we hear ‘I’m lovin’ it’, it creates a trigger that signals our brain to think about McDonald’s. Other slogans like ‘Just do it’ remind us of Nike; ‘Have a break, have a KitKat’ tempts us to grab one.
Brands want people to talk about their products and services because when anything is referred or recommended by someone who already has used the commodity before, others tend to follow the same trend. Therefore, making a slogan or a jingle for your business can play a crucial role in making people remember your brand.
Do Something That Makes You Stand Out
Doing something unique is another way to be the talk of the town. Make people interact with you. You can put up polls, trivia and quizzes, where people engage with your content.
Making offers that customers cannot refuse, like providing discounts and coupons on every purchase they make is a great way to attract customers. Another method involves organizing giveaways, with basic rules like tagging a certain number of people in the comment section, increasing the brand’s reach.
Collaborate With Other Brands
Remember the last time you used GooglePay and received a coupon code for getting free fries at McDonald’s? These two companies do not belong to the same niche community, but if you are creative enough, you can come up with some innovative ideas to collaborate.
This enables the exchange of customers from one brand to another, while also creating a buzz in the market.
Ask For Feedback
When a brand reaches out to its customers for feedback, it naturally creates a feeling that the brand cares about what the user of their products desires. Making your customers feel heard and putting them into a position of power, creates an impression that they are a part of your business family. It gives your brand scope to chisel and improve your services and builds trust in the hearts of the customers, further encouraging brand loyalty.
The Final Word
Word of mouth advertising and marketing can be a monumentally strong player in growing your retail business. Whether you’re just starting or looking for new ways to expand your market, one of the above word-of-mouth marketing strategies can significantly benefit your business. All the best!
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