Word-of-mouth marketing
By Dr. Ivan MisnerEveryone knows about it, but hardly anyone does it well. It's time to change your approach to word-of-mouth marketing.
What if there were a way to build your business, year
in and year out, regardless of fluctuations in the economy
or the activities of your competition? Well, there
is. It's called word-of-mouth. Word-of-mouth marketing truly
is the world's best-known marketing secret. You're probably
wondering how anything can be both the "best-known" and "a
secret" at the same time. Easy. Practically every businessperson
knows how important word-of-mouth marketing is. Yet almost
no one truly understands how to build their business through
word-of-mouth.
Some people think that word-of-mouth is a little like the weather:
fairly important, but not much they can do about it. Many others
think that it's just about good customer service, but it's not.
Don't get me wrong - good customer service is critical for the
success of any business, but if you expect happy customers to
talk about you a lot - think again.
For the past two decades, I've talked to tens of thousands of
business professionals about word-of-mouth marketing and customer
service. I've described how the "average unhappy client" can
talk to dozens of people about their bad experience. I've then
asked my audiences if their "average happy client" truly
talks to as many people as a potential unhappy client. In two
decades, no one has ever said yes to that question!
Unfortunately, people are more likely to talk about your business
when they are unhappy than when they are happy or satisfied.
Therefore, good customer service generally reduces "negative" word-of-mouth.
However, the good news is, there are many things entrepreneurs
and business professionals can do to positively impact their
business through word-of-mouth.
Below are the three most important things that a business professional
can do to start the process of increasing their business through
word-of-mouth.
- Diversify your networks. I believe that most business
professionals are cave dwellers. They get up each morning in a large cave
with a big-screen TV called their home. They go out to their garage and
get into a little cave with four wheels called their car. They go to another
really big cave with plenty of computers called their office. At the end
of the day, they get back into their little cave with four wheels and
drive back to the large cave with the big-screen TV, and they can't figure
out why no one is referring them. If you want to build your business through
word-of-mouth, you have to be visible and active in the community by participating
in various networking groups and/or professional associations.
- Develop your contact spheres. Contact Spheres are businesses
that are symbiotic and noncompetitive to you. For example: a lawyer, an
accountant, a financial planner and a banker. All of them have clients
with overlapping similar needs. They can all work with and refer each
other easily. Another good example is what I call the wedding mafia: a
florist, a photographer, a travel agent and a jeweller. A referral for
one of them becomes a referral for all of them. You should immediately
determine what professions fit within your Contact Spheres and start developing
relationships with them.
- Word-of-mouth is more about farming than it is about hunting. Building your business through word-of-mouth is about cultivating relationships with people who get to know you and trust you. People do business with people they have confidence in. One of the most important things I've learned in the past two decades is this: It's not what you know, or who you now, it's how well you know them that counts. If you go into this process understanding this one key point, you will have a better opportunity to build your business through word-of-mouth.
