How Do You Encourage Word of Mouth Marketing?
By Ted Wright October 29, 2018
By Ted Wright
As you’ve heard me say many times before, Word of Mouth Marketing at it’s core is all about sharing stories.
The more people share your story, the larger the impact it can make.
Also at its core, Word of Mouth marketing is about people organically sharing stories. So, without being pushy, how do we encourage people to share your brand story in a real, natural way?
This may surprise you, but your story needs to be worth sharing in order for the word to spread.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news here but Word of Mouth Marketing can’t really be encouraged. It’s something that needs to happen on its own. Your company can throw an event or do something radical that gets people talking, but this will only last short-term. Word of Mouth Marketing is a long-term marketing strategy, so it needs to be the brand story that sticks with people.
So now that we have that straight, let’s see what we can do to make sure your brand story is worth talking about.
When I look at most brand stories that companies are putting out there, I feel they often look more like mission statements than stories.
Brand stories shouldn’t be 1,300 words.
While this may be interesting to the founding family of a company, it’s not going to be interesting nor relevant to most consumers.
No matter the size of your company or the industry you work in, all brand stories are found the same way – and if your current brand story isn’t doing much, it can still be saved.
How do we find a brand’s story?
Step number one is taking all of the data surrounding your brand. The data should cover every aspect of your brand from “Who buys our stuff?” and “Where do they buy it?” to which products sell best, who are our competitors, what are people saying about us, and so on.
Once you have the data, sort through it.
The data then needs to go through our handy 3 tier test – the heart of all Word of Mouth Marketing here at Fizz:
- Is this authentic?
- Is this interesting?
- Is this relevant?
You may be biased, considering it’s either your company, or the company you work for, so it’s extremely important to be hard on yourself here. Think about what’s going on outside the 4 walls of your company, and be able to bring whatever it is your selling into the real world.
This test will make sure you do that.
If you’ve found that your brand doesn’t pass through this test, it can then become a company goal – how do we decide what fits all of these things, to the most people possible? Because at the end of the day, marketing is about selling more things to more people for more money.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
Ted Wright is the founder of Fizz, the world’s leading word of mouth marketing (WOMM) agency. Ted is also an acclaimed WOMM keynote speaker and the author of Fizz: Harness the Power of Word of Mouth Marketing to Drive Brand Growth