4 Word-of-Mouth Tactics Every Retailer Should Know [SlideShare]

You know that word-of-mouth marketing is effective, but how do you do it well? We've distilled really good tips from Dan Martell's "Breaking Down the Methodology Behind Word of Mouth Marketing" and Paul Jankowski's "4 Tactics to Build your Word of Mouth" and illustrated them with case studies and statistics. Enjoy!

4 Word Of Mouth Tactics Every Retailer Should Know from ReferralCandy

You’ve spent 12 months building the most wicked product in the world.

Now what? Now, you need customers, revenue, and growth.

So here’s the sequence most entrepreneurs follow:

• Step 1: You launch a blog
• Step 2: You launch your Facebook page
• Step 3: You start promoting your writing to your fan community of 50.

Then you wait. You’ve built it; why aren’t they coming?

Don't fret.

“Any product can be remarkable. Any product can be emotional. Like any good marketing plan, it follows a standard framework. Amazing marketers take the same basic skeletons and flesh them out.” Marketing Professor Jonah Berger

Just think about why you share: Most likely, it’s made you laugh out loud, saved you time, solved your most pressing problems.

It’s caught you by surprise and has struck an emotional chord. Effective marketers are creative, but also systematic. Here are the 4 most important steps, according to Paul Jankowski, Chief Strategist at New Heartland Group:

1. Make a Target List of Influencers

Make sure you are speaking to leaders and influencers in your space. These can be journalists, public figures, bloggers, or even trendsetting fans.

DO: It is a good idea to make a target list of influencers that appeal to your key demographic and make sure that they know about what you do.

DON’T: Badger them with calls and emails—but rather take the time to learn about them and why they are influential, then open up a dialogue by engaging with their content in ways that are relevant to your brand.

Example: P&G’s Thank You Mum If you held back some tears while watching that video, the ad has worked. It not only touches us, but also gives us a heartwarming reminder to be grateful to our mothers. P&G is well known for producing household products, of which mothers are likely their biggest consumers.

Read next: Celebrities, Bloggers, Athletes, YouTubers – 24+ Examples Of Marketing Through Influencers

2. Build a Community

Build a Close Knit Social Media Community—The easiest way to directly communicate with your audience is to engage with them via social platforms.

Example: Will it Blend? Will it Blend is a viral marketing campaign consisting of infomercials. With a good blend (pun intended) of humour, quirkiness and bright smiles all around, Will it Blend became an instant hit with people. They also involved customers by asking for things to blend and in the process, creating a community.

“Will it Blend?” Campaign Results

Read next: Tribes, Niches, Groups and Subreddits – 30+ Examples Of Community-Focused Marketing

3. Be a Thought Leader

Not only do you want to target the influencers in your space. You want to be one! DO: Figure out what makes you and your business unique, and tell people about it. Figure out the medium that best supports your ideas and develop a strategy to grow your presence there.

Example: Camp Gyno Hello Flo managed to market female sanitary products without coming across as patronising (remember the cringe-worthy “Have a happy period”?). Instead, they tapped into a sense of shared humor and sisterhood among all women, making this campaign refreshingly honest about that time of the month.

“Camp Gyno” Campaign Results

4: Be consistent

The success of Word of Mouth marketing depends on customer’s trust of the brand. You have to earn enough merit to become a worthy topic of conversation.

DO: Maintain integrity across online platforms (your website, social media, and mobile).

DON’T: Underestimate your audiences. They can smell fluff from a million miles away (especially from a computer screen).

Example: Dollar Shave Club Dollar Shave Club succeeded by leveraging the skepticism surrounding the high price of razors. Men were told that they needed three blades for a comfortable shave. Then it was four, then five, and six. As Dollar Shave Club points out, Your handsome grandfather had one blade”. It seems that their simple model of providing good blades at a low price every month is doing well.

“Our Blades are F***ing Great” Campaign Results

Word-of-Mouth can’t be bought; it has to be earned.

Sources:

1. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/a_new_way_to_measure_word-of-mouth_marketing
2. http://www.womma.org/posts/2013/07/breaking-down-the-methodology-behind-word-of-mouth-marketing
3. http://www.forbes.com/sites/pauljankowski/2013/03/13/4-tactics-to-build-your-word-of-mouth/
4. https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/6-ads-went-viral-according-jonah-berger/
5. http://prsany.org/downloads/BigAppleAwards2013/p_g_builds_consumer_loyalty_during_london_ 2012_olympics__marina_maher_communications.pdf
6. http://adage.com/article/the-viral-video-chart/digital-marketing-top-10-viral-ads-time/145673/
7. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/233207
8. http://www.fastcompany.com/1835082/3-marketing-takeaways-dollar-shave-club%E2%80%99s-fing-great-ad
9. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2193070/How-Dollar-Shave-Club-Got-Their-Sales-Pitch-in- Front-of-5-Million-People

Read next: How To Get Word-of-Mouth: 40+ Successful Examples To Learn From