Separately, things like testimonials, letters, community events, email, blogs, etc. can be effective promotional vehicles that help get the word out about your company’s products and services. But put these together in a plannable, trackable way and you’ve got something really powerful called Word of Mouth Marketing!

Great products and services, along with fabulous customer service, will get people talking about your business. Happy customers tend to tell their friends and colleagues about you, and your business can become well-known in the community very quickly. This type of buzz happens naturally, but there are additional techniques that you can use to encourage this type of activity in promoting your business.

1. Conversation - Identify the people around you who are enthusiastic and have the connections to relay your message to your target audience. These people might be new customers (or happy regulars) who are excited about your products, or even bloggers who cover your industry. Make sure these people have the information they need and give them topics that they can easily talk about in their conversations with others.

2. Special Offers - Create interest with coupons, give-aways, or any other simple idea that can be relayed to others easily. People typically enjoy sharing “good deals” with others around them.

3. Help Them Spread the Word - Special offers are worth talking about, but some methods are easier to pass along than others. For instance, sending out email campaigns makes it easy for your customers to forward the information to others.

4. Participate - Community events, blogs, and online message boards are all examples of ways in which your business can participate in feeding the “buzz” that your customers are already creating.

5. Track & Measure - There are lots of tools available to help you track what people are saying about your company. Conversations may be a little hard to measure, but blogs, emails, and message boards are already in writing and can be measured along with your other marketing data. This type of information is often more authentic than results from focus groups or surveys.

Word of Mouth Marketing is very powerful, but is also quite simple. Because it’s based on your customers’ real-life experiences, you can keep the conversation going by making your customers happy, then encouraging them to keep talking!

Lauren Hobson is the Editor of Biz Talk Newsletter, a free monthly publication designed to provide small businesses and non-profits with tips and techniques to help them make the most of their web sites and marketing efforts without spending a lot of money. Biz Talk is published by Five Sparrows, LLC.

[tags]wom marketing, word of mouth marketing, buzz marketing[/tags]

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