Word of mouth marketing is an extremely powerful marketing tool for most small businesses today. Unlike organic world-of-mouth, when a relative or friend recommends a service or product, word-of-mouth marketing is something that is actively influenced and encouraged by businesses.
According to one study, up to 83% of people polled said they trusted recommendations provided by friends of the family. Another study showed that up to 92% of people trusted recommendations from others, even complete strangers. Marketing statistics have shown that 20% to 50% of all purchases are influenced, in some way, by word-of-mouth marketing.
While this is true, few companies have strategies in place to leverage the power of word-of-mouth marketing for their business to increase profits and growth. Keep reading for some word-of-mouth marketing strategies that work.
Encourage User-Generated Content
It is a good idea to encourage your customers to engage with your brand on social media more and more. That’s because this is one of the main ways that prospects and customers learn more about the products and services you offer.
Create content that is easy for people to share, such as fun quizzes, polls, and contests. At this point, you can have customers share the quiz or contest and then tag it using a shareable hashtag for your site.
Hashtag marketing is an effective way to increase positive impressions for your business all while improving content searchability and encouraging more people to discuss about your business and brand. You can reuse the best hashtags in your business’s social field, which will increase awareness and keep the momentum up.
Add Reviews and Testimonials
Reviews and testimonials can serve as a powerful type of word-of-mouth messaging. Also, posting reviews and testimonials is a great way to pull new word-of-mouth recommendations on your site or your social feed.
Try to look on websites that are, in some way, related to your business to find testimonials and reviews. You can bring these to your site or social feed and link back to the original review or identify the person who left the reviewer to improve the post’s credibility. It is also a good idea to look for videos and other types of rich media posted by customers that you can add to your feed or site.
Display Product Ratings
If you have a service or product that is reviewed on sites with an aggregate score, you should display this rating on your website. It may be helpful to combine the rating with several reviews from the source, which will increase the score’s credibility. Just remember always to create a link back to the original source.
There are more than a few ways to use this to improve your site when it comes to word-of-mouth marketing. Keep the information here in mind, which will help ensure that you achieve the desired results. While it may take some trial and error on your part, it will be worth it in the long run. Being informed is the best way to build an effective word-of-mouth marketing campaign.