Tips to Start Word of Mouth Marketing

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In the age of the ubiquitous Internet and social networks, it is much easier to get a "viral effect", and this is evident from the examples of business giants that have gained popularity precisely due to the loyalty of their audience. The AliExpress store developed according to this scheme. The audience appreciated the numerous advantages of inexpensive goods on the site with the widest assortment, and therefore users were happy to recommend it to their friends. As a result, the company managed to go far beyond Asia and conquer audiences all over the world, bypassing competitors that seemed inaccessible before - Amazon.

How to Start Word of Mouth Marketing

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Nobody wants to discuss a boring product.

In their book, The Age of the Client, marketing pharmaceutical email lists and customer service experts Maxim Potashev and Mikhail Levandovsky tell the story of one Russian Japanese restaurant that managed to become famous and compete with other chain establishments in its industry precisely through word of mouth. Traditional advertising tools were not effective enough in its case.

According to the restaurant owner, many people are embarrassed to go to Japanese restaurants because they don’t know how to use chopsticks and are afraid of looking funny. Then he organized master classes right in the restaurant, where anyone could learn how to eat with chopsticks, and absolutely free of charge. Word of mouth worked very effectively, people enthusiastically shared this life hack with each other. The master classes began to gather a large audience, including people from other cities. As a result, the restaurant became very recognizable and in demand.

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This example confirms all the key principles of business contagion described by Jonah Berger, a professor at the Wharton School, in his book Contagious: Be original, use game mechanics, and make people feel like “insiders in on a secret.” Using these principles allows people to feel special when they talk about your product.

Of course, boring products and brands are not discussed by buyers. According to the author of a popular blog about marketing for small businesses, the owner of the Duct Tape Marketing brand Joe Jantsch, people are interested in impressive, plausible stories that have some meaning for them, touching on something personal. As an example, he likes to cite the story of the American company TerraCycle - a manufacturer of goods from recycled materials. Local businesses were wary of the new figure in the market and did not want to let it near other people's trash bins. Therefore, the founder of the company Tom Szaky asked local schoolchildren to collect plastic bottles and give them to the company for a set fee. Over time, the company established cooperation with schools across the country and became national, gained great popularity and began to create a wide range of products from recycled materials - trash cans from system units, pencil cases and backpacks from juice boxes and kites from cookie wrappers. Thus, the company was able to please representatives of two segments of its audience at once: schoolchildren and their parents.

People talk about quality service and original products. Passengers of the American low-cost carrier JetBlue often tell their friends and acquaintances how much they enjoyed their flight. So now a strong image of this carrier has been established in people's minds. Consumers know that if they use the services of this carrier, they will be offered animal-shaped cookies, blue chips, they will be able to sit comfortably on large comfortable seats and watch free TV. This kind of service package is rare for a low-cost carrier, and therefore it gives the company an opportunity to stand out from other cheap airlines.