Word of mouth advertising is great, but how many people really hear about you? Some of us remember a shampoo commercial from back in the old days where the woman loves her shampoo so much that she told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on and so on. If word of mouth really worked like that we wouldn’t need advertising – but it doesn’t and we do. Sadly, most people may love your business but won’t tell anyone unless you ask them to.
I haven’t seen many local businesses trending on Twitter lately and none of my friends on Facebook are telling me I need to use a specific business. In fact, nobody mentioned any business to me today, yesterday or the day before. I tell all kinds of people who they should trust with their business but that is my business – it doesn’t seem like the average person cares that much about word of mouth.
Sure, word of mouth is cheap but it isn’t advertising. It is just what some businesses say they do instead of advertising as they neglectfully wait for another business to come along and put them out of business. Best kept secrets aren’t great for business. If you have a great business that people love, turn their opinions in to testimonials and tell everyone you can reach. If you do that while watching your spending, you will be very successful.
Online Reviews ARE Testimonials that need your Attention!
A costume company recently told me that they don’t have a lot of competition and anyone that uses costumes already knows of them. A marketing professional looks at this in a completely different way. If you feel the business you have is the business you’ll get – you aren’t going to motivate it to grow. Whatever happens, happens. Hearing or seeing the testimonial advertising of someone who decided to rent and be a storm trooper, ended up the hit of the party and had a fantastic Halloween last year, might just motivate a portion of the market to rent a real costume this year. A professional marketer knows that some really big businesses exist that sell thousands of different costumes online and deliver within days – maybe they’ll be the first ones to go after the 99% percent of people who aren’t using rental shops yet.
Word of Mouth is great and we all want more, but don’t just settle for what you have. Marketing is about motivating the public to want what you offer, not just maybe hearing something about you. Take the bull by the horns and improve your business. Take the wonderful messages that people are spreading about your business, tie them together with the person’s name and photo and then take that message to the masses. Done right, you’ll really be surprised by how much you can grow your business in comparison to hoping that somebody tells somebody about you, hopefully and perhaps. I get that buying advertising or deciding where to focus can be scary and expensive – hire a professional marketing consultant so you can sleep easy!
Online Reviews on Google, the BBB and even Facebook should certainly be a focus for almost any business. How does your business appear in comparison to the competition in Google reviews? How much attention have you given to growing online reviews? How are you responding to negative reviews? Successful businesses know that reviews online work. The best reviews can be made in to testimonials. The best companies pay attention to marketing.
