WOM as a Marketing Strategy

1. Your survey results: most people completing this survey average between 7 or 8 out of 10. (If you haven’t taken the survey, just click here) How did your results compare? So, you rely to an extent on Word of Mouth? Do you prefer this approach to reading an advert? If you do, what’s the likelihood that your customers prefer this approach? Why? So what is your WOMM strategy?
2. Apples success: Click on the link to see more on Apple and WOMM
3. Indirect experience: People prefer indirect experience about a product or service because someone else has tested it in the real world and discovered the pro’s and con’s. They have asked and received answers to questions that you and I may never have thought to ask, saving us time, money, with a greatly reduced risk of making an ill informed decision. Also a user is explaining the product or service benefits who doesn’t have a vested interest in its ongoing success. 
4. Focused on the customer needs: the majority of consumers are not interested in what a marketer, celebrity of manufacturer or supplier says about a product. They want to hear what the ‘real world’ says about it. Does it do what it says it will do, is it easy to use, what’s the support like, will it fulfill my needs, and will it solve my problems or add to them? 
5. Specialist: If 80% of your business comes through WOM, referral, repeat business etc. and your marketing strategy consists of traditional marketing approaches, talk to a specialist and reap the rewards of Strategic WOMM before your competition does.
6. Active Involvement: Something Apple has been especially good at, we are thinking of introducing this product and thought you would be interested in trying it out for us. We would value your opinion and suggestions. Consumers love this approach especially if it will help them save money, make money; save time or make them look good or feel good. If the suggestions they make are incorporated into a new product or service then they have invested emotional capital. They now feel an ownership and will defend the product or service and recommend it to their peers. 
7. Community: When people buy your product or service they are buying you. People buy people. It is an unstated admission that they trust you and invest some of their emotional capital in you. Do an outstanding job and they will feel there emotional capital investment was justified and invest more by recommending you to colleagues. If your employees feel valued, appreciated, involved, have ownership and see that they are making a difference, not only do they stay but your company will attract other quality people to your business. Your suppliers also contribute to your success by suggesting improvements etc. Look after them and they will look after you. Strong communities are able to withstand strong outside economic pressures. It is in your community’s interest to make sure you flourish in the good and the bad times. 
8. Independent Market Research: WOM is the best form of marketing. Yet companies still continue to invest in traditional methods of marketing that customers are not interested in. Only a few companies will have the foresight to invest in WOMM which will give them a huge competitive advantage in the market place.