What’s your most effective marketing tool? What drives customers?
Is it ads? Is it your website? Is it emails? Or is it word of mouth?
If your most powerful marketing tool is word of mouth (WOM), how do you get more of it?
Stand Apart
Standing apart from the crowd is key to expanding your WOM marketing. Being the same as everybody else is to be invisible. And invisibility is not a path to growth, success, or happiness.
While your competitors are spending money on ads, new websites, SEO, social media, and email campaigns, you could be focusing your efforts on making your customers’ experiences worth sharing. Everyone talks about “Raving Fans”, but few do what’s necessary to create them.
Consider this… Each person visiting or interacting with your business is probably going to talk about 3 things at dinner tonight. How do you manage to get your business into their top 3?
How to Truly Stand Apart
The premise is simple, give your customers more than they expect so they have something to talk about. That doesn’t have to mean swag, a cookie at check in, or a goldfish to keep them company. It’s about their experience.
You will want to be deliberate and intentional about making their experience with your business worth talking about.
- What are you known for?
- Why do your favorite and return customers come to your business in the first place?
- What is it they see that makes your business different?
If you don’t have answers, ask those favorite customers of yours. They will tell you.
BE MORE DIFFERENT
Start with these answers and come up with how you can expand on that. Whatever makes you different, do more of that. BE MORE DIFFERENT. Work with your team to come up with ideas to take that thing that makes you special and dial it up. Your goal is to make it even more special.
It’s all about your customer’s experience with your business.
What they notice most is some form of service. It could be listening, doing something specific and tailored to an individual customer, or noticing small things that can make that customer feel seen, important, and valued. It could be truly understanding and anticipating your customers’ needs. Or it could be providing them with an outside resource that is specific to their situation. It could simply be an unexpected gesture of kindness.
None of these ideas cost much. But they make an impact.
Do it with Intention
The trick is those ideas and their implementation require intention on your part and on that of your team. You’ll need to engage your team around the ideas you come up with and recognize when they do them. You’ll need to nurture a culture of what makes you different.
You’ll then need to recognize your team’s implementation and execution to keep it going. Stories are a great way to reinforce and acknowledge your team’s efforts. You can tell these stories at your all hands meetings, share them in your newsletter, or put them on your website. Recognizing people for their positive behaviors and actions goes a long way toward getting more of those behaviors and actions while strengthening your culture around what is most important to you and your customers.
Want to work together on stepping up your customer experience and leveraging WOM in your marketing? Shoot me a note or set up a time for us to talk.