One of the most common mistakes young businessmen make when jumping into their chosen fields is making the assumption that word of mouth advertising is something that happens by chance. Rest assured, it is not. While providing great customer service, competitive prices, and excellent products will give people something to talk about, it only takes one dissatisfied customer to equal a hundred satisfied ones. Word of mouth works both ways, after all, and angry people talk a lot louder than those who had a pleasant experience. If you want the word of mouth advertising that will bring in the business, you’ll need to generate it yourself. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the ways to get people talking (in a good way) about your company.
As stated, it’s harder to get people who are satisfied and pleased with your business to go out and tell one friend than it is to get one dissatisfied customer to tell the world. This is an inherent trait in most of the human population and it is a roadblock nearly every company most overcome. People love to deliver bad news. They feel they are doing people a great service by telling them to avoid a certain business. In addition, this gives the customer an illusion of power. If they have enough friends and enough scope of influence, it’s more than an illusion; it’s a fact. Just one angry customer can create enough bad publicity to undue the goodwill garnered by a thousand happy customers. If you want to counteract this truism, you have to go above and beyond to make sure the people who had a good experience with your company go and tell their friends about it.
One of the easiest ways to generate positive word of mouth advertising is to enlist the help of those close to you. Get them to tell their freinds and coworkers about your business. They can do so with full disclosure, or they can act as though they were just customers. Either way can create goodwill throughout the community. If they opt for the full disclosure method (which may be necessary with their closest friends), the people they tell will naturally want to use your business as they will be helping out people they know. If they don’t tell people they know you, then they come across simply as happy customers compelled to get the word out.
Since the first days of business, when word of mouth advertising was all there was, nothing has done more for companies than to have people saying good things about them. People believe word of mouth advertising in a way they will never believe paid ads. Even if this word of mouth advertising has to be generated by you in the beginning, it can turn friends, neighbors, coworkers, and their network of acquiantances into new customers. From there, it should be smooth sailing for you and your small business. Just make certain that once you have the customers, you don’t dissapoint. After all, that one angry customer. . .she makes all the difference.
