A Concentrated Campaign to Generate Word of Mouth Advertising

2008-03-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

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.

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A Concentrated Campaign to Generate Word of Mouth Advertising