There's no need to have a huge marketing budget when your customers can promote your brand
by spreading the word to their friends and family through word-of-mouth marketing for
free.
6 Cheap Word-of-Mouth Marketing Strategies
Hi, it's Noni from Printful's marketing team.
92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family.
This means that people are much more likely to buy products recommended by people they
know.
Word-of-mouth marketing combines product marketing, content creation, and social media marketing
to leverage the customers' voice.
It's a simple and inexpensive way to sell a top-quality product without the seller needing
to spend too much time, energy, and money on marketing.
But before we jump in, be sure to subscribe to our channel!
We put out videos every week to give you the tips and tricks you need to succeed with your
ecommerce store.
1.
Invest in the customer experience
The first step to getting started with word-of-mouth marketing is to invest in the customer experience.
People don't talk about a neutral experience—they talk about a positive or negative one.
So be memorable!
Provide great customer service, offer free shipping by building shipping costs into your
price, and include custom pack-ins like stickers, notes, or coupons.
Reward customer loyalty by giving customers a free gift on their birthday or their anniversary
of shopping with you.
Send your email list exclusive content and offers to make them feel unique.
These small investments into the customer experience might just be enough to get people
talking and sharing about your brand to the people in their circle.
Next, you want to gather and publish product ratings and reviews.
2.
Get product ratings & reviews
Word-of-mouth marketing product reviews work like this:
1.
The customer leaves a product review on the page for the product they bought
2.
Then store visitors see the post and may be influenced to buy the product based on reviews
they've read.
95% of customers read online reviews and they're much more likely to buy a product when a website
has ratings or reviews.
Reviews assure customers that your product is of high quality and value and performs
the way you say it does.
So get reviews up on your site!
You can start by using an add-on like Product Reviews for Shopify or software like BazaarVoice
for marketplaces, both of which automate gathering reviews for you.
They send out emails to customers on your behalf and if they leave a negative review,
they'll be forwarded to you so you can fix the issue.
If there isn't a reviews app for your preferred ecommerce platform, start by identifying and
nurturing your top customers.
Ask for ratings and reviews after a customer has reordered your product because if they're
reordering, something must be going right!
You can do this by embedding a rating and review form into your transactional emails.
You can learn more about how to do this in our email marketing video.
The link for that video is in the description below.
You can also ask them to leave reviews on online review platforms like Google or Facebook.
Some customers are more than happy to send in reviews.
Others might be hesitant.
So consider offering them a 10% discount if they leave a review.
Then, push your top reviews to your homepage, product pages, and social media.
3.
Foster community on social media
Start fostering a community on social media by knowing your product, company, industry,
and clients well.
Observe your customers to know which social media channels they spend the most time on
and focus on those channels.
Figure out how to talk to them in a way that appeals to them.
Are they casual or formal?
Are they more straight-laced or do they use a lot of humor?
Take note of what they respond well to and decide on your social media strategy accordingly.
From there, build a strong connection with your audience by humanizing your brand.
Ask for feedback from your audience and reply to mentions and comments, regardless of whether
they're positive or negative.
If people leave negative comments, use your authority to guide the conversation and fix
the problem.
And remember, the best PR practice is to be open and get ahead of an issue before it becomes
a problem.
You can also create a hashtag for your brand!
Include your hashtag in your posts: the more visibility your hashtag gets, the more likely
your customers will be to use your hashtag.
This makes it that much easier to find and repost user-generated content.
4.
Promote user-generated content
User-generated content is content that your customers create and post online.
It could be an Instagram post of them wearing your product or a YouTube video of them unboxing
your product.
These posts will be much easier to find once you've created your brand hashtag or a hashtag
specifically for user-generated content.
Encourage customers to create content by posting customer photos on your social media profiles
or product pages.
Then tag the creators—they'll get excited that you shared their content and they'll
be likely to share it again and tell their friends!
You can also create a contest where customers can enter a giveaway for a free gift by sending
in pictures of themselves with your product.
Suggest that their friends vote on the post, which can increase your word-of-mouth reach
even more.
For a real life example of user-generated content marketing in action, check out our
video on Muhoov, a Printful customer who is killing the hashtag game.
The link for that video is in the description below.
5.
Create a referral program
Referral marketing is the more classic form of word of mouth marketing.
Leverage referral marketing by giving a discount or small gift to any existing customer who
refers a new customer to you.
You can also incentivize the new customer by offering them the same discount.
It makes it worthwhile for both parties and it makes spreading the word easy and quick.
And offer perks for different levels of promotion.
Raise the incentive so the more people someone refers or the more their referrals buy, the
larger the discount or gift they receive.
Use software like Smile.io, Loyaltylion, or Woobox to create and manage your referral
campaigns.
They make it easy for you to track referrals and for your customers to claim their rewards.
6.
Connect with influencers
Lastly, identify and engage with influencers in your niche and get them to promote your
product.
This will help your marketing strategy because you're reaching out to people who already
have an influence over people's purchase decisions.
In fact, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, 58% of people say they've bought a product
because an influencer has recommended it.
The influencers you choose can be anyone from bloggers to industry leaders to social media
stars to existing customers.
Just look for people with a large following and high engagement rates.
They should be relevant to the product you're selling.
They should have an established reputation, interact with their base, and seem authentic.
Reach out to bloggers within your niche, build a relationship with them, and ask them to
write articles about your brand.
Offer them referral or affiliate links so they can profit from their posts about your
product.
The only investment on your end is that you pay commission when a sale is made.
And even if no sales are made, then you've increased your brand's awareness.
And if your product is still in the beta stages or if you're launching a new product, invite
influencers to try it and give you feedback.
Then use influencers to leverage exclusivity.
Encourage them to post about the product and review it.
People want what they can't have so you'll likely receive some buzz about your product.
A number of them may do it for free but you might have to offer payment to others.
That’s the basics of what you need to know about word-of-mouth marketing!
Which of these strategies do you want to try with your brand?
Let us know in the comments below!