What is Word-of-Mouth Marketing and how can you master it?

Last updated on November 23rd, 2022

Many more consumers believe in those recommendations when people talk about a product and share their experiences. That word-of-mouth publicity becomes a potent tool for marketers to enhance a brand’s outreach in a niche. In the digital era, word-of-mouth marketing has acquired a different form. People now read or see something exciting in blogs and videos and share it. That is the new form of WOM marketing. But you need to master this marketing type to reap its benefits.

What is Word-of-Mouth Marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing (WOM) is about generating consumer interest in your product or service so they can share it. So, WOM marketing involves creating buzz about your brand. You can post exciting blogs, do social media marketing, and get your target audience emotional on issues related to your industry.

This type of marketing is like free advertising since people unknowingly promote your offerings in the market. It means your consumers are talking about your product with their family, friends, and close relatives. Since most customers trust their friends and family’s recommendations, WOM becomes a highly effective marketing tool.

For example, when you had a great experience at a restaurant, you might tweet your friends about it. Or, when your experience of using a product exceeds your expectation, you tell it to everyone. That is word-of-mouth marketing.

What is more, it continues beyond you talking about your great experience. Many more people want to experience and recommend the product or service to others. That is the cascading effect WOM marketing has.

Digital version of word-of-mouth marketing

Once, word-of-mouth depended on someone physically conveying something valuable about a product. In this digital era, word-of-mouth has transformed into people referring to a product or content and sharing it with friends and family.

So other forms of word-of-mouth marketing are review boards, blogs, social media sites, and popular digital platforms. These are platforms where consumers can share their experiences.

What are the benefits of word-of-mouth marketing?

Build Trust

While advertisements are everywhere, people often need more clarification about professionally created ads. For example, most ads talk loudly about products or services that people dislike. But when family and friends recommend a product, we all tend to believe and want to buy that product.

So, do not just think that your unique and impressive logo design is enough to drive people’s attention. Instead, the combination of word-of-mouth publicity and unique visuals will work best to promote your new brand.

But ensure that you get some unique logo design tips before setting out to design your brand logo that people talk about.

Drive Customers’ Decisions

When customers trust your products after getting recommendations from family and friends, they make instant purchasing decisions. It has been proved through different surveys that people do not think much when their dear ones recommend a product.

Low-Cost Marketing

Word-of-Mouth marketing costs you little. All you do is write exciting content, tweet something that goes viral, or create unique tweets that engage people. You will spend only what is necessary to make people interested in a product.

Talking about saving on your brand-building costs, you can also save a lot on creating your brand visuals. For instance, you can create logos using a logo maker.

Note also that your marketing efforts will only yield the desired results if your logo is a unique design. So, ponder why a logo is important before creating a logo for your brand.

Spread Brand Awareness

Another benefit of word-of-mouth marketing is that it effectively makes people aware of your brand and its offering in your niche market. Know that WOM publicity does not mean it is strictly between two people or a group talking about your products.

That is the way WOM spreads awareness about a brand. It may not result in purchasing, but they help build brand awareness.

Because of brand awareness, people start associating positive emotions with the brand. They can then differentiate one brand from another.

Build Community

A carefully built word-of-mouth marketing strategy helps build a community of your brand’s loyal customers and followers. Shoppers will engage with your brand and share their experiences with their peers and family. That measure ultimately results in building a community of loyal customers in the end.

For instance, if you have a YouTube channel, it still needs word-of-mouth publicity to generate awareness among potential viewers. While on YouTube, when creating its logo, make sure that you first have a great tip for creating a YouTube logo.

Tips To Master Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Establish Yourself As A Thought Leader

The first step to mastering word-of-mouth marketing is to make your company a trustworthy thought leader. Once your target consumers believe you are an expert, they will quickly grasp your recommendation for a product. Your users of products or services will then always share your brand’s content.

You need to develop trust, which will take time, months, and even a few years. You should keep giving the industry updates and make predictions. Do not forget to back up your claims.

Explore User-Generated Content

Your users generate content. It is the content in the form of comments, testimonials, etc. They also share your website content, such as descriptions and reviews of products. This content is responsible for a good percentage of brand engagement.

Make sure that customers share your hashtags on social media. Give them incentives for social sharing of your content. You need to develop a sense of developing users and followers. Also, ask them to share videos of your products.

Share Customer Testimonials and Reviews

When customers praise a product, other potential users believe in it and are likely to buy it. So, ask your customers to write a few lines about your offerings. Then, give them some discount on their next purchase of your products. When visitors come to your website, they read those user recommendations. This helps build trust in your brand.

Similarly, product reviews are a great way to generate word-of-mouth publicity for your offerings. Most studies have shown that an overwhelming majority of people first read a product review to make a buying decision.

So, your website should allow users to give star ratings to your products. Also, let them write honest reviews on your site or social media.

Start A Referral Program

Referral programs also are effective marketing tool for word-of-mouth marketing. A tempting referral program allows people to refer your products or services to your target customers. But encourage people to refer to your offerings.

You can give them coupons, discounts, and other incentives for referring them. However, even a minor deal can go a long way to generate word-of-mouth.

Use Industry Influencers

Using influencers in your industry is another powerful way to generate word-of-mouth publicity for your brand. Contact an influencer who is a renowned figure in your industry. Then, make the celebrity say a few words about your product or service. Since people consider the influencer a trustworthy figure, their recommendation of your product generates a lot of word-of-mouth publicity.

Some surveys have revealed that most customers are likely to buy things based on social media references. So, start appealing to the influencers in your industry. You should feature them in your products/services campaigns prominently.

Make Them Gossip About Your Product

Another effective way to generate word-of-mouth is to make people gossip about your brand and offerings. Give them some reason to talk about your products. Note that word-of-mouth is about creating experiences that people can share.

So, give your customers some great moments that are memorable for them. Such word-of-mouth advertising of your brand goes a long way in establishing its credentials.

It is about making your customers happy. That means you should be open to providing a great product. Give them the consistent customer service that they long for after buying your products.

Ensure you continue to send them relevant and helpful information they can share. You should request feedback to show that they are your priority.

So, these are the key benefits of word-of-mouth marketing. But you need to master this marketing strategy. Make sure you generate something digitally that compels the audience to notice your band and talk about it for a few days at least.

While you are busy creating a WOM marketing strategy, do not forget to make a lasting impression through your brand visuals. Designhill can help you create unique logos and other visual identities.

This marketplace is your source to access inspirational logos and other graphic design ideas. So get started with it to give your brand a trustworthy identity.

This marketplace allows you to create your logo with the help of its logo maker, a DIY software. You can generate multiple logo ideas and then customize the one that best suits your brand personality and message using the tool.

Wrapping Up

Word-of-mouth marketing strategies allow brands to make consumers talk about their product or service and share their experiences with family and friends. You can master this low-cost marketing by establishing yourself as a thought leader. Then, take advantage of user-generated content, customer testimonials, reviews, referral programs, etc., to spread the word about your brand.