The power of word of mouth in social media marketing
We all know that feeling when we discover a new brand, product or service that revolutionises your game, you want to share it with anyone who will listen ensuring all your friends and family share in your discovery. Or perhaps a colleague or peer is asking for a suggestion on who to use, we are all always keen to share our experiences and recommendations. Whether your recommendation come in a verbal or digital form, the enthusiasm to share is what pushes word-of-mouth marketing.
Advice from a friend is so much more trusted than social media marketing on Instagram or TikTok. Marketing is specifically designed to sell you something, whereas a work of mouth recommendation is considered more trustworthy and valuable.
Using a marketing agency is a necessary part of any business but statistically word of mouth referrals trumps all other forms of advertising.
Understanding word of mouth marketing from an agency perspective
So, what exactly is word of mouth advertising, or as the acronym goes WOMM? Word-of-mouth marketing (WOM marketing) can be described as the way that people talk about your products, services or brand while networking and engaging with other people, as well as actions taken by your business to inspire others to share their experiences with your brand and recommend you to others.
Even professional marketing agencies agree that word-of-mouth is the most successful form of marketing your business. Word of mouth referrals are a vital marketing tool for any brand to utilise as they come from trusted sources that we trust and respect, such as friends, family and colleagues.
There are plenty of statistics to confirm the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing,
- Word-of-mouth generates twice as many sales as Paid ads do.
- Over 90% of consumers trust their friends & Family’s opinions and over the paid marketing.
- Over 70% of online shoppers say that user-generated reviews and made them feel more confident when making a purchase.
Its good to think about if there are disadvantages to word of mouth marketing, perhaps not exactly disadvantages, but there are drawbacks. Although word of mouth marketing will convey the right message, will it really be to the right people and at the right time. For example, a small retail shop owner chatting to another small retail shop owner about how great your particular POS software is, although the second shop owner may be interested and keen to hear more, they may not be at the stage to make a purchase, or ever at that stage. This is because WOMM is not a targeted marketing tool.
A highly positive review may earn you plenty of user traffic from interested buyers but on the other hand, it might not. Once shared that recommendation as the potential to reach your exact target audience, but its also possible that it’s shared with a group of people wo are not interested at all on your brand, product or service, unfortunately there is just no way to control this.
With all that being said, the consensus is that word-of-mouth marketing is a highly effective tool and should definitely be part of you marketing strategy. Positive word of mouth has a big impact on the sales and reputation of a business. Nielson’s research concluded that word of mouth is more effective than other marketer-controlled marketing outputs. For a business to succeed positive word of mouth is a must.
In the following Tedx Talk, Chris Cowan explains this concept in a fun and interesting way. Definitely worth the watch!
