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Some moments are just naturally better opportunities to create conversations than others. If you can improve your timing, you’ll get a lot more word of mouth for the same effort. Moments to focus on:
1. After the sale
2. After the support
3. After the check-in
1. After the sale
The moment of purchase can be an exciting experience — and it can make for a great opportunity to get people talking. You can help them do it with simple forms or social media links to tell friends about their purchase, coupons they can share, or catalogs, stickers, and brand gear they can take with them. A new, happy customer has great talking potential, but only if you put the tools in their hands to do it.
2. After the support
Thrilling a customer with great support can be a fantastic word of mouth moment. After you’ve saved the day, ask for feedback, a referral, or try pointing them to review sites. This is also a good time to be on the lookout for incoming praise from customers and to politely ask if you can use it in your marketing materials.
3. After the check-in
Do you do regular check-ins with clients? Not only can it be a great customer service program, but it can also be a great way to reconnect and restart conversations. Smart car dealerships do this with follow-ups to make sure everything is still running well, and Zappos is famous for emailing to make sure you’re still happy with your shoes a year after your original purchase.
[Welcome back to the You Can Be a Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius! newsletter. This is text from the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]
What’s love got to do with it? Everything. Love is the most powerful force in marketing — and it’s this force that drives all respected and successful companies. A few big ideas on it:
1> New love is exciting
2> Love requires romance
3> A scorned lover talks the most
1> New love is exciting
All love starts with new love. It’s the first time you played with an iPhone, ordered from Zappos, or flew Southwest Airlines. These moments of “first discovery” are when you’ve got the best chance to create word of mouth. Your job is to do two things: 1) Make sure these first experiences are amazing, and 2) Make sure it’s easy for them to tell their friends about it.
2> Love requires romance
Complacent and quiet love is not what leads to amazing word of mouth. To get them talking, you need romance. It’s an awesome new upgrade, a thrilling customer service experience, or a fantastic event just for them. Romance — dramatic gestures and extraordinary moments — is what turns quiet love into we’re-telling-everyone love.
3> A scorned lover talks the most
Nobody talks to more friends than a lover scorned. All it takes to blow it with your biggest fans is to release a crappy upgrade, take lots of shortcuts, or burn them with a promotion that ignores their loyalty in an effort to woo new customers. If you thought they talked about you when they were a fan, just wait to see what happens when you’ve put their reputation as a trusted referrer in jeopardy.
[Welcome back to the You Can Be a Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]
With just a few tweaks, you can get a lot more conversations out of the remarkable stuff you’re already doing. A few ways to do it:
1> Open it up
2> Stuff it
3> Build it to be stolen
1> Open it up
Fans love the behind-the-scenes stuff they don’t normally get to see. It’s things like your product testing, your outtakes, and your company culture. The Zappos facility tour thrills fans — so recently they opened the experience up to the world with a live webcast and an email to tour alumni encouraging them to invite their friends and family to check it out.
2> Stuff it
Your shipping boxes aren’t just a way to get your product to your customers — they’re also a way to get them talking. Try stuffing them with coupons for friends, stickers, T-shirts, and catalogs. Ask yourself, “What can we put in here that our customers will immediately share with a friend?”
3> Build it to be stolen
Look for ways to make your reports, your research, and your graphics easier for the world to steal. To see how an expert does this, check out how eMarketer gives away all of their graphs and charts in PowerPoint friendly layouts. With a simple copy and paste, presenters have been happily promoting eMarketer for years.
