Word of mouth can be the best marketing tip or technique if you own a small business. Word of mouth is very important in our online world these days. Online reviews are available for everything ( businesses, products, services, etc)
Many studies show that nearly 9 in 10 consumers read online reviews of local businesses, and 72% of consumers said that they used positive reviews to determine whether a business was trustworthy.
Here are some word of mouth tips you need to know.
- Good Customer Service
Customer service it’s one of the few ways that small businesses can compete with larger businesses, especially those that focus on low prices.
How important is customer service to word of mouth? Many surveys show more than half of unsatisfied customers will tell their friends and family about poor customer service experiences, and 32% will search for another business.
Show your customers that they are important to you and treat them with respect and interest. Listen to customer complaints, learn from them, and train your employees accordingly. Follow these practices consistently and positive word of mouth is sure to follow.
- Customers and Communication
Poor communication practices will drive away not only the customer that was trying to reach you but the other people he tells about his frustrating experience, too.
Supposed business phones that just ring and ring and don’t even connect to an answering machine or that connect to full voice mailboxes are very unprofessional and annoying.
Equally annoying are websites that don’t provide easily accessible contact information or the correct hours of business.
If you want a positive word of mouth, your small business has to be reachable. Answer your emails promptly and get all the necessary phone services, including voice mail and call forwarding.
Make sure that your business phone is answered properly in a way that will encourage business, not discourage it.
- Ask for Testimonials
Testimonials from satisfied customers (short written statements about your service or products) are powerful endorsements and can spark good word of mouth. Get in the habit of asking for them.
The time that you’re asking for referrals is also an excellent time to ask a client for a testimonial.
Once you get testimonials, make sure you use them to maximum effect, posting them on your website, on your Facebook page, in your advertising, in your store… wherever they will be visible to the public and seed a positive image of your small business.
- Give Lessons or Seminars
While giving lessons or seminars will involve some planning time and effort to execute. The word of mouth can generate value for your small business.
The two secrets to success for providing lessons or short courses are to select something that your clientele will be interested in.
You don’t want people going away disgruntled because they didn’t get what they came for at all or only got some of it.
- Use Social Media
Remember, word of mouth is all about people saying good things about your small business. And social media is where many of them are talking now. Your small business needs to be in that space. It’s not hard to set up a Twitter account or create a business page on Facebook.
But note that word of the mouth involves other people talking about your business. Your telling everyone repeatedly what great products you have or service you give is going to do absolutely nothing for your word of mouth.
Instead, develop a social media strategy that will let you engage customers and entice them into saying good things about your small business.
- Online Reputation
As many of the conversations about your business and your brand are happening online, you need to know what’s being said there. So it’s important to monitor your online reputation and see what kind of word of mouth is being spread about you.
Particular social media applications have specific tools to help you do this. Twitter Search, for instance, lets you search for a brand or product name. You can then see which RSS feeds your search item is appearing in by adding the RSS feed for that query to your RSS reader such as Google Reader.
There are also independent online reputation monitoring tools such as Social Mention, which lets you receive free daily email alerts about your small business. Trackur and StepRep are just two examples of the growing number of companies offering online reputation monitoring for a price.
- Positive Publicity for Your Small Business
Positive publicity is a treasure for your business. Whether it’s a photo of you handing over a cheque to a charity in the local newspaper or a tweet mentioning a tennis tournament your business is sponsoring, publicity puts your small business in the forefront of people’s minds and makes them much more inclined to spread good word of mouth about it.
Word of mouth is something that is going to happen, whether you pay it any attention or not. But it can be such a powerful marketing strategy for your small business it seems silly to ignore it.
You need to know what people are saying about your small business and speed the spread of positive word of mouth. All that can happen is that you’ll gain a bigger customer base and that’s pretty good for business.
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