People influence people. Nothing influences more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A study says that 92% of people trust their friends over the traditional media of marketing. Word-of-Mouth (WOM) marketing occurs when a satisfied customer reflects the company’s products and services in his daily dialogues. It is a method of marketing which is completely free of cost. The basic motive of WOM marketing is to turn its customers into advocates and then these advocates induce other people to buy the products and services of that company. It includes blogs, viral, buzz, emotional, and social media marketing. The best part of Word-of-Mouth marketing is that it will not just stop after one single reaction.
Many people check for the ratings and reviews about a product from the people who have already used the product. For instance, when a person visits a new barber and his expectations are exceeded, so he tweets about his good experience, this also a kind of WOM marketing. The process of Word-of-Mouth marketing consists of providing an excellent quality of goods and services, good customer support (asking for feedback, etc.). A Northeastern University researcher found a way to measure the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing.
The company can create emotions, use the social currency, that is, sharing things that make you appeal, encourage user-generated content by offering incentives to the top and satisfied customers when everything about the company is going good. Dove (a company producing bathing soaps and toiletries) has got great success by using this Word-of-Mouth marketing in its advertisements. It never uses celebrities but ordinary ladies to act in their advertisements. However, the reason behind this is that people tend to believe more on people similar to them. Even the company with sky-rocketing profits, Netflix, has used this strategy.
Hence, this method of marketing can be used as a ladder to success.
Aarushi Chawla