WOM Marketing

“I heard it on the grapevine” Marvin Gaye

If you want your marketing budget to work really hard, you need to learn about Referral marketing. Let us explain.

What are the best marketing odds to you?

30,000 to 2*
100 to 3**
3 to 1*

*Figures from independent research conducted by Walter Carl of the North Eastern University
** Figures from the Direct Mail Associations of the US and the UK.

The first are the odds of people responding to commercial messages on the TV. The second are the odds for direct mail and the last are the odds of action that flow from someone referring you to something. Simply said:

if you see a commercial on TV your take action in .007% of the cases. Compare that with the ‘targeted, personalized’ direct mail medium with action rates of between 2-3%. Finally, if a friend tells you about a service, you act in 66% of the time. This makes Referral Marketing -if done correctly- 22 times as effective as direct mail and 2972973 times as effective as TV advertising on average. These are important data to consider, would you agree?

Neilsen’s Global study link – showed what we all know: It’s a fact that Word of Mouth Referrals are the most trusted source of brand information there is on the planet, period. Referral marketing is therefore known to be THE most effective and efficient way to promote a product or service, WAY more effective and cost efficient than traditional marketing. Long term it creates a strong and unique brand regardless of your product or service; a total no-brainer in our book!

Why don’t we make the most of Referral marketing if it is such a good tool?

You might like to stop and ask yourselves how much time you spend learning about referral marketing. Logically, commercially and sensibly it should be the top of the list, we should be masters of it and so should our organization. And yet we ignore this key marketing approach.

You may ask yourself “why on earth are marketing and sales departments not using Referral marketing? I know, good question. In our experience most organizations feel it is out of their control or something that just happens as a result of their marketing activity, instead of being an initiator of the sales process. Other companies are too scared of connecting with their customers, and prefer fixed (one way) ways of communication like direct mail as a way to avoid the “fear” or talking to customers (from Joseph Jaffe’s Landmark book ‘Join the Conversation’).

Many companies feel market research is a substitute for having a two way ongoing dialog with their customers, however only a two way dialog creates Referral marketing. When they ARE open to the concept of Referral marketing, most people think their product is too boring for successful Referral marketing or they don’t know where to start. They may feel the idea of ‘consumer advocates or fans’ is covered off by having a few fans on a website. It’s quite different though to sign up for an e-mail or pop something on a website to being acknowledged by a company and become a referrer. The difference is vast.

Myth busting: Referral Marketing is something that CAN be learned to make your marketing dollars work HARD

Here’s the exciting news: thorough research and our vast experience show us Referral marketing in fact CAN be controlled and guided; It creates true connections and can be applied in some shape or form to almost ANY product. I hear you say “yeah right, not mine…” Well, if a scissor company can use it successfully, probably so can you. Check out the Fiskars case study on the WOMMA website. The key is tap into a topic of interest to your customer, client or consumer and champion it. Of course some categories are easier than others – but we have yet to find a category that defies us.

The Village Square System is the key to Referrals

Bottom line is: Referral marketing is the way to go, no doubt about it. You just need the right approach. Which is why we are so passionate about mainstreaming the “how to’s” of referral marketing to those who want to work their marketing smartly. Would you like your marketing dollar to work harder? Let customers who trust you do your promotions for you by teaming up with them and making them heard so they get excited about referring you. We have created The Village Square system to facilitate you to make this happen, and we are proud to say it works. Very well. The Village Square System is a systematic approach to developing or growing a network of referrers so you marketing dollar works more efficiently. It’s based on the very best thought leadership worldwide along with hard won personal experience. Click here to learn more about The Village Square System.

Experience referral principles easily via The Great Marketing Word of Mouth Experiment

Many, many innovative companies have already embraced this powerful way of promotion successfully. Click here for some fascinating case studies. To practice what we preach, we have initiated our Great WOM Marketing Experiment, which will show you that it works very well here in New Zealand too. Click here to read about the power, reach, pace and potential of Referral Marketing via Word of Mouth.

Advertising is intrusive. Loyalty is Bribery. Referrals are Real. Which will have the most impact and which does your company know most about? Get Referring.