Even as a marketer, I can’t deny that the best form of advertising is word of mouth. Think of all the times someone has told you about a great restaurant or store, and how many times you followed up on that referral. When you hear good things from a trusted source, no form of advertising can beat that.
I’m reading a book called Marketing Without Advertising: Inspire Customers To Rave About Your Business & Create Lasting Success and the first chapter is dedicated to word of mouth. It talks about how the Internet helps word of mouth spread like, well, you guessed it, a virus (word of mouth online essentially is viral marketing). The book says that in order for someone to accept a recommendation, three things have to occur:
1. Trust. The person giving the recommendation must be a reliable source of information.
2. Information to back up recommendation. The referrer should know what they’re talking about (a recommendation of a restaurant by a chef is a good example)
3. Responsibility. The person referring something should be responsible in making the recommendation.
Here are some of my picks for great examples of companies who thrive on word of mouth marketing.
The Emyth Revisited. Can I ever say enough about this book? Or can anyone else for that matter? 95% of entrepreneurs I speak with have read this book. Never have I seen any advertising for it. It’s just a great book that is worthy of being passed on to others.
EMomsatHome. Wendy Piersall’s blog on parenting and working from home is highly popular, and yet she does not advertise. Her expertise and well written blog are passed on to like-minded work-from-home parents seeking quality information.
eBay. While eBay has started putting television commercials and direct mail out, there’s no need. There’s not a single American who doesn’t at least have a concept of what it is, and with over 130 million members in the U.S. alone, I’d say the word was getting out pretty well.
How can you get more business through word of mouth marketing? Make sure your company is running at 110%.
-Susan
Like this post? Subscribe to the Egg Marketing Blog RSS Feed
FREE 21-Page Internet Business Idea Guide
Enter your name and email below and we’ll send you our unique 21-page guide chock full of Internet business ideas – for free! Your information will be kept private, of course.
Susan Payton is the Marketing Eggspert, and owner of 
Heh. Funny you should say that.
You are correct, the site has grown nearly 100% via word of mouth, though I have bought PPC clicks and some very tiny ads to promote some revenue-generating products, but those goals have been for $$, not for traffic.
At the same time, I have found that word of mouth can also run in “cliques”. I have good brand awareness with bloggers and work at home parents who read blogs. But in order to break into other areas, like work at home parents who don’t blog, I’m planning on buying advertising to break into the market.
It certainly doesn’t negate the need for word of mouth, in fact, as a small business, my advertising budget isn’t big enough to penetrate a market on ads alone. I will do it with the plan that once a certain percentage of people in the new market know about my site, they will then start the word of mouth in their “clique” for me.
At least, that’s the plan.
Thanks Wendy! That should give my readers a good insight into how word of mouth plays a part of your promotion, but isn’t necessarily the only channel.
Susan