Word of Mouth Part 1: Why

Wow, as I write this, there are 1,176 comments on the last post. And that’s not even counting the 200+ comments that were posted in the wrong place …

There are some amazing marketing insights in those comments, so browsing through them will give you a great education in marketing.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I don’t really believe there’s a “right answer” to anything. Inflexible certainty is a dangerous state of mind – but it’s also an amazingly useful one when it’s applied to the right ideas.

Being certain that the earth is flat will probably cause you a lot of grief.

Being certain in your self-worth will probably make your voyage on planet earth a lot more pleasant.

Another thing I’d bank my certainty-chips on is the power of Word of Mouth Marketing.

There are many marketing truisms. Some of them I agree with – some I think are simply wrong.

“The single most powerful force in marketing is word of mouth” is one that just about every marketing expert I know agrees with. I do too, and here’s why.

Let’s compare it to some of the other answers given (which were almost all – by the way – quite insightful and well thought out).

Word of Mouth Vs. Great Ad Copy

Word of Mouth – the right kind of Word of Mouth (more on that later) – can bypass the copy and go right to the order.

If you and your beloved uncle have both been suffering from the same kind of back pain for the last 10 years and suddenly he is “cured” – I doubt you’ll need to read much ad copy before trying whatever it was that cured him.

That’s a gross simplification, but you get the idea.

Word of Mouth Vs. Selling to a Thirsty Crowd

Selling to a “thirsty crowd” is, in fact, an amazingly powerful way to generate sales. In fact, if you’re paying for advertising, it’s essential.

But to gain access to a thirsty crowd you will always have to invest something. Be it time, energy, or money (or all of the above), there is an investment there that you will have to keep paying over and over again. The burden on you is to make sure you get a “return” on that investment each and every time.

With Word of Mouth, your customers go out and find your Thirsty Crowd for you. You do have to make Word of Mouth investments (more about what they are later), but the payoff – when you do it right – will grow on itself.

Some people say “Word of Mouth is Free” but that’s not really true. Yes, you don’t have to pay for the referral, but there are other investments you must make in order to get that Word of Mouth referral.

When you find Thirsty Crowds you have a linear investment-to-payoff (or lack thereof) relationship.

When you let Word of Mouth find Thirsty Crowds for you, the investment keeps paying off again and again – sometimes “exponentially.”

But let’s be careful about using that word.

There are many gimmicky products out there that promise “exponential growth” but they don’t really deliver that at all.

More about that – and what actually does deliver exponential growth – in the following posts.

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