Word of Mouth Marketing Series – An Introduction
Today’s Volusion blog post begins our series on the emerging trend of Word of Mouth Marketing (WOM). The goal of WOM is to encourage others to talk about your online business and its products. Keep reading to learn more about different types of WOM and basic elements to get started with your strategy.
.
I continuously receive requests to provide more research and advice on how to leverage social media for online business owners. And why not? This is one of the most powerful and business-altering developments of our time.
So while gathering new findings and information, I ran into an interesting fact from the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association: 41.4% of social media users start an online search after a face-to-face conversation. Thus, while social media may be a great tool, the end goal is to get people talking about your business to others.
This idea is often coined as buzz marketing, but it really fits under the larger umbrella of Word of Mouth Marketing (WOM). The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) has released a useful report that nicely breaks down the term:
- Word of Mouth: The act of consumers providing information to other consumers.
- Word of Mouth Marketing: Giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place. It is the art and science of building active, mutually beneficial consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-marketer communications.
.
In other words, you want to provide reasons for others to talk about your online store through relationship building. Once you get people talking, others are more likely to begin an online search for your brand. And once they find you, you’re on your way to an easy conversion. Simple, right?
.
There are several tactics that can be used to spark conversations via word of mouth. Here are some of the most well-known: (more…)






