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Word of Mouth Marketing: Definition, Strategy, Statistics, Advantages and Disadvantages

Word of Mouth Marketing: A Marketing Strategy You Must Take Care of

Still, in 20 first century, the importance of word of mouth marketing hasn’t diminished. And you walk without it. For that reason, you need to know both the advantages and disadvantages of word of mouth marketing to identify which one will be best for your business. 

One of the terms that are very popular is that “ when people talk about your product or brand positively, then you can think you are on the right path to creating a brand name for your business”. 

The fastest and most trustworthy way of marketing is the word of mouth marketing which is more valuable compared to other marketing systems. 

What Is Word of Mouth Marketing? 

Word of the mouth marketing is the customer experience of the service or product to get the best benefits out of it and impact on his daily life. Depending on that he shares his good thoughts with his family, friends, neighbours about the brand. 

What is

In this way, another person who did not come in touch with that product/service might get to know about it and consider having it.

Word of mouth marketing is absolutely beneficial for brands or companies that want to create a longer and better brand image. 

Even though traditionally a consumer might contact another through real-life conversation, nowadays, the situation is not really the same. 

Apart from direct conversations or discussions, someone can participate in the process of letting others know about a brand through digital communication, the internet, social media platforms etc. 

Even thousands of brands today are very aware of the fact that online activities can contribute a lot word of mouth marketing. 

So they execute marketing strategies online to accelerate word of mouth marketing as well.

Word of mouth marketing is one of the most powerful marketing strategies and advertising forms. 

It can be seen that 92% of people out there are more likely to trust their known ones compared to the media and their advertising. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Word of Mouth Marketing

Certainly, marketing will have some pros and cons. The same thing goes with the word of mouth marking. 

To have a better picture for your marketing you should know and understand both side pros and cons of word of mouth marketing. 

So, let’s see some of the advantages and disadvantages of the word of mouth marking right now: 

Advantages of Word of Mouth Marketing

Word of mouth marketing can be beneficial for you from various perspectives. So, we have listed down some of the pros of word of mouth marketing,  let’s put some light on those:

1. Word of Mouth Marketing is Impactful

Before you start considering some other kind of marketing strategy or advertising form: 

50% of Americans who directly would prefer word of mouth only if they had to choose only one source of information to have some insights or ideas regarding a particular product or a service. 

2. Word of Mouth Marketing is Free

When your loyal customer is talking about your product/service to his/her family members or friends, you don’t need to make a payment for this recommendation. 

However, to reach such a place where people will actually consider talking about your brand, you do need to spend some of your assets. 

Your word of mouth marketing strategy is obviously going to need some currencies, whether you are willing to include SEO strategy, ad campaigns, content marketing strategies or something else.

3. Word of Mouth Recommendations Are Highly Valued 

As already has been said, people may have a look at your TVC, but if you can make people recommend your company, your chance to attract new consumers increases to a great extent. 

In fact, research shows that 84% of customers believe the recommendations that they get from friends and families more than anything else.

4. It Goes on, and on, and on..

There are so many marketing strategies out there, but word of mouth is totally different from those. 

The reason is, the previous ones require continuous effort, time and money to be invested, otherwise, those won’t be fruitful. 

On the other hand, word of mouth marketing is a self-sustaining process. 

If you can manage to maintain the quality of your product/service, then you can be sure of the fact that through word of mouth, your brand will surely attract a great number of new customers.

5. A Convenient Campaign to Start

Compared to the other types of marketing campaigns, word of mouth marketing campaigns are really easier to kickstart. 

You will need to make sure that the campaign involves and engages people and let them taste the essence of your brand image successfully. 

Of course, there are options where your costing might be a bit more, but the thing is with the assistance of your creativity, you can initiate your own word of mouth marketing with a whole less budget plan.

6. Building a Community

A successful word of mouth marketing campaign can create a community that will be loyal to your particular brand image. 

It increases the possibility to have extended sales and revenue, ultimately ensuring the success of your venture.

Disadvantages of Word of Mouth Marketing

Disadvantages

1. You Can’t Control People Thought 

In the word of mouth marketing you can not control what they are saying to the internet or face to face. These thighs totally depend on their expectation. 

If one of the products wasn’t good and that goes to one particular customer’s hand and he expresses his negative view about your company product everywhere on the internet.  

Then it will be tough to control. And just because of this you can lose your company branding. The best possible way may be to contact him and resolve the issue as soon as possible. Otherwise, there is no alternative.  

2. Enemy Use As a Weapon 

Your competitor can be your enemy or another person as well who doesn’t love to see your success. 

The review website Yelp helps to know more about business and where word-of-mouth marketing is the main key. 

If your enemy knows that he/she can easily use it your whole branding can be crushed. 

This type of review site common people visit to know about your business condition. 

So, if there are plenty of bad reviews then it will affect the customer’s mind.  

3. You Can’t Get The Accurate Data of The Word-of-Mouth Marketing 

In the word of mouth marketing, you can’t get the perfect data to track those customers. 

In addition, you can’t be remarketing as there is no perfect date on there and it is quite impossible to track. 

In the word of mouth marketing, it works mostly in an automatic system. 

If people like your product or service and give good support to the most likely then they give reviews on the internet and talk to their friends and family as well.  

Word of Mouth Marketing Strategy

Here are some suggestions to give you some guidelines on how to initiate word of mouth marketing:

strategy

1. Starting with the Employees

There is no one as a better fit than your employees who can have the potential to effectively spread the word. 

By making your employees’ workplace convenient and cheerful, you can keep your employees satisfied, which can contribute to influencing them to share their experience with your organisation. 

And no need to elaborate on the fact that once they start sharing their happy thoughts of your brand with others, the word of mouth can make a great difference then.

2. Providing Something worth Talking About

Whether it’s for the employees or your customers, you cannot expect them to talk about an experience that seemed just okay. 

They will be sharing their thoughts only when they consider something interesting enough to let others know.

3. Generating and Emotional Response

Try to incorporate something that relates to people’s emotions. An emotional touch is more likely to initiate and provoke word of mouth sharing. 

Emotional touch can also inspire people to put themselves in certain scenarios more conveniently and be a part of them.

4. Engaging as much as Possible

One important thing to remember is that you can accelerate your word of mouth campaign to a great extent by engaging yourself. 

Being a part of the campaign itself can affect others to be interested in your brand more. 

What you need to do is to listen carefully about what your customers are talking about, what are their necessities, requirements, wants and so on. You can also try to represent yourself where your customers are going to attend.

Word of Mouth Marketing Statistics

One of the WOMMA reports claims that in the United States more than 2.4 billion conversations happen every day, brands are mentioned –  but the statistic isn’t included in the data.  

Modern marketing Guru Seth Godin says “ Word of Mouth Happens When You’ve Delighted a Customer and When You’ve Disappointed or Angereded One”.

Why Should Marketers Care About Word of Mouth Marketing?

It’s very natural that people tend to believe more about who they know or are related to. There are so many TVCs out there, so many billboards, so much effort to attract new customers. But can all of these actually make a difference? Hardly it does, at least not significantly when compared to word of mouth marketing.

Even research shows that 64% of marketing executives believe that word of mouth marketing is the most effective form of advertising for brands or companies.

No matter how much effort you put together to attract a new consumer base, you must do something that can create a buzz about you among people, only then can you expect to survive in the competitive world of today.

Word of Mouth: Is it Always Positive?

No, it isn’t. It is possible that sometimes your customers might not be really satisfied with your service and choose to defame your brand image by spreading negative words about your brand. 

There is no way you can prevent a customer if he/she chooses to refer to your brand as unworthy. But you can take constructive criticism into consideration to further improve your brand. 

Also, a 100% positive word of mouth is also very unrealistic, to be honest, it seems almost unbelievable to a lot. 

Sometimes, negative word of mouth can actually prove your authenticity.

Final Words

Without knowing the advantages and disadvantages of word of mouth marketing any marketing strategy will not work accurately. Every marketing strategy comes with its own drawbacks. Word of mouth also can sometimes be a bit harmful to your brand image. However, that doesn’t cancel the immense scopes of success that you can have in your business once you are done with your word of mouth marketing perfectly. So gather all your resources, put in your creative efforts and start making your brand famous among people.

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