Simple Steps Create a Buzz About Your Services
By: ATX Dialogue
To read this article in our HTML-based e-newsletter, ATX Dialogue, please visit http://www.atx.com/dialoguenov2002/createabuzz.html
If your company is like most others, the current economic climate has you under intense pressure and heightened scrutiny from all sides to increase revenue and profitability, in many cases, with a reduced staff. Have you been taking advantage of word-of-mouth marketing?
Word-of-mouth marketing is perhaps the most cost-effective means of promoting your company's products and services and driving qualified traffic to your web site. In fact, many consider word-of-mouth marketing to be the most compelling way to attract new customers. Yet so many small businesses do not know what it is, how it works, or how it can be used to meet their goals. Perhaps the largest benefit of word-of-mouth marketing is the fact that it requires a very small budget and works without us even knowing it.
Why is word-of-mouth marketing so powerful? Over the years there have been many reasons given to explain its amazing success. Since consumers are bombarded with a multitude of messages promoting various products and services in both their mailboxes as well as their e-mail inboxes, it is hard to decide whom they can trust. Perhaps that's why so many consumers turn to the people they trust the most like their families, friends, neighbors, and business colleagues for advice regarding products or services they are considering.
With the emergence of the Internet, consumers now have more product choices and information about these choices than ever before at their disposal. Product reviews are all over the Internet and can be found in discussion forums, newsgroups, and chat rooms. With this in mind, it is imperative that messages about your product or service are positive.
How can you create a buzz about your product or service? The first step is to evaluate what exactly it is that you offer. The product or service that you provide should create a sense of excitement and be unique in some way so it generates enthusiasm and is worth talking about.
What if your product or service is not intrinsically exciting or earth shattering? Then you must design and implement a plan to communicate a specific message to your target audience to generate positive word-of-mouth.
Here are some ways to create a buzz:
Talk to Family and Friends About Your Product
Tell your personal and professional contacts about your product or service and ask them to refer your business to others.
Take Advantage of Every Opportunity to Talk
Find public engagements where you can promote your business, such as industry conferences, meetings, seminars, or charity events.
Design a Referral Program
Based upon your business model, you can create a referral program asking your current customers to recommend acquaintances that might be interested in your product or service. The recipient of your direct mail, e-mail, or phone call will most likely listen to you since they were referred by a mutual colleague rather than by a random third party. In order to add incentive, you can also build a reward system into your campaign for those prospects offered by your customer that developed into new customers.
Implement a Dialogue Campaign
Research and investigate relevant web sites such as discussion forums, message boards, and chat rooms where you can post positive targeted messages about your product. These promotional messages will be designed to entice the reader to proceed to your web site to learn more about your company, thus building brand awareness.
Conduct Opt-in E-mail Campaigns
Based on your industry, you can select and utilize targeted "opt-in" e-mail lists to send messages to your select audience about your business. In addition to more cost-effective delivery than conventional mail, these e-mail campaigns traditionally outperform direct mail campaigns and offer greater flexibility.
Word-of-mouth marketing is the most natural method of communicating with your customers and it should become an integral part of your marketing plan. Of course, there are many other marketing and public relations tactics that can help you get your message out, such as press releases, advertising, web sites, trade shows, newsletters, promotional contests, etc. Complementing these activities with smart "grass roots" approaches will advance your cause without breaking the bank.
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