Taming the Word of Mouth Monster

The customer's word is king.

In today’s culture of the Web, nothing holds greater sway than word of mouth. If want to grow your business, you need the help of your customers and fans.

Let’s look at an example:

The first clip is from SouthEnd Home Improvement's website; the second is a review that one of their customers posted on their Google Places page.

Both essentially say the same thing, speaking to the superior quality of the workmanship and customer service provided by the company. Yet Josh's review has probably motivated far more prospective clients to pick up the phone than the company's own site.

Why is this the case? After all, we don’t know Josh, and he hasn’t done anything to earn our trust.

However, we trust him implicitly because he is not affiliated with the company and thus (at least theoretically) not motivated by a sales agenda or self-interest.

Is it fair? Maybe not. But if you're going to compete successfully in today's consumer-driven marketplace, that's the reality you must live in. In this post-mass media era, you simply cannot talk frequently and loudly enough about your own products and services to muscle your way to the top.

Old marketing has been dethroned.

Marketing was a much simpler proposition back in the days when communication flowed in one direction from companies to customers.

You could buy exposure in the print, radio and TV media outlets of your choosing, and you could control the message down to the last detail. Your investment could be mapped out neatly on schedules and calendars, and you had access to all kinds of reassuring data like reach, frequency and cost per impression. Sign a contract, write a check, hand over your perfectly polished advertisements and wait for the phone to ring.

Traditional advertising is still there for the taking. The problem is that your customers aren’t buying into it anymore. There's simply too much information available to them from too many different channels. All the beautifully crafted ads your budget can buy can't save you if your Google Places page is littered with scathing reviews from dissatisfied customers.

Today's marketplace is ruled by the customer.

Companies today have inherited the burden of mistrust created by generations of brands before them that thrived on the shallow messages and misleading claims of traditional advertising.

Today's consumers view themselves as a band of brothers united behind the cause of holding companies accountable for providing quality products and services and making good on their promises. It's an "us against them" mentality, and you're on the wrong side of the fight until you prove otherwise.

You can't hide the truth from your customers any longer. A disgruntled customer 10 years ago was a mild annoyance. Customer service people could silence the complainer and wash their hands of the matter. It required a screw-up of much larger proportions for a company's bad practices to come to light in the traditional media.

However, one unhappy customer who voices their discontent on Facebook or Twitter has the power to cost you hundreds of potential sales. If something goes wrong and you're not pulling out all the stops to make things right, you're taking a big gamble with your brand's reputation.

In a consumer-driven marketplace, no brand is untouchable. No company is too big to be brought down by their customer.

Don't slay the dragon – make it your friend.

Word of mouth marketing is a fearful proposition for most businesses because it doesn't conform neatly to the metrics and regulations that drive the corporate world.

It's a lot like lightning in that there's no way to predict when and where it might strike. As such it's nearly impossible to capture on record and quantify. However, when it does touch down, there's no denying the power of it's impact.

So how do you harness this inherently anti-corporate force and put it to work for you in the real day-in, day-out, nitty-gritty world of business?

Treat every customer like Oprah.

While word of mouth is not a new concept by any stretch of the imagination, the advent of the digital age and social media have magnified its importance by putting a megaphone in the hands of every customer.

As a result, the customer service landscape is littered with potential PR landmines because you can't always tell who holds the biggest megaphone. Aggravate the wrong customer, and your reputation is toast.

Sure you can tell which members of your online community have the most Facebook friends or Twitter followers or blog subscribers. But things get messy when you encounter these people in the real world. They don't have their subscriber count tattooed on their forehead, and they don't introduce themselves with their Twitter handle.

So what do you do? You must treat every customer as though they have an Oprah-like ability to exert their influence.

Tread carefully, and make sure you demonstrate to each and every customer that you respect them and that their opinions matter. Maybe 99 out of 100 of them won't talk about you anyway, but you had better make sure that the one who speaks up is a happy camper.

Underpromise and overdeliver.

When you are in front of a prospect and you have the opportunity to make a sale, it's hard to force yourself to leave any cards on the table. You want to talk up every feature and every benefit in the most superlative degree.

However, if that's what it takes to close the deal, you'd better be prepared not only to make good on every claim but also to go above and beyond the call of duty.

Your sales pitch is your customer's baseline expectation. If you do only what you say, they'll thank you for a job well done and move on.

But if you go the extra mile and do more than promised, then you'll get them talking.

Never make a sale at the cost of your reputation.

You want to hear the cash register ring as much and as often as possible. However, selling your products to a customer when you know they're not actually a good fit for that person's specific needs is like playing Russian roulette.

If the product isn't really the right solution, your customer is going to be unhappy, and they're going to point the finger at you. They'll either assume that your product is subpar or, far worse, that your company is dishonest in its claims. That sale will end up costing your company and your brand's reputation dearly.

Make every impression count.

Generally speaking, your customers have short-term memories. Your relationship with them is only as good as your last encounter, and your brand’s reputation lives and dies in the moment of interaction.

Every phone call, every email, every visit to your store counts. That means you had better make sure that every person your customers come into contact with understands the importance of every touchpoint.

Customers are allowed to have bad days, to be unpleasant, even to be irrational. Customer service people are not.

Be remarkable – literally.

Your customers are not professional spokespeople. Promoting your company is not anywhere near the top of their agenda.

To get them talking about you, you must overcome the inertia of their natural tendency to talk about pretty much anything other than your company.

How can you do that? You must surprise and delight them. You must offer them something that's truly new, innovative and exciting. Your products or services must make their lives easier or better in ways that are meaningful and significant.

If you want buzz around your restaurant, you have to make it buzzworthy. Everything from the food to the service to the ambiance must offer something your customers can't get anywhere else in town.

Reinvent the wheel if you have to. When your customers find something so great that it ignites their passion, they won’t be able to keep it to themselves.

Feed them a steady diet of good content.

Your customers don't go through their lives talking up the products and services they use like they just stepped out of a commercial from the 1950s.

However, everyone loves a hot tip. Mary who enjoys working in her yard doesn't call up her girlfriend to have a heart-to-heart conversation about fertilizer. However, if she finds a great video on the Scotts website about how to keep her lawn lush and green all summer long, you'd better believe she'll email a link to the other members of her gardening club and retweet it for the benefit of the gardening enthusiasts who follow her.

With the simple act of sharing the video link, Mary's given Scotts her word of mouth endorsement as a trusted expert.

Content marketing works. Period.

Get the conversation started.

You can't control what your customers say about you. In fact, you can't force them to say anything about you at all. What you can do, however, is get the conversation started.

Social media has removed the communication barriers between you and your customers. Use that to your advantage by identifying the motivations that drive your fans to act and giving them ways to carry your torch that cater to their passions and personalities.

Ask for their input. Recognize their good ideas. Provide good information and inspiration that they'll want to pass along to their own networks. Get creative and make it fun to be your fan so they'll invite others to join the party.

No one ever said it would be easy.

Building good word-of-mouth marketing around your brand is a slow, arduous climb of earning the trust of your customers and motivating them to act on your behalf.

There are no shortcuts here. If you want good word of mouth, you must earn it the old-fashioned way through hard work and honest communication. You must deliver top quality products and services that provide exceptional value. You must develop authentic relationships with your customers and be attentive and responsive to their needs. If something goes wrong, you must go above and beyond to set things right. In all things, demonstrating genuine respect for your customers is paramount.

However, all of this hard work will not go unrewarded. The payoff for your investment of time and resources is getting and keeping the best kind of customers — true, dedicated fans that become advocates for your brand.

Thanks to the power of social media, when your evangelists start talking, they’re not just going to tell one person, they’re going to broadcast it to everyone in their social circles on the Web – via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, their blog, etc. As a result, you’ll not only gain exposure to potential new customers, you’ll have an inherent foundation of trust by association.

The ripple effect that occurs as the good word of mouth around your brand continues to spread virally from one person’s network to another will do far more to sustain and propel the growth of your business in today’s economy than any form of paid advertisement that your money could buy.

Mastering Tribe Marketing

Introduction

In part one of this series, Tribes in Today's Marketing, we established a foundational understanding of what tribes are, how and why they form, how they've evolved and how this has redefined the marketplace.

Now we turn our attention to how business growth is achieved today by identifying, understanding, joining and, in due time, leading the tribes that are relevant to your business and your bottom line.

Identify your tribe

When you are marketing your product or service, you strive to understand your target audience. Certainly you can map out the usual demographic variables – age, gender, income and location. These are easy to understand, but to participate and ascend to leadership in your tribe, you need more.

Chances are, your tribe doesn't exist around your direct offering in and of itself – either specifically around your brand or even your product or service in the generic sense.

More than likely, your tribe will coalesce around an idea or value that surrounds your product – whether it's the convenience it provides or the aspect of a lifestyle that it affords.

If you sell golf clubs, the task of identifying your tribe is fairly straightforward. Your tribe is passionate about golf, about improving their game and about having the latest in golfing technology.

Perhaps you're an organic grocer. Your tribe is comprised of people who are conscientious about good health and nutrition and about supporting farmers who grow more natural, healthful foods. These are the people that are ready to take your message and set it on fire.

However, many times the tribes that drive organizations and their products operate at a different level.

If you own the corner coffee shop, you most certainly have something to offer the tribe of people who appreciate good coffee. But perhaps the atmosphere of your shop taps into the passions of a tribe that aspires to lead a cosmopolitan lifestyle. If you sell fair trade coffee, your products might appeal to an entirely different tribe – one that is sensitive to geopolitical issues.

Many times, tribes are about a state of mind. They are comprised of people who live a certain way and who care about certain things. In this way, the challenge is not so much about analyzing demographics but identifying those whose shared passions align with yours.

Locate your tribe

Tribes are never static. They exist with purpose. They are living life and solving problems. In order to continue being relevant to and meeting the needs of their members, they must evolve. This requires a platform – if not multiple platforms – where they can meet, discuss and debate ideas, share news and continue the ongoing conversation around their passions.

They're on message boards; they're talking in forums; they're in the blogosphere; they're connecting with each other on Twitter. In some cases, they're even gathering and meeting in person.

Most of the time the communities that you are looking for are not centered in one place, and there's rarely an obvious sign that reads, “This community lives here.” If you sell coffee, you can't just go to coffeeisgreat.com and find people who are talking about how much they love coffee. However, if you've identified your tribe as well as their passions, needs, wants and fears, it's a lot easier to find them.

Interest-based tribes vs. relationship-based tribes

So far our focus has been primarily on interest-based tribes, which form when people connect around a shared passion. However, social media allows for a new type of connection and thus a new type of tribe – one that forms based on how its members know each other, whether through work, family or location.

These organically created tribes are not bound by any one common interest but rather by the shared goals and interests of life that are relevant to us all. We turn to these tribes for help getting things done, for solutions to everyday problems and for guidance to improve the quality of our lives and the lives of those around us.

Relationship-based tribes and local business

The power of these types of tribes is fairly significant when you consider the nearly limitless aspects of life that we all have in common. Most of us get haircuts, wear shoes, do laundry, watch TV, pay utility bills, buy groceries, own cars, improve our homes, raise children – the list goes on almost indefinitely.

For all of these things, we rely on our tribes of family, co-workers and neighbors for helpful advice and recommendations. As a result, small businesses have a tremendous opportunity to thrive within these tribes if they know where and how to find them. The answer is social media.

For example, if someone has a wonderful experience with a local mechanic, they don't log in to greatmechanics.com and evangelize for Mike the Mechanic. They do, however, tweet about the great service they received. They might even take this one step further and make Mike a member of their online community by connecting themselves with his business page on Facebook and sharing his website with friends living nearby.

In fact, it is not uncommon for the genesis of an interest-based tribe to start with relationship-based tribes talking about a brand and sharing its message.

In other words, if you connect with members of 50 family-based tribes, inevitably these people will connect to form their own community, and your message will begin to spread virally, feeding off of its own momentum to foster the growth of an interest-based tribe.

Become a member of the tribe

Membership doesn't begin the day you start participating in the conversation. You must earn the respect of the tribe in order to become one of them.

Don't come in and immediately start selling, or you'll be ousted swiftly and permanently. Better yet, don't even start by speaking. Listen first and gain insight into the culture within.

Most tribes have evolved over many years and have developed their own rules, perspectives and goals, and building credibility requires an appreciation of these nuances. Read through past conversations to understand the history and the passion surrounding the issues. Learn what's funny, what's serious, what's cliché, what's typical, what people want and what turns them off.

When you do start participating, the one and only rule that applies is to be real. Don't approach the conversation as a self-motivated, faceless corporate salesperson. Come to serve the tribe and its goals. Be yourself – a person with a budget, family, needs, problems and passions just like everyone else.

If you are in the business of doing what you love and you believe in what you do, then talk about it honestly when the time is right without bias or agenda. You must become a trusted member of the tribe before you can begin leading it.

Rule the tribe

The process and path to tribe leadership is unique for each community. However, all tribe leaders posses certain qualities that allow them to ascend to the top.

They are fearless. They are innovators. They challenge the status quo. But, above all, they have built a consistent reputation on standing for the tribe.

As time goes on, after you have proven that you are driven first and foremost by the advancement of the tribe, you'll gain footing as more than just another trusted, non-biased member. The tribe wants to know that you're listening and leading. They want to know that someone is there who genuinely cares about meeting their needs. If you can earn that level of trust with them, they will not only buy from you every time, they will spread your message like no marketing campaign ever could.

This is where tribe leadership truly runs contrary to business models rooted in decades of traditional marketing.

Today, it is more important to be trusted than to sell. Tribes are founded on trust, and trust cannot be achieved with the tactics of old marketing. It is true that tribe leadership and direct selling can both generate sales revenue – at least in the short term. However, while gaining the trust of your tribe is the more indirect path, in the end, the organization that makes a long-term investment in tribe leadership will ultimately achieve the greatest number of sales and claim ownership of the market.

In part three of this series, we'll cover how the influence of tribes extends beyond promotion and actually shapes how business itself evolves around the tribe.