Revisiting: Is Word of Mouth Free?

May 12, 2017 by  
Filed under Featured Articles, Front Page

I used to talk to a lot of people who said they did all their advertising word of mouth and that they didn’t spend any money on ads. I would remind them that effective word of mouth is not free. If you think word of mouth is free, you don’t understand word of mouth. Word of mouth has evolved a lot since I first wrote this article. Word of mouth at it’s best is now influencer marketing. Influencers work well to get people to your page or event. It worked so well that in April 2017, Instagram Influencers got many rich kids to pay around $10,000 per ticket to a music festival in the Bahamas. The young organizer ( he was 25) was inexperienced and things did not go well. See #fyrefestival on twitter for the details. He spent money on Influencers and got a packed house, only to be unable to spend money on infrastructure. It was a huge fail but pure proof that Influencer marketing works.

Many of you think word of mouth is free advertising. One person tells another person and it grows exponentially. What examples can you think of that worked like that? All of those big word of mouth successes started with a good infusion of cash to get the campaign started.  People who have no budget for marketing and advertising. It starts with a sample. If you can not afford to have people sample your product, it’s hard to make any kind of word of mouth happen.Word of Mouth happens when people get your book, or item and get to use it. Company’s spend millions making sure people sample their products. Online marketers spend lots of money on online and offline ads to get to you take a free ebook/report.I love it when I talk to people who do not do advertising, they are going to make it by word of mouth. I ask them about their goals for their company, and to name a company that made it to that size with word of mouth. No one has come up with a name yet.If you are reading this because of the note I sent you in my auto-responder, guess what? The auto-responder costs money! The good ones are NOT free.Yes, word of mouth is a great tool for promoting your business, however word of mouth is not free.

How do you use word of mouth?

Do you use influencer marketing at all?
Name a huge company that made it on word of mouth only?
Is word of mouth enough to make YOUR company grow?
 

Comments

2 Responses to “Revisiting: Is Word of Mouth Free?”
  1. Jamila White says:

    Hey Dr. Wright,

    Great post. Word of mouth is great, but most folks don’t see the effort and strategy (and cost!) behind referrals and word of mouth marketing. Still gotta have someplace to send them to (web site or blog), e-mail newsletter and/or autoresponder software. Still gotta get out there and network online and offline to that there are “mouths” out there who will spread the word on your behalf.

    And most importantly, you still have to develop a quality product or service that people want.

    Jamila White – “The E-Commerce Diva”

  2. Rosanne Reid says:

    Hi Dr. Wright,

    Thanks for this post!! That is so true and very few of us really know what it takes to get your product of service advertised via word of the mouth. The product or service would not be known about if you didn’t first educate the public through advertising and marketing.

    May God Continue to Bless You.
    Rosanne Reid

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