WOW! + Follow-up + ‘Call-To-Action’ = Successful Word of Mouth marketing

For each of these three pieces it is immediately obvious what they are. At least on the surface.

WOW! is obvious isn’t it?

There has to be something out of the ordinary, something different, some X factor, to get your customer or prospective customer talking about you.

Unfortunately some people interpret this to mean you need to do something silly, annoying, or really expensive.

You don’t.

Sure you can cuss and swear, and people will talk about you for that alone, but you better be able to back it up and then some.

Chef Gordon Ramsey of “Hell’s Kitchen” fame can use expletives and have a new show named “The F-Word”, but he has had 12 of the highly-reputed Michelin stars, and has been awarded one UK’s highest national honors, an OBE, “for services to the hospitality industry”.

Sure you can dress like Madonna, or spend money like Trump, put a cute Chihuahua in your ads, or do 1001 things people might talk about, but it doesn’t have to be so hard.

Everyone can turn their business into a WOW! experience.

How?

Honesty.

I was reminded of one method of this from a post by Seth Godin…

When a sales rep says, “You know, after hearing your situation, I think you’d be a lot better off with my competitor’s product instead, here’s her number,” it actually creates positive word of mouth and long-term growth.

Hopefully you don’t have to say this too often. If you are, you need to improve your product / service, OR better target your marketing.

But when your customer is truely best served by your competitor, teach yourself and your team to say so.

Position yourself as an educator, an adviser, and even further, as an advocate for your customer.

Then they will be more prepared to be an advocate for you.

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