“My friend said I should check you out…”
“I got the most amazing pair of shoes this week, they really have changed my life… “
“This is the best coffee in town.”
When it works in your favour word of mouth will be your best marketer hands down. The recommendations come from people you know and trust. Or people you don’t know like on Trip Advisor but for some reason you still value whether they give a hotel 4/5 stars (why not 5…? 🤔)
Like the customers and clients you already have and want to attract similar ones?
Getting referrals from existing happy clients will grow your business in the easiest way possible.
But what about the dark side of word of mouth? What do you do when someone leaves a 1 star review on your Facebook page… can you ever recover?
And what about when you don’t like the current clients you have, you want to increase your prices or offer something new but you only ever seem to attract the same type of people you don’t currently want to talk to… is there anything you can do about it?
Great businesses can be built on word of mouth alone. And I hope that this may also serve a reminder to reach out to your existing network to let them know you’re available for work 😉)
But if you do want to move beyond word of mouth because you want to offer something different… what’s your plan?
You can…
A. Get grumpy that nothing ever changes and nothing ever will
B. Dip your toe in the water of marketing, not make a million dollars on your first attempt and run out of the after screaming ‘Sharks! Don’t go in there, do NOT go in there 😱’
C. Decide to make a positive change and move towards where you want your business to go
I don’t know about you, but I love swimming. In fact I like being in the water so much I love surfing, even in the shark infested waters of Ballina NSW where I live so option B is totally out. And I’m also pretty happy person so A is also out. So it’s C for me.
The good news is that with the right marketing you can reinvent yourself, over and over again but sometimes you have more questions than answers. And that’s where you might need a different strategy (and sometimes even Facebook ads can help – more in this video).