Build Sustainable Word Of Mouth Publicity
As an individual, I’m very quiet and so try to put it in this manner. I am pretty vocal about my views. I make sure I share my likes and dislikes about various things within my circle of influence. My personal opinions could be subjective but are based on my personal experiences, which is why people who value my opinions pay attention to my advice.
Public Relation includes a variety of tactics that strengthen your credibility, enhances your image or influences your opinions. These tactics, such as speeches, special events, promotional activities, product launches, sponsorship, newsletters, articles and media releases are targeted to an audience.
It is said that publicity is seven times more effective than an advertisement.
I guess many of you will agree with me, ‘Our experiences help us form impressions and our impressions form a base of our beliefs and convictions’. Before the social media revolution, we used to heavily depend on newspapers, experts opinions, radio, and other information providers. But today with blogging and social networks becoming an important part of our daily lives, each one of us can be an expert in our own right.
Your blog on your wonderful experience of buying a new phone can bring others benefit as well. Many of your friends might go hunting for a great deal on the same brand’s showroom. They go to the store because they believe your word; you, on the other hand, have unknowingly lent your personal credibility to the brand by sharing your buying experience with your friends. Maybe mobile is not the branded one, but through blogging and talking about it you can convert something less in price into something priceless. This is the power of Word of Mouth Publicity.
Today companies are realizing the importance of social media and word of mouth. Even now if you compare social media marketing and word of mouth, ‘Word of Mouth’ WINS’ the game. There is no secret hidden behind this – Just basic rules that an individual needs to follow – when a person talks; you tend to HEAR if it sounds interesting – you LISTEN. Listening is nothing but paying ATTENTION to what the other person is saying, TRUST is built because he is also giving you enough knowledge about the product, which generates a ‘WANT TO BUY’.
Firstly, before implementing Word of Mouth, make sure your product or service offering delivers what it promises. Secondly, ask for testimonials from happy customers.
To convince you more about word of mouth, I would like to share some relevant but ignored points, word of mouth has the most believable influence on sales; it is the fastest and the most trusted marketing vehicle. It is said that “A small percentage of your audience is responsible for a majority of your word of mouth”.
I feel word of mouth publicity is more useful for start-ups and organizations that want to grow but are short on capital. I came across an article that talks in detail about how an entrepreneur, a start-up has to play many roles to build a strong company. It is the hard work for the entrepreneur to look into several functions like operations, marketing, sales, finance and HR but one has to also consider costs at each step of the journey.
You must have a ‘Do It Yourself’ attitude; start internally and understand when and where to outsource. Make people happy and in return watch, your word of mouth publicity expand.
