Word Of Mouth Advertising For Your Online Products

It has long been recognised that Word Of Mouth Advertising is one of the best ways to receive referrals and increase sales. After all, it is much more likely to mean something when an acquaintance or family member recommends a company or product than it does when the seller is making the claim. This is a great marketing tool, if it is harnessed.

People in general are more inclined to spread the word about your company and its products or services if the experience has been very positive or very negative. The naked truth is that negative word of mouth comments will probably spread faster than positive.

So how can you benefit from the positive while downplaying the negative? Take a look at these tips for creating hype about your offline and online business.

Tips For Encouraging Feedback And Referrals

The first step to receiving Word Of Mouth Advertising is to ensure that you are providing good, and consistent, customer service and offering products that are of value.

Exhort your buyers to leave positive customer feedback. With every order that gets placed, ensure that each customer has a way to give you their comments. This can be do with an automatic survey that pops up after placing the order, an email that links to a survey, or via a small form sent out in the mail.

Send a business card with each order, or mail one afterward. The front of the card can have your contact information while the back of the card can be used to offer the customer a discount on future orders or some special bonus item if they refer another consumer.

Encourage your clients to rate the products or services they buy. Think of Amazon – one of the world’s most successful e-commerce ventures. After someone makes a purchase, they are sent an automatic email reminder with a link to rate the item. Your efforts do not have to be as sophisticated as this; if you are not selling millions of items then it might be easier to do this manually with a simple email message, phone call, or note sent in the mail.

Online Word Of Mouth Advertising

Of course, be sure that positive comments are posted throughout your website – on the landing page, on the home page, on the product description page. You might want to consider adding a page for testimonials. Be sure to ask the customer’s permission before posting their comment.

Remember to add “share” buttons to the content on your pages. These provide a direct link to various social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Delicious, and more. This spreads the love virally.

Offline Word Of Mouth Advertising

One of the best ways you can get Word Of Mouth Advertising offline is by supporting your local community. Get involved with charity events, fundraisers, or any act of public service that gets you and your company out amongst the local population. See if you can parlay this into a newspaper article or a guest spot at the local radio or television station.

The idea is to get people talking about your business. Even if the comments are not totally positive, you need only worry when there is no buzz since that means no one is buying your online products or service. Remember that you cannot be all things to all people and nurture those relationships that are most apt to be beneficial for positive hype.