Why does Word of Mouth Marketing work so well?

WOMM, when done effectively, is an ‘experience delivery’ process. There are two types of experience;

• Direct &
• Indirect experience

Customers prefer indirect experience because they don’t have the time and resources to undertake a direct experience. The indirect experience allows the buyer to make an informed decision based on the experience of others.

There are “experience delivery” vehicles such as Trip Advisor and “Pinterest”. Which of us hasn’t had pax tell them “I want this hotel because trip Advisor said…”

The ‘direct experience’ is to go straight to the travel agent, but how does a customer know which travel agent to choose?

“If I had the time, I could talk with lots of travel agents and try to determine for myself who would offer the best service, then choose someone and then ‘suck it and see’.”

Spending thousands on a holiday is a pretty big investment; I’m not the ‘suck it and see’ type myself, I want a recommendation, some more info. If I was buying a car, I wouldn’t start my research in the show room.
But indirectly: “I don’t have the time or inclination to try out every travel agent, I could ask friends, business associates, and family and so on who they would recommend. When people recommend someone, typically they will say:

• Why they recommend them
• And about the ‘experience’ they had using the service supplied by this ‘great’ travel agent. “

This ‘indirect experience’, from someone we trust, moves customers forward several stages in the buying cycle.  Instead of them spending time trying to understand whether ‘you are any good’ they already know this and move to:

‘My friend said you were great; can you do the same for me’?

Statistically, the chances of making a sale have increased up to seven fold. On product recommendations, 90% trust their spouse and 65% trust their friends only 14% of buyers trust advertisers….. (Yankleovich)

Therefore, working on ways to create positive discussions enables your customers to recommend you and your business.

How?

Tune in for next week’s topic on ‘Let me share with you this secret…..’