Industry Influencers and Word of Mouth Marketing Strategies

   

    Do you know the most effective way of marketing your new product of business? Word of Mouth, I know you probably think paid ads on social media, television, or radio may have never crossed your mind. However, think of this, if you place an ad on Facebook, someone will share the ad, and their friends will talk about the advertisement among each other. Word of Mouth, simple. We cannot think of word of mouth as the old way; we have to think of it in a new way. Times have changed, and we much change with them. Have you ever noticed a popular ad on your Facebook feed and read the comments? If you look at the comments, you will see people tagging their friends about a particular product or service. That is how word of mouth is working in our world today. 

    The first way to do this is to create UGC, User Generated Content, by creating a hashtag, incentives for sharing or comments, create a sense of community or togetherness. Hashtags are short creative phrases followed by a pound sign (#), for example, #VoteOrDie. When populated multiple times on the internet, hashtags create trending tops and easy to follow links for the particular subject. If your hashtags are not done correctly, your plan will fail. They must be easy to remember and easy to spell. Once you have figured out your hashtag, then you create an incentive for sharing. If you are a small business, it could be writing a simple "thank you for sharing," entering their name in a raffle or invite them to visit your place of business for a percentage off a particular service or product. When you create a sense of community, you display your top customers on your social media profiles or website. Showing customers comments or feedback makes them feel appreciated by the company and creating loyalty among your customers. 86% of millennial customers say that UGC is a good indicator of a product or service quality. (Sukhraj, Ramona.)

    Have you noticed the influx of influencers on every social media platform? There is a reason; we are more likely to shop from a company if we can relate to someone who has used their products or services. Consider Lane Bryant; they are a store that markets to plus-sized women. If you are old enough to remember or care, Lane Bryant was once only marketed to more mature working plus-sized women. If you take a look in the store today, they are marketing themselves to the everyday plus-sized woman. Not only do they sell business-casual clothing, but you can also now find a variety of dresses, jeans, shorts, and swimwear (during the appropriate months), athleisure wear, and office wear. The idea of plus-sized women have changed, and they have taken the initiative to capture their audience as so. Their influencers are women in their 20-40s who shop for work, date night, brunch, concerts, and any event in-between. If you would like an idea of what Lane Bryant is doing, you can follow the hashtag #CreateYourLane on any social media platform. I have noticed that Lane Bryant will also offer social media-specific coupons or special deals. If you are a first-time customer or a long-time-no-see customer, they will offer 20-40% off to shop at their local store or online. They are also very good at taking customer feedback and relaying it to products for sale. Customers can also post comments and reviews on Lane Bryant's website and social media campaigns to tell what they like and do not like about specific products. Lane Bryant is one business that has found UGC and used it to keep business moving in the right direction.

    If you were scrolling social media and saw your favorite influencer talking about a product at Lane Bryant, a store you have never shopped before, would you at least take a look at their website? The answer is yes; if the influencer mentioned a product that caught your attention, you would at least take a look to find more information about the product. 40% of people say they have purchased an item online after seeing it used by an influencer on Instagram, Twitter, Vine, or YouTube. (Sukhraj, Ramona.) Influencers are (excluding celebrities) people who live everyday lives; they work, take care of children, or go grocery shopping just like us. They test products or services and tell us about their experience at a low cost to businesses. 49% of people say they rely on recommendations from influencers when making purchase decisions. (Sukhraj, Ramona.)

    They create a following based on the niche. Influencers niches could be broad as in outdoor activities, family experiences, or fashion, where many businesses prefer they be specific. 

Social media influencers and word of mouth marketing help create loyal customers; but, it also helps bring in new customers, shortens the sale cycle, helps improve branding with quicker feedback, and faster opportunity for a broader reach. (Clerck, J-P De.) The word of mouth marketing strategy has become a lot easier to follow on social media since most business pages track the number of interactions, visitors (new and old), or seen posts you had during a week or month. Facebook now has "badges" for loyal customers of a business they include; "rising star, sharer, top fan, a conversation starter, and visual storyteller." These badges will help businesses identify customers who visit their page or see their posts regularly on their timeline. The sale cycle is shortened with word of mouth marketing because what comes with word of mouth is reviewing the product regarding price, worthiness, and quality of the product or service. Social Media campaigns can be geared towards repeat customers telling them to "tell a friend" or gear the campaign towards new customers with reputable reviews from their friends so they can ask about them. Word of Mouth campaigns can now help with branding; when companies receive useful feedback, they know who, what, when, or how to specify their campaigns. Using this information, they know just who their target audience should be and how to reach them. (Clerck, J-P De.)

    Word of mouth is an age-old technique that we have now taken to social media. I remember my great-grandmother would mix various plants and give to us when we were younger if we had a cold or the flu. I remember the house would smell something terrible, but she would wrap us in blankets to make us "sweat out the cold," then feed us the mixture followed by orange juice to help kill the taste. If you were to go into any health food store today, you could ask for the same mixture sold by thousands of companies for immune health. The mixture consists of cod liver oil, echinacea, elderberry, and vitamin c. My great-grandmother probably heard about the concoction while she was at the market and decided she would give it a try on her children if they ever became ill. Once it worked, she told her children to use it on their children, and by the time I have children, I will walk into our local Manna's Grocery and buy it right off the shelf. No stinky house is necessary. Our grandparent's only way of spreading the word about some life-saving concoction was to talk about it with everyone they came in contact with. Now we google. Google knows everything that our grandparents taught or not taught us today. That is how word of mouth saves our lives and businesses.     

-Jaleesa Diggins

Works Cited

Clerck, J-P De. “Understanding Word-of-Mouth in the Digital Age.” i, 14 Feb. 2017, www.i-scoop.eu/understanding-word-mouth-social-media-age/. 

Sukhraj, Ramona. “7 Must-Have Word-of-Mouth Marketing Strategies [Infographic].” IMPACT, IMPACT, 1 July 2020, www.impactplus.com/blog/word-of-mouth-marketing-strategies-infographic.