Word of mouth marketing for your online business
June 11th, 2008Many internet entrepreneurs make the mistake of counting on word of mouth as their primary means of marketing their new business. Heck, even offline entrepreneurs make the same mistake; I was involved in a small clothing company start-up recently and we assumed (incorrectly) that our clothes would advertise themselves as folks wore our shirts around town. We’re still waiting for the word of mouth to catch on…
The internet space is full of stories of the latest ‘viral’ phenomenon catching on like wildfire and it’s true, word of mouth marketing can be very powerful for some businesses. But even those who have seen word of mouth marketing work for their internet businesses know it’s a tough phenomenon to replicate. Word of mouth is a tough lion to tame and it’s a lot like trying to plan the weather. Sometimes it pours but more often than not you’ll see drought conditions.
Our mountain biking website is quickly approaching the magic 1M pageview / month mark and truthfully it’s taken some time to get there. We’re constantly pinging our members to find out more about them and one of the things we ask is “How did you first find out about our website.” It turns out that about 12% of our members claim to have found the site through pure word of mouth marketing - usually through friends or promotional items (t-shirts, stickers, etc.). We also get a decent amount of new visits through our Facebook marketing campaigns but I’m not sure if I’m ready to lump this in with word of mouth since this new from of ’social marketing’ is different in many ways.
Word of mouth will certainly accelerate at some point with your site, hence the use of the term ‘viral’ to describe the virtuous cycle of increasing visits. The more people who visit (and love!) your site, the more friends they will tell, and the more new visits you’ll receive. Of course Amway is supposed to work this way too but we’re not all selling cleaning supplies from our homes (yet!) despite its start decades ago. Remember that ‘accelerate’ doesn’t mean fast - it just means getting faster. To go from a single word of mouth visit to two word of mouth visits is a 100% increase - good acceleration but not really a meaningful impact on your site traffic.
Word of mouth is the holy grail of internet marketing but don’t make the mistake of relying on it to grow your site into a viable business - concentrate on making your product (your website) great while growing traffic in other ways and word of mouth will follow!
June 11th, 2008 at 10:04 am
I agree. Many entrepreneurs think they will be the next Hush Puppy phenomenon (The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell). The truth be told, viral marketing can work, but it depends who is in your network or who knows somebody who knows someone else that knows the person who can change your company. Will it be that Hippie in the upper west side, or will it be the banker down on Bay street in Toronto? You can never really know, just like predicting the weather.
When I was young, my mom told me to be nice to everyone, even the mean people, because you don’t know when you will need them. Same goes for running a small business. The mean delivery person or the mouthy parking attendant across the street from your office can be that worthwhile someone who changes your life/business forever.