Tuesday, October 18, 2011

WOMOW Re-Launching as Word Of Mouth Online - WOMO!

We have an announcement to make...WOMOW is about to become WOMO - Word Of Mouth Online! We'll soon be rolling out some changes that give us a new name and a brand new look.

Why? We've learned that two W's in a word is one too many and we're sick to death of people getting the name wrong! So we've shortened our name to Word Of Mouth Online Pty Ltd or WOMO - which is exactly what we're all about. We're now leaner, cleaner and with a lot more spunk.

Check out our new logo below...
We hope you'll agree that our new look is much more current and professional. We're sticking with the distinctive orange (that most of you love and a few of you hate), and in the process, we're introducing some new features to improve the experience for both members and businesses.

Check out our new home page below:



In this process, we've taken on board the feedback that we've received from many businesses and made quite a lot of improvements. For instance, businesses using WOMO's Happy Customers Program will be able to;
  • Control first impressions by choosing your favourite review to appear first
  • Include incentives on Review-Us Flyers to encourage more reviews (a sure fire way to drive more reviews)
  • Feature your Deals or Special Offers throughout the WOMO website where people are looking for businseses like yours. These will appear on your Cross Advertising which will be more prominent.
  • Access re-styled, re-vamped flyers, stickers and certificates to promote your business.
  • Have a much cleaner, more professional looking profile with more images and less WOMO branding. It's a real "Brag Page" you can use to let the world know how great your business really is! See an example of a new profile below:

Don't worry - all of your existing links will still work. We'll also send you more details in the next few days.

If you've ever thought of joining the Happy Customers Program, it's now better than ever!

This new site is something we've been working on for a while so we're very excited to release it to you. And if you notice anything that seems strange or in error, please let us know. (We're all about customer feedback - literally!)

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Can Businesses Review Themselves?

This post has been moved to www.womo.com.au

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Why Advocates Recommend Brands: What's in it for the reviewer?

Let's face it, the holy grail of marketing is positive word-of-mouth. Particularly when it's online.

Why? Because when word-of-mouth is online it has a FAR greater reach as the internet serves as an amplifier to reach significantly larger audiences. Did you realise that over 80% of all purchases start with a search on the internet, AND 78% of consumers trust online recommendations above ALL other marketing and advertising? (Nielsen research)

All good and well, but how do you get some customer love? Why would anyone bother recommending your business? Thankfully the researchers at Comscore, Yahoo! have recently given some attention to this question. Because the facts are that plenty of people ARE talking about businesses and brands they love - all the time. So what's motivating them to do it?

Looking down this list, there is a fair amount of altruistic behaviour - people actually want to help good businesses and inform others of the information they know.

There's also some ego-drivers here - evidence that people like to be seen as the influencers and sources of information and advice for others. Nothing wrong with that! In fact, that's what defines the "advocates" or "key influencers" for your business.

So business owners...what can you actually do with this information? Appeal to these natural drivers, that's what!
  • Let customers know how much reviews help other people (how happy they are when they find a great business, and by helping them avoid bad experiences)
  • Let customers know how much reviews help your business, and how much you appreciate anyone that reviews you (you won't sound desperate, you'll sound honest)
  • Let customers know that literally thousands and thousands of people are using reviews everyday to help them make decisions (Australian's refer to WOMOW for advice about 25,000 times a day!)

Plus, check out our 12 Tips for Getting More Customer Reviews here...

Source: Yahoo / ComScore Networks study