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!)
Source: Yahoo / ComScore Networks study
