Word-Of-Mouth Marketing: Is It Effective?

Marketing

During the initial stages of launching your own business, creating a brand that customers trust and recognise is half the battle. Unfortunately, when you first establish yourself in the market, spreading the word about your exciting new business can be tough. Not only do you not want to blow your tight budget on expensive advertising campaigns, but there’s also a risk that your billboard and flyers won’t actually convert to paying customers.

Instead, opting for an earned advertisement, such as word-of-mouth marketing is often a more effective and less costly approach to building a loyal customer base and reputable brand foundations.

Word-of-mouth marketing isn’t just a great form of inexpensive and organic advertisement, it’s also a testament to the quality of your service and a good indication that you’ll receive recurring business. 

It also brings about a higher conversion of leads – not only are people talking about your business, they’re spreading the word because they’re vouching for the quality of product or service.

However, while Small Fish’ Jon Dale concedes it’s a nice advertising tool to have, ultimately it won’t help you scale up, especially at the speeds you’ll want to grow.

“Word-of-mouth will not drive your business larger and give you the money and the resources to grow and scale on its own,” says Dale.

“You need to do very different types of marketing…for now, word-of mouth is good for you. If you’re ambitious, you need a bit more.”

Dale likens word-of-mouth to a “karmic reward for doing a good job.” 

“You do a good job, people refer you to their friends, people come knocking on your door…Beautiful, but you can’t control it and you can’t drive it and if you want to grow faster than that organic, lovely, slower way, you’re going to have to do marketing.”

Another hurdle that you may encounter is that word-of-mouth marketing casts a very small net, which means you’re not reaching potential customers who need your service and if you do, it might be too late. 

Looking to start your own business? Head to Qualify Me! to see how a tradesman coach like Dale can give you the keys to success.