Word-of-mouth marketing refers to the efforts of enterprises to enable consumers to spread their product information and brand through communication among their relatives and friends. This marketing method is characterized by high success rate and strong credibility. This marketing method based on word-of-mouth communication is called word-of-mouth marketing. From the practical level of corporate marketing, word-of-mouth marketing is a market in which companies use various effective means to induce customers of the company to talk and communicate about its products, services and overall image of the company, and to encourage customers to introduce and recommend them to their surrounding people. Marketing methods and processes.

Three steps to implement combined word-of-mouth marketing

1. The first step of word-of-mouth marketing-encourage

Fashion-followers, the mainstream group of product consumers, even if they They are the first audience to experience the reliability and superiority of the product. They will also be the first to spread the quality, raw materials and efficacy of the product to the surrounding circle of friends, or tell the people around them about the 5S system and thoughtful service of the product company and merchants, so as to It triggers others to follow a new product, a popular song or a new business.

P&G's Tremor advertising has recently attracted attention and discussion from all parties. We feel that Tremor advertising has done enough "momentum" in terms of word-of-mouth marketing, relying on everyone's encouragement and sensationalism to increase product awareness. P&G A certain amount of time and effort was invested, but a low-cost strategy of word-of-mouth marketing was achieved.

We firmly believe that by encouraging consumer elite groups and combining and expanding word-of-mouth, we can drive consumption and make our products extremely influential. Indeed, brand companies such as Procter & Gamble, Amway, Wuliangye, etc. have been working hard on word-of-mouth marketing. On the one hand, they mobilize all resources to encourage consumers to purchase; on the other hand, they use word-of-mouth marketing combinations to do everything possible to expand their audience base. , carry out "one-to-one" and "personalized" combination word-of-mouth marketing tactics to reduce operating costs and expand consumption.

2. The second step of word-of-mouth marketing - value

If the person delivering the information is not sincere, word-of-mouth marketing will be ineffective and the meaning of word-of-mouth communication will be lost. Any company that hopes to achieve brand promotion through word-of-mouth communication must try to carefully modify its products and improve sound and efficient service value concepts in order to achieve the best results of word-of-mouth marketing.

When a consumer first comes into contact with a new product, he will first ask himself: 'Is this product worth advertising?' Value is the passport for them to stabilize their foothold in the market. Therefore, What they "repute" must be something of value that they can trust. ”

When a certain product information or usage experience is easy for people to talk about, and the product can naturally enter people’s conversations after dinner, we think the product is valuable, so it is easy to form a reputation.< /p>

If the products being communicated are valuable, companies need to have a reasonable orientation so that early adopters in the market can focus their attention and have a correct understanding of the products so that they can fully express the value of the company's products.

3. The third step of word-of-mouth marketing - return

When consumers obtain product information through the media and word-of-mouth and make purchases, they hope to receive corresponding returns. If profitable companies The products or services provided by the public institutions make the audience feel that they are worth the money, and then promote the product or service concept to the market smoothly and in a short period of time, achieving the purpose of low-cost profit.

Word-of-mouth marketing skills

It is the dream of business operators to let every customer praise the "virtue" of their business. But is the formation of word-of-mouth purely accidental, completely random and spontaneous? Renee Dye, a management marketing expert at McKinsey & Company in London, and her colleagues studied and analyzed 50 sales cases and found that word-of-mouth advertising creates explosive demand. It is by no means an accident or coincidence, but there are several rules to follow. . Enterprises can completely predict the spread of word-of-mouth advertising by analyzing the interactions and interactions between consumers, and make it networked, knowledgeable, and global. This requires great wisdom in our marketing.

Not all products are suitable for word-of-mouth marketing, and the role of word-of-mouth marketing in different products is also different. According to the analysis of authoritative research companies. , judging from the types of products that people are willing to spread information about, "clothing, shoes and hats" (53.4%), "daily necessities" (46.7%), "household appliances" (39.2%) and "food/beverages" (37.1%) Become the main topic people talk about about your product.

Further analysis found that people of different ages and genders exchanged different products: the younger the people, the more often they talked about information about "clothing, shoes and hats", especially among respondents aged 18-25, when communicating with others "Clothes, shoes and hats" (61.7%), "mobile phones/pagers" (50.7%), "cosmetics" (41.5%), "computers" (40.9%) and "audio and video products" (38.8%), among those under 25 years old The degree of information exchange among people is much higher than that of people of other age groups; as age increases, "daily necessities", "food" and "housing" gradually become the main products for people to communicate; "clothing, shoes and hats" ( 65.3%), "daily necessities" (54.8%) and "cosmetics" (44.2%) are the most popular topic products for women to communicate; while men often talk about "household appliances" (50.6%), "mobile phones/pagers" ( 45.3%) and “housing” (42.0%).

Therefore, in order to make more effective use of word-of-mouth, all marketing activities should be targeted at these groups who are more willing to spread such products, and among these groups, the information that these groups are most concerned about should be spread first. Genet Dai suggested that marketing experts pay attention to two criteria: first, the product must have some uniqueness, such as appearance, function, use, price, etc.; second, the product must have the potential to be suitable for word-of-mouth advertising and make the advertisement catchy. mouth.

2. Guide customers to experiential consumption

A slogan is written on the message board in every office of Dell's headquarters: "Customer experience: master it." The so-called customer experience, "It is the sum of the interactions between customers and enterprise products, personnel and processes." That is to say, let customers be involved in the whole process of production and manufacturing, or let customers enjoy the pleasure of consumption, thereby forming a concept of "getting what they want at the price they want, at the time they want, in the way they want" With a strong desire to consume, Dell even believes that "customer experience is the next battlefield for competition."

Pfizer’s “Iacocca” did not have much advertising investment, but it became popular all over the world in a short period of time. The important point is to make people appreciate this product with the help of customers’ experiential consumption. Discussions and disputes about positives, negatives, advantages, disadvantages, etc. have become the focus of street talk in almost every country. "Iacocca", the "little blue pill", has become a well-known product around the world due to people's word-of-mouth.

The feelings brought about by experiential consumption are profound and unforgettable. Because of this, more and more products are choosing experiential consumption, using this ancient and magical marketing method to guide companies to move more steadily and further in marketing.

3. Learn to use brands to make recommendations

Let excellent brands recommend some brands that have not yet established a good reputation, and you will receive unexpected results. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods frequently appeared in Nike product advertisements, making Nike a world-famous brand. Coincidentally, at the 23rd Olympic Games, after the Chinese women's volleyball team drinking Jianlibao easily defeated the "Oriental Witches", they swept away the fallen leaves with the autumn wind. The situation defeated the American women's volleyball team and ascended to the throne of world champion, and Jianlibao also became famous in one fell swoop.

For a new product, recommendations from well-known brands will undoubtedly help eliminate consumers’ doubts. When Nutrivi products first appeared on the market, customers needed to be convinced that the product had no aftertaste and was very safe. The first point is easy to prove, just let customers do a risk-free tasting. But convincing customers of the second point is more difficult. Newtway products are safe, and this quality characteristic can only be verified through long-term use. When Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and other brands launched low-sugar products containing Nutrivit, they implicitly supported their claims, and the word "Nutrol is a safe alternative to sugar" spread widely.

It can be imagined that if a certain brand of car engine is jointly recommended by Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, BMW and other brands that the engine used in their cars is a certain brand, we can conclude that users all over the world will Use it with confidence, this brand will be in short supply.

4. Let brands and stories spread together

Stories are an effective tool for spreading reputation because they are spread with emotion. As soon as we entered the new century, Italian leather shoes "Fareno" quietly landed in the Chinese market. However, domestic film and television stars, successful men, political celebrities and other mid-to-high-end consumer groups love not only "Fareno" leather shoes for their novel styles and fine workmanship. , the materials are exquisite, showing the successful, confident, noble and extraordinary manly style, and there is also a legendary mythical story.

In 1189 AD, Emperor Frederick I of the Holy Roman Empire and the kings of Britain and France led the third "Crusade" to Jerusalem. When traveling near the Alps, the weather suddenly changed and there was heavy wind and snow. The "Crusader"'s feet were so cold that it was difficult to move. In desperation, the Roman knight FARINO asked others to wrap the leather around their feet and continue moving forward. In the 14th and 15th centuries, a famous leather shoe manufacturer in a northern Italian city named the highest-end leather shoes it produced "Fareno" to commemorate this interesting story of General Fareno. The reputation of "Fareno" spread from this.

Beautiful and timeless legends can always make your products unforgettable. It is estimated that the popularity of the TV series "Mansion Gate" will definitely make Tong Ren Tang Pharmacy's reputation spread throughout China.

5. Pay attention to every detail of yourself

What affects consumer reputation is sometimes not the main body of the product, but some less eye-catching "parts", such as Buttons on suits, buttons on home appliances, a sentence about maintenance services, etc. These "trivial" mistakes can arouse consumers' disgust. More importantly, it is difficult for brand companies to hear these objections and make rapid and thorough improvements. Sales are often significantly reduced, but they do not know the root cause. According to a survey by a professional market research company, only 4% of dissatisfied customers will complain to manufacturers, but 80% of dissatisfied customers will talk about an unpleasant experience to their friends and relatives.

In the shopping hall of Merrill Lynch Company in New York, there is a large information desk. The main function of this information desk is to serve customers who come to the company but have not purchased anything. If a customer does not buy the product he wants to buy at Meirui Company, the attendant at the information desk will direct you to another store that has the product. Meirui Company's approach is not trivial at all, but it is a visible and tangible "detail" that people talk about and remember it deeply. Not only has it won the trust and admiration of its competitors, but it has also made customers feel close to Meirui Company. Whenever they go shopping, they always go to Meirui Company. The number of customers who come here is also increasing. As a result, Meirui Company's business is booming.

6. Provide fast and thoughtful service

A touching story from Haier:

A user in Fuzhou called the Qingdao headquarters, hoping that Haier could Someone was sent to repair his refrigerator within half a month. Unexpectedly, the maintenance personnel rushed to his home the next day. The user could not believe it. When he asked, he learned that the maintenance personnel arrived by plane overnight. The user was moved and wrote something like this on the repair order: "I want to tell everyone that I bought a Haier refrigerator." From a purely economic perspective, the cost of traveling to and from the refrigerator is the same as the price of the refrigerator. The difference is almost the same, and the gain outweighs the loss; but from the perspective of corporate image, it can win a good reputation for Haier and attract potential customers to the company.

EMC, the leading company in the US computer industry, believes that once customers trust a company, the company must try its best to maintain this trust. If a company can prove its determination to be responsible for its customers to the end, customers will definitely not leave. Therefore, when there is a problem with EMC's storage system, EMC will provide customers with two options: one is to get a brand new EMC system, and the other is to pay EMC and purchase other brands of systems as specified by the customer. At that time, some people in the company questioned this money-losing practice of allowing customers to choose solutions, but customers realized EMC's commitment to being responsible to customers to the end. Due to EMC's attitude of being responsible for its customers, many EMC customers still insist on choosing its products even though the product prices are higher than those of other companies. In addition, we can also use rankings, social welfare activities, limited sales, etc. to create a good reputation for the brand or product.

It is worth reminding that to win popularity, you only need to invest a lot of money and carry out intensive advertising bombing, which can be achieved in a short period of time; to win word of mouth, you must do all the basic work very meticulously and in place. And persevere, only when the level of products and services exceeds customers' expectations can they be recommended and promoted by them. Those services and initiatives that are ahead of competitors or are ingenious will allow consumers to experience and enjoy them happily while spreading them vividly.

Word-of-mouth marketing is showing its long-lasting and eternal charm.