Word Of Mouth Marketing Article I wrote on My Website-Sites By Robb If you are serious about making word of mouth work each of you need to farm and organically grow your own loyal customer base! If they can’t remember your business name or even your own name and can’t find your own phone number you just become the guy they wanted to find and and they found someone else.
Don’t become the guy they liked and could never find again ! Word of mouth only works when they can find you.
Get and keep good, current phone numbers and mailing addresses on every address and market them. Drive by wave at them , talk to them at Walmart for a second or two. Always ask for referrals.
1. Give them a refrigerator magnet and at least three business cards and more if they ask. Pens are useless they die out of cheap ink and end up in the trash but refrigerator magnets have about the best chance of staying.
2. Send them a thank you card and look for feed back from them. Leave as many customers happy with your service as you can. Good news travels fast bad news travels about ten times faster. Try to learn to identify a bad customer before you do business with them.
3. Make a note whether they are a Christian, Jewish or Muslim homes. Attic inspections usually yield any holiday decorations also in your records include no signs of any religious affiliation. Book shelves hold Bibles, Torah or Quran’s. Send out one appropriate holiday greeting once a year and keep your name fresh in their minds. The late Bob Evans delivered his customers fresh honey samples once a year to his loyal customers. Fresh honey from the friendly beekeeper who does animal removal too worked well for Bob. I am sure many of you can create something to be remembered every year or look into wholesale honey and label your own. Remember them once a year and they will remember you. You could also use the anniversary date to remember your customers 1st service date.
4. Many of you may know what marketing technique “cloverleafing” is. For those who do not it involves meeting every neighbor on both sides and the three directly across the street. Business cards and refrigerator magnets for them too. Ad their phone numbers and mailing addresses to your farm list and keep farming people you ever had contact with.
5. Offer a reward or finders fee for anyone who bird dogs you a paying customer. $25 gift cards or prepaid movie tickets are a cheap way to keep saying thank you.
6. You can not low ball service charges and get away with these marketing techniques and have an effective marketing campaign. Charging a fair price means commanding a fair price for your company too. Investing in marketing is part of growing a business.
