The Least Expensive, Most Effective Way To Get NEW Customers

People think that Word of Mouth is dead, but the truth is, there are billions of dollars of books, beauty products, automobile parts & tools, automobiles themselves, insurance, vacation rentals, coffee, slices of cake, baby clothing, furniture, and hundreds of thousands of other products that are being sold by word of mouth on a daily basis around the world.

People can spread stuff faster than ever before. We’re just not taking advantage of it because we’re too short-term thinking, we’re too caught up in the buy now and the ROI on the paid ads and the reels. Yes, it’s an omnichannel world, and those are all viable marketing stats but word of mouth is the single most effective, and cheapest form of marketing a business can’t afford to ignore.

If people aren’t referring to your stuff, fix your stuff. If it’s not good enough for people to want to talk about it, make it so that it is.

Imagine the value that you provide right now and the price you charge for it. Now, increase that price and think about how the service you offer would change if you charged that price. Don’t think about “Oh, people wouldn’t pay for it, if it was that high,” that’s not the point of this exercise.

The point is… if you charged more money what would you change in your customer service and your customer experience in order to charge that higher price for your items?

This is a very interesting thought process and a very thought-provoking exercise. I hope you will actually take some time to do this exercise and do it as a boss, as an owner of the business, and then put it to your staff. Let your staff noodle it and come up with their thoughts on what they would do differently in-store and online to offer higher prices.

The idea isn’t to charge more the idea is to have an ah-ha moment about the gaps in your service and customer experience that are affecting your word of mouth.

We oftentimes overlook tiny little details that make the difference between good, great, and exceptional service, and that exceptional service that’s where the Word of Mouth advertising lives. That’s what gets people talking about your brand.

Think about your existing products and level of service right now… if you had to increase your level of service or customer experience but for less money than you’re charging right now, what would you need to do, or have, or what software would you need or what systems would you need in place to deliver that high caliber of raving fan service in such an efficient way you could seamlessly offer it on a regular basis for less money.

If the Gods of Marketing right now said to you, “You can no longer get new customers from marketing,” and the only thing you have are your existing customers, and the only way to get a NEW customer is for your existing customers to bring them to you, how different would your customer experience be both in-store and online? Now that’s something to noodle.

Think about how you can offer raving fan service at all times to more and more and more customers. What software will make your life easier and your customer experience better, what tasks are you and your team always trying to hurriedly complete that you can outsource? Can you outsource marketing, SEO, and website management? What tasks can you hire virtual staff for so that you can reserve your in-store staff for the most important, customer-facing tasks?

How can you leverage digital and human resources to maximize customer experience for that raving fan service?

Don’t skimp on your online services because you don’t have enough staff for your online game. Instead, figure out how you can streamline your online game for the best possible experience. For example, an in-store photographer takes the photos and inputs the items with a title and some details. A virtual employee rounds out the description so that your online customers have maximum details for online purchasing. Your virtual employee can also cross-list items on multiple platforms.

Virtual employees can be hired through great companies like Hire Smart Staffing which hires global staff to fulfill your needs, and when you have global staff you pay a fraction of the cost of US payroll, for high-quality team members.

When you outsource things like emails, marketing, website, and SEO you get highly trained staff for a fraction of the cost so you get exceptional results without having to pay high hourly rates. You can leverage your payroll allocations for better use of output and customer experience.

We always get our own clients telling us that they get customers who comment on the emails that are going out, they are fun, creative, and informative. This is what you want – your customers talking about your business.

There’s a great book called Raving Fans. It’s a quick and easy read and I highly recommend it. Find ways within your customer service and customer experience that you can start now with increasing your raving fan service. What does your current review say? What are you already doing well that you can capitalize on? What are areas that you could improve on?

What are things that you love and admire about your favorite brands and your favorite local stores? What do you love about shopping with them both online and in-store? Make a list of the things they’re doing that you would love to do in your own store and on your website.

When you find yourself sharing about someone’s business, what are you saying? Is your business worthy of those same comments and kudos?

What do you wish people would say about your business in a 5-star review? What are the experiences in your business that you wish people said about you? What do you need to do differently to start receiving those comments?

Finally, ask yourself that question… if all marketing was shut down and all you had to depend upon were your customers to refer new customers… How would you do? What would they say? How many new customers would you get?

Really noodle everything we talked about here today. It’s truly a game changer in your business when you step back and focus on raving fan service. And how to capitalize on Word of Mouth Marketing. It encompasses so much more than you’ve probably ever thought about so start thinking about it right now.

The more valuable you can make your business, your services and your customer experiences the stronger and healthier business you will grow and have to sell down the line if that’s your end game.

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