Decoding WOM Messages

Today's lesson will talk about how word of mouth messages are delivered and how you can influence those messages.

There are essentially three methods of word of mouth:

• Expert to Expert
• Expert to Peer
• Peer to Peer

When experts talk about your products or service, you will usually receive a fantastic rush of sales and new customers, so obviously, this is one of the best things that can happen. You can also help facilitate this by offering free products to experts to review.

Expert opinion can also bring about new ideas that help to fuel new products, services, and operating systems within your company. If you take the time to change or develop the opinions of even a small group of experts, you will have the opportunity to help your market explode.

There is a standard word-of-mouth delivery system that, in most cases, takes a few years. But, you can speed this up into only a few weeks. The traditional method is:

• First impressions from an expert
• Organized trial of your products or services
• Pooling peer experiences

It’s essential to know precisely who advocates for your products and service. Take the time to find out who they are and reward them. While you may already have a customer service system for filing complaints, do you have one for compiling praise?

Most likely not. If you take the time to show these people appreciation, they will help take your products and services to the top.

Some of the ways you can show them appreciation are:

• Invite them to a customer appreciation dinner
• Offer to record their testimonials
• Ask to interview them for feedback to improve with
• Offer them a premier customer membership
• Ask them to join a referral incentive program

You can offer your biggest fans many things to help spread the word about your products and services.

Conventional media has been around forever, and while it can still be effective, it’s lost a little of its luster over the last few years. There are a few reasons for this:

• Expensive and doesn’t necessarily return results
• Boring, lacking something fresh and new
• Too short of a time slot to offer enough information

While these are all true, there are ways you can make conventional media work for you. The information needs to be presented in the proper sequence to be adequate. It comes from suitable sources, is relevant to the target customer, is credible, and delivered at the right time in the medium.

We’re going to switch gears a little and talk about the two phases of the product adoption cycle. Traditional media is great for taking you through the information stage, where you can offer the information you need to your potential customers. Still, it’s not so great for measuring the results of those efforts.

Without these results, you can’t fine-tune your marketing and, therefore, easily miss the boat, lose potential customers and waste a lot of money. Once consumers have the information they need, they’ll go through a verification process to analyze whether or not the purchase was a good one. They generally get their news through:

• Direct experience with the product
• Interaction with peers using the same product
• Experts’ experience
• Scientific journals and other resources
• Independent reviews and opinions

You can accelerate this process by:

• Providing your demos and free trials
• Offer them indirect experience through the experience of others
• Offer a good, true story that can be passed around

Once you have the ability and can work through these concepts, you will target your customers much better. Our Refresh Your Business Workshop is following Monday, 24th, at 11 am EST.  We have created a new program that we are going to be 

Can you attract money? I firmly believe that you can!

And this belief doesn't stem from the "believe in it, and it will come true" philosophy.

You can't attract wealth with wishful thinking, but you can draw it with your mindset.

It sounds crazy, but I'll explain why it's true in Refresh Your Business Workshop, "Be a Money Magnet."