Sometimes, marketing can be a risky investment, especially true if you find that you try all the famous tools and strategies, but receive no results. Luckily, one of the most effective marketing strategies is practically free – and that’s word of mouth marketing.Before making a decision to buy a product or service, people typically ask a family member or a friend for suggestions. They don’t rely on commercials. Word of mouth is the fastest way for people to get information. What is even more important, we perceive our friends’ and family’s experiences as the most trustworthy source of information.Within the last few years, marketers have focused mostly on boosting the number of social media fans instead of connecting with them. Having a few hundred satisfied fans who love your products is far more effective than thousands who’ve only “liked” your website to win something.WHY A WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING STRATEGY IS SO POWERFULWord of mouth marketing is the oldest and the most original social media platform. It is the most valuable form of marketing proven to drive the highest sales for companies. For this reason alone, no marketer shoulder overlook it.Whether you are choosing a restaurant, smartphone or a hand cream, you will often highly value a suggestion from a close friend, neighbor or a co-worker. Why? Because traditional marketing strategies such as TV and newspaper ads aren’t as trustworthy as the actual people in your community.Despite the numerous media platforms available nowadays, verbal communication about a certain product or brand is the best way to expand your business. Once a person passes the word about a certain product to their friends, they are much more likely to become loyal fans and regular consumers.A word of mouth marketing strategy provides a long-term benefit for your business. When a consumer purchase is based on a prior referral, they often buy more in comparison with consumers who find products through conventional marketing. These consumers usually stick with your products or brand longer than others.Moreover, when referred consumers communicate with their friends about your products and services, the value of the first referral spreads even more. Naturally, if these consumers are satisfied with your products, building a high quality brand should be your next business step.Building your brand may be somewhat challenging if you are developing a small business. Brand building may prove demanding even if you have a franchise, especially if your competitors have already established their spot. Luckily, a good word of mouth marketing strategy can help consumers develop a positive feeling about your brand really quickly.Once you establish your brand, a word of mouth, marketing strategy becomes a valuable method to expand your business and increase your profits. In comparison with the cost of a consistent conventional marketing campaign, which involves newspapers, radio and television, referrals are almost free.BUILD UP YOUR WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING METHODYou may have a great product to sell, but if consumers don’t know about it, you can’t turn it into profit. It is always a good idea to keep track of what people are saying about your products online, but there is a lot more to it than just creating your Twitter and Facebook profiles. Effective and successful word of mouth marketing requires serious thinking and lots of hard work.Social platforms are the easiest way to get in direct communication with your target consumers. Due to the fact that social media has rapidly grown in the past few years, nowadays over seventy percent of all internet users use social media.Almost forty percent of social media users, have shared brand-promoting content. This includes sharing information about a certain brand or product on their Facebook wall. Such content sharing is highly valuable since it inspires a great mass of people to talk about this brand or product, and eventually become consumers.TARGET THE OPINION-MAKERSThe success of the word of mouth marketing method can increase even more if you take the time to win over the opinion-makers in your community. Opinion-makers are people who can influence a mass of people and shape the creation of opinions. This includes public figures, trendsetters, bloggers and journalists. They are the active voice in a community – and often speak out and give advice to others.Since you want to reach as many people as possible, opinion-makers can be of great benefit for your business. They can help you build your brand successfully through word of mouth marketing. Therefore, it’s a good idea to make a list of the opinion-makers that appeal to your targeted audience and include them when promoting your brand.MAKE AN IMPACT – BECOME A THOUGHT LEADEREngaging the opinion-makers to promote your brand is great, but becoming a thought influencer is even better. You know what makes your business unique, so go ahead and tell people about it. Get the word of mouth process rolling by communicating with your audience.You can reach your potential consumers through social media platforms, blogs or even at a conference. Choose the medium that supports your ideas best and establish a strategy to increase your influence in your community. Increasing your personal social influence will help you promote your brand more successfully.WORD OF MOUTH IS THE KEY MARKETING STRATEGYWord of mouth should be a key aspect of your marketing strategy. Many companies use a word of mouth marketing strategy, encouraging their happy customers to promote their products. It is crucial to provide consumers with a great product or service, so that they happily share their experience with others.If consumers are satisfied with the quality of your products and services, they will be willing to share their experience with their close ones. Their family, friends, co-workers and even random people that read their tweets or blog posts, or ask them for advice, will certainly consider their suggestions.A successful word of mouth marketing method promotes your business and convinces consumers to buy your products. By buying your products, people should be convinced that they are joining special ranks, and that your brand products or services will define their identity in a more positive way.Whether planned or not, a word of mouth marketing strategy is well worth the effort. It is still considered the most powerful and influential type of marketing communication. If you put your energy into this effective marketing method, your company can become a beneficiary of word of mouth and build a successful brand. Remember that your brand is only as good as consumers claim it is.

You’ve no doubt heard about the K.I.S.S. principle – “Keep it simple, Stupid.” Or as I like to say… “keep it simple, silly.”K.I.S.S. has been around the block a few times. In fact, it was a design principle noted by the US Navy in the 1960s.The phrase was coined by aircraft engineer Kelly Johnson. It’s nice to note that Johnson was the lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works (creators of the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 spy planes).Though the acronym has been used mostly by the US military, namely the U.S. Navy and United States Air Force, civilians, businesses and lots of other groups use it too.Heck, I bet you’ve used it a few times yourself.We all tend to over complicate things, including myself.But I prefer simple any day and twice on Sunday. When tackling any problem, my number one rule is to start with the simple basics first (is the power on? Is the lamp is plugged into the electrical outlet?)And you’d be amazed at how effective the simple way of doing things can be. After all, you can always complicate the hell out of things later, if you like.You’ll be pleased to learn “simple” also works in marketing your biz too! Truth be told, simple has taken me a long, long way in the marketing of my business.Let me explain… The Three Pillars Of Good MarketingOK. Let’s break this down into, you know, simple terms. You can easily and simply market any product or service if you examine the 3 pillars of marketing.But before I go into details, I’ve got to give credit where credit is due. While, I’d love to think that I’m a marketing and advertising whizz, truth be told, I’m scratching the surface here.What I have learned came from the true geniuses of the game. The guys who figured it out and have been in the marketing trenches for decades.With that said, what you’re about to learn came from marketing top-gun Dan Kennedy. I recommend that you get your hands on any books, programs or live events he puts on. It’s nothing less than pure gold.OK. On with the show. The pillars of good marketing are:MessageMarketMediaLet’s talk briefly about each one.Pillar 1. Message. This is the “what” you say to your prospects or clients. It’s the communication part of the equation of good marketing. If you get this wrong, then your efforts won’t necessarily fail but will suffer greatly in terms of results and sales.Keep in mind, even if you have a great message and you shoot it to the wrong market, it’s going to land upon deaf ears. And you’re wasting marketing bullets… time, money and other resources.Pillar 2. Market. The is the “who” you want to sell to. It’s the group of people most likely to be interested and willing buy your stuff. These are the prospects you are communicating with and who will receive your sales messages (sales letters, print ads, landing pages etc.)So, your mission is to match your message to the correct market using the correct media.As you know privacy is essentially dead these days. So, getting the names and addresses for nearly any target market is a fairly simple process.Mailing lists comes in all shapes and sizes today. If you know what market you want to go after, you’re likely to find a list. It’s just a matter of contacting a list broker and describing who you’re looking for.For example, If you are looking for people who are at least 7 feet tall, drive a BMW, live in South Carolina and subscribe to Psychology Today, you can get that list. It may not be a very large list, but nevertheless it still exists.Pillar 3. Media. This the delivery system. It’s the vehicle that your message rides in. Think: magazines, newspapers, newsletters, social media such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and list goes on forever it seems.The best way to select which media to use, starts with the market. Are you targeting folks over the age of 65? There’s a good chance they do not use social media as a primary medium.Yes, they very well may have a Facebook account, but this is not their main means of communicating or staying in touch with others.They do read the local paper and use their cell phone regularly. They probably listen to the radio and watch TV.But the only way to truly know is to ask your clients and prospects.How To Target Your MarketOne popular way that business owners use to target their market is by geographic.Using geographic marketing you choose your market based on a specific location, for example, businesses within a 10-mile radius. This is a very simple way to choose your targets but it’s like dropping flyers out of a plane and hoping one lands with the right person.Yes, a bit of an exaggeration but with a few simple tweaks, you can make your geographic marketing more effective. And you can do this by using…… Demographic targeting. Demographic targeting is selecting people by age, gender, how much money they have, whether they are conservative or liberal, or what religion they are, single or married and so on.Next, you have psychographics. Psychographics deals customer behavior, attitudes, interests and lifestyles. It’s useful when segmenting your market. This can be very powerful (and effective). Plus, it allows you to customize your marketing messages based on whatever market segment you are going after.Hey, you could combine all three. And many of the cloud based programs, such as Adobe Marketing Cloud, Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketing 360 and more do just that. You could also check some of the open source solutions.Again, you don’t have to get all “techie” just be sure you have details such as their contact info, and carefully track how much they spend, what they buy and how often. Simple with Excel.Of course, I could go way deep into this topic, but staying the “simple” approach, suffice to say keep good customer lists, learn what your prospects and clients want and become the “go-to” company that fills their needs.So, the next time you start a new marketing campaign, consider the ideas presented here. If you are tired of dumping big bucks down the advertising toilet and you’d like more profitable results, then I encourage you to give me a shout. Do you have questions about this article or would like to see a subject covered? Again, just shoot me a line. I’m always happy to help.Yours for higher response,Emette E. Massey