Every day, Christopher walks in to your coffee shop at 7:15 sharp, orders a macchiato, opens his laptop at the corner table and works for the next three hours.
He's a loyal customer; he wouldn't be back every day if he didn't appreciate value you.
Every so often, you'll hear Christopher bragging about your shop on the phone.
"Yeah, I work out of here everyday... Great people, nice vibe, tasty coffee... Yeah, you should drop by one day," he says with a wink, loud enough for you to hear.
You smile, thankful for his kind words. But you can't help wondering if there's a more effective way of leveraging word-of-mouth recommendations like Christopher's.
It's not enough to be "good"
We've (collectively) finally understood that a friend's recommendation is more powerful than a random print ad. And some believe that if we spend enough time refining a product so it's that amazing and that different, customers can't help but talk about it (Oh my God!!! I have to tell somebody!!).
But that's only partially true.
You may have an amazing product, but you're doing yourself a disservice by sitting back and wondering why customers aren't talking about you to their friends.
Sure, word-of-mouth marketing is powerful, but it doesn't exist without tools. And your customer's mouth is but one tool.
How to help your customers promote you
Customers need a nudge; it's up to you to politely and appropriately nudge them into bragging about you. Anything more than polite and appropriate will have an adverse effect.You can't assume somebody's going to promote you, on your behalf, just because. They need to be reminded they can, or shown what they'll receive when they do.
The emergence of social media means you're no longer reliant on talking heads, now, you can help empower your customers to talk about you, digitally too.
Here's a few suggestions; implement as you will:
- Location-based reminders: You've likely seen these around town ("I'm at Rhyno HQ"). Foursquare, Google, Gowalla, Facebook, Yelp and many others are in the location-based marketing game, and each is asking you to check-in with them.
In my book, I talked about how one university used Facebook Places to increase its brand awareness among a local target market. - Don't forget to share: This is popular at events, but equally effective elsewhere. Creating a hashtag and making the business/event's Twitter or Facebook username available (so users don't have to search), means users will have an easier time sharing where they are and what they're doing with you. It's on thing to say "Find us on Facebook" and another to actually give your name. Remove the search obstacle and make it easy.
- Give them bait: Bring in a friend and you both receive X, Y, and Z! If you want more people through your doors, give current customers a reason to bring a friend along next time they're headed your way.
Daniel at Vinyl Art does a great job with this. His loyal collectors receive a discount for being loyal; plus, he's empowered them with a unique discount code to share with their friends so they too, can become Vinyl Art collectors.
Your own experience as an advocate
Have you found a way to help your customers be living, talking advocates on your behalf? Perhaps you're an advocate yourself?
Leave a comment below and share about it.
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