Eight super simple word of mouth marketing strategies for local business
Looking for an effective and inexpensive way to advertise your local business? Enter Word-of-mouth marketing.
When people talk positively about your business, your product or you as a business person, they’re helping you build brand awareness and trust, and you might not even realise they’ve done it!
WHAT IS WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING?
Word-of-mouth marketing, or WOM, is the process of someone who has no affiliation with your business talking positively about your business or making recommendations to people about your business. They essentially become an unpaid spokesperson for your business and are promoting your business, product and service for you.
With there being endless options for every product or service available it is hard to find your spot in a saturated market, and it is hard for consumers to know where to place their trust and money. Word-of-mouth marketing plays an important role in establishing that your local business CAN be trusted, because other people, whose opinions they value, put their trust in it.
WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR LOCAL BUSINESS
Your business probably doesn’t have that big budget to spend on creating a big campaign that reaches millions of people, but as a local business- you don’t need that. You don’t want the attention of millions of people in other countries, you want the attention and trust of your local market. I have curated eight easy-to-implement strategies that will ensure people are only talking positively about your local business.
The first strategy is fairly simple and is always handy when it comes to marketing tactics, but it is always worth repeating. Make sure you are providing high-quality products and services to your customers. If you want people to sing your praises, you need to give them something to sing about. Consumers have high expectations and it is your job to ensure you are at the very least meeting those expectations, but ideally exceeding them. Don’t forget that word-of-mouth marketing works two ways, and if you leave a customer unsatisfied, they WILL tell people about it, loudly.
Always maintain impeccable customer service. You should be treating people exactly how you want to be treated: smile at them when they enter the store, go out of your way to help them with any questions or issues, reply to emails, and answer the phone. Customers who feel valued and like they have been treated well by your business will tell their friends about it.
Put effort into establishing relationships with your customers. As a local business, there is a good chance you are going to have regular customers, as well as customers that you know or see on a personal level, outside of work. Take the time to make them feel appreciated. Call them by name, shake their hand when you see them down the local pub, have a chat, and ask how their family are doing. People prefer to feel like a friend rather than a distant acquaintance. Think about it like this - would you recommend the business of someone you considered a friend, or would you recommend the business of someone you don’t know? Hint: the answer should be of a friend!
As a local business, you have a smaller network of customers than that of a giant corporation, this gives you the advantage when it comes to showing your appreciation. There is no way that a big corporation is able to send out Christmas cards to all its customers at the end of the year - but YOU can. Signs and tokens of appreciation are always a winner for customers. Think thank you notes for a big sale, empathy cards when a local passes away, or even picking up the phone and giving them a call to say “thanks for being a customer!”. These little acts of kindness and appreciation will keep you at the top of people’s minds.
Communication is important to customers, they like to be in the know all the time. If you’re having a delay with their order, let them know. If you’re closing the shop early, put it on social media. If you’ve run out of a certain product that you know people are going to ask for, send out an email. Always communicate with your customers so there are no little surprises - they don’t like them! To put it into a situation, if you were to drive in from the farm specifically to go to one store, and you got there only for them to have closed up early with no warning, you’re not going to be happy are you? And the next time someone brings up your store they’re probably going to relay that sour experience.
In the event that you get a complaint of there is an issue, you should do everything in your power to rectify it, and rectify it quickly. Do you know the saying “the customer is always right”? While I don’t agree that they are always right, I do believe that in business, especially in a local business, you need to take the stance that they are because they believe they are. If you don’t accept that and don’t rectify the issue, they will go away and tell their friends about the experience. Always apologise, don’t argue and handle the problem quickly and efficiently. Doing this, you’ll negate that negative experience and turn the customer into a glowing fan of your local business.
Be seen to be active in your local community. Do you want your local community to support you? Then you need to put in the work to support it. Join your local business groups, sponsor local teams, attend local events, and talk to people, what are their problems? What is important to them? Be out there and be seen as a valued part of the community, not just a salesperson.
Use word of mouth yourself, for other local businesses. If you want local businesses to refer people to you, do the same for them. If someone comes in with something you can’t help them with send them on to another local business who can. A lot of the time that person will walk into the next store and say “So and so sent me here,” and they’ll know that you referred them on and be appreciative of that and likely do the same for you.
These super simple strategies for word-of-mouth marketing are going to get people talking about your local business, it will generate a small buzz, it will create that brand awareness and it will build that trust that is so important.
