presents

This SlideShare has been adapted from Dan Martells

Breaking Down the Methodology Behind Word of
Mouth Marketing on Word of Mouth Marketing
Association and Paul Jankowskis 4 Tactics to
Build Your Word of Mouth on Forbes.com.

Youve spent 12 months building the most wicked

product in the world. Now what?
Now, you need customers, revenue, and growth.

So heres the sequence most

entrepreneurs follow:
Step 1: You launch a blog

Step 2: You launch your Facebook page

Step 3: You start promoting

your writing to your fan
community of 50
Then you wait. Youve built it;
why arent they coming?

Dont fret.

Any product can be remarkable. Any

product can be emotional. Like any
good marketing plan, it follows a
standard framework. Amazing
marketers take the same basic
skeletons and flesh them out.2

Marketing Professor
Jonah Berger

Just think about why you share:

Most likely, its made

you laugh out loud,

saved you time

solved your most pressing problems.

Its caught you by surprise and has

struck an emotional chord.

Effective marketers are creative, but also

systematic. Here are the 4 most important
steps, according to Paul Jankowski, Chief
Strategist at New Heartland Group:

1. Make a Target List of Influencers

Make sure you are speaking to leaders and influencers in your
space. These can be journalists, public figures, bloggers, or
even trendsetting fans.

DO:
It is a good idea to make
a target list of
influencers that appeal to
your key demographic
and make sure that they
know about what you do.

DONT:
Badger them with calls and
emailsbut rather take the
time to learn about them
and why they are
influential, then open up a
dialogue by engaging with
their content in ways that
are relevant to your brand.

Example: P&Gs
Thank You Mum
If you held back some tears
while watching that video, the
ad has worked. It not only
touches us, but also gives us a
heartwarming reminder to be
grateful to our mothers.
P&G is well known for
producing household products,
of which mothers are likely
their biggest consumers.

Results of P&Gs Thank You Mum

2. Build a Community
Build a Close Knit Social Media CommunityThe easiest
way to directly communicate with your audience is to
engage with them via social platforms 3.

Example: Will it Blend?

Will it Blend is a viral marketing
campaign consisting of
infomercials. With a good blend
(pun intended) of humour,
quirkiness and bright smiles all
around, Will it Blend became an
instant hit with people. They also
involved customers by asking
for things to blend and in the
process, creating a community.

Will it Blend? Campaign Results 6

3. Be a Thought Leader
Not only do you want to target
the influencers in your space.
You want to be one!
DO: Figure out what makes you
and your business unique, and
tell people about it. Figure out
the medium that best supports
your ideas and develop a
strategy to grow your
presence there.

Example: Camp Gyno

Hello Flo managed to market
female sanitary products
without coming across as
patronising (remember the
cringe-worthy Have a happy
period?).
Instead, they tapped into a
sense of shared humor and
sisterhood among all women,
making this campaign
refreshingly honest about
that time of the month.

Camp Gyno Campaign Results

4. Be consistent
The success of Word
of Mouth marketing
depends on
customers trust of
the brand. You have
to earn enough merit
to become a worthy
topic of conversation.

DO:
Maintain integrity
across online
platforms (your
website, social media,
and mobile).
DONT:
Underestimate your
audiences. They can
smell fluff from a
million miles away
(especially from a
computer screen).

Example:
Dollar Shave Club
Dollar Shave Club succeeded
by leveraging the skepticism
surrounding the high price of
razors8. Men were told that
they needed three blades for
a comfortable shave. Then it
was four, then five, and six.
As Dollar Shave Club points
out, Your handsome
grandfather had one blade.
It seems that their simple
model of providing good
blades at a low price every
month is doing well.

Our Blades are F***ing Great

Campaign Results 9

Word-of-Mouth
cant be bought; it
has to be earned.
Visit www.ReferralCandy.com
to find out more about how to
grow your Word-of-Mouth!

Sources:
1. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/a_new_way_to_measure_word-of-mouth_marketing
2. http://www.womma.org/posts/2013/07/breaking-down-the-methodology-behind-word-of-mouth-marketing
3. http://www.forbes.com/sites/pauljankowski/2013/03/13/4-tactics-to-build-your-word-of-mouth/
4. http://blog.referralcandy.com/2014/06/19/6-ads-went-viral-according-jonah-berger/
5. http://prsany.org/downloads/BigAppleAwards2013/p_g_builds_consumer_loyalty_during_london_
2012_olympics__marina_maher_communications.pdf
6. http://adage.com/article/the-viral-video-chart/digital-marketing-top-10-viral-ads-time/145673/
7. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/233207
8. http://www.fastcompany.com/1835082/3-marketing-takeaways-dollar-shave-club%E2%80%99s-fing-great-ad
9. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2193070/How-Dollar-Shave-Club-Got-Their-Sales-Pitchin-Front-of-5-Million-People