I love Word of Mouth Marketing! Creating buzz about a product can be so exciting and so much fun! Here are some of my tips for creating great Word of Mouth Marketing campaigns:
1) Be fearless!
The best Word of Mouth marketing campaigns have a bit of risk involved… risk of being caught, risk of pushing the envelope, risk of causing a riot… do be fearless, and take a risk! What’s the worst that can happen ? You fail ? So what – who will know if you fail at Word of Mouth marketing 😀
2) Look for connections – do research.
What is your target audience interested in? Word of Mouth marketing isn’t necessarily about pitching your product, but about being present and involved in events and experiences your audience is having. Connect with them in their own space. For example, you’re attending a conference that is in another industry. Rather than put up a boring booth pitching your product, blah blah blah, how about you put together a kit for the attendees containing items they’d find useful or interesting and hang it on their hotel room doors?
3) Surprise and delight your audience!
Nothing can produce word of mouth or viral responses more than pleasing your audience so much that they WANT to talk about you. Come up with ideas that are extraordinary, and not about pushing your product. If your audience connects with you, they’ll be interested in finding out (in their own time) what you sell. One successful campaign for a provider of online bookkeeping involved putting together a “Christmas in August” booth at a conference for Real Estate agents. They took photos with all the agents, printed the photos (including a background containing the logo of the bookkeeping business) and gave them to the agents. The agents then saw the logo each time they looked at the fun picture of themselves that most put on their work desks. Something free, and fun, and surprising!
4) Give them something unexpected and over-exceed expectations
When putting together your campaign, put the plan together, and then go even further. For example, lets say the plan is to reward the top 10 winners of a contest with a book. Now every one can give away a book – it happens all the time…. zzzzzzzz…. So why don’t you go further and include a hand written note, and a gift card to Amazon with the book. Maybe even get a signature from the author? Something a little unexpected and over-exceeding expectations. That will create buzz!
5) People connect with people, not brands
So, create opportunities to connect with your audience directly. What would happen if you put out a call on Twitter or Facebook to your fans that you’d like to have dinner with the when you’re in town next – not to sell them anything, but to just listen and to connect? Who wouldn’t want to meet with someone from one of their favorite brands? And imagine the buzz that would create? But make sure you do this with authenticity! Another idea is to develop a core committee made up of a group of your customers. Ask them to visit your offices, ask them to review pre-release products, etc.
Execute on Extraordinary Experiences Everyday
SocialSonya 
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