The fire of Word Of Mouth

In marketing the best that can happen is the Word Of Mouth.
Once people start talking about your products or solutions, due to the multiplication effect the spreading of your message is enormous and goes many times beyond your normal reach.
Word Of Mouth brings another magnitude to your branding or recognition of you products or solutions and eventually will generate leads and bring in new customers.

There are 2 types of Word Of Mouth:
- The quick fires
- The slow burning fires

The quick fires:

A spike of Word Of Mouth is induced by an event:
- An article in national press
- A business magazine coverage
- A report on a TV show
- A mention on TV news show
- An award on a trade show
- A launch show for start-ups

Launch show examples: TechCrunch 50 – Demo – SeedCamp – RedHerring – Le Web – …

This spike of interest can be huge by growing fast and die out as quickly due to the fact that:
- The real underlying interest or benefit is not present.
- The novelty was wearing off quickly.

Over a short time-span you will receive a lot of interest and inquiries for your products or solutions that all required to be investigated and evaluated in order to qualify as lead and be followed-up.
This spike of interest results in a big load of work beyond your capacity with apparently interesting inquiries and potential propositions that distracts you from your normal work and your business focus: too many opportunities. Opportunities that evaporate once you start digging into those great potential deals.
Much wasted effort for nothing or very little sales.
Thus you have spent and invested too much time and money for the revenue obtained: your ROI is not good and your business is probably not sustainable.

The slow burning fires:

The real Word Of Mouth can only be generated and built up slowly: it takes years to have the Word Of Mouth going.
This type of WOM starts from your customers or users without any clear indication or reason of the origin.
Who, when or where the Word Of Mouth for your products or solutions have ignited is hard to define.
Just like slow burning fires burn the hottest, your slow started Word Of Mouth will become strong and will last long.

As the interest builds-up at a manageable and reasonable pace, you will be able to increase your workforce and capacity as needed. This will allow building your business in a profitable way: your ROI will be beneficial as you keep control over your costs.

WOM for sustainable business

Don’t aim for a quick fire spike, but try to ignite a slow burning fire as Word Of Mouth.
Even if it never happens, you will have build-up a sustainable business.

Has Word Of Mouth ever occurred for your products or solutions?