Month: May 2016

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Why Word Of Mouth Marketing Is The Most Important Social Media

Word of Moth Marketing or WOMM for short, is exactly what it sounds like, an oral or written recommendation by a customer to another potential customer.
It is regarded as the most effective form of marketing.
For example, the Nielsen global advertising survey, said that in 2013, 84% of the people participating trust in recommendations they hear from people they know (today the number is closer to 92%).

According to Mark Zuckerberg; People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message. A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising.


How to get good word of mouth advertising?
Word of mouth marketing is most successful with brands that are working really hard to do right by their customers. This means a great offering partnered with exceptional customer service. The product needs to be strong, but it is just as important that the staff’s interacting with customers and clients is the best it could be.
Another way to create a good word of mouth is to be unique, have a one of a kind product or creative marketing ideas. Such as the Old Spice commercial on YouTube (below).

This commercial has over 52 Million views of YouTube and is so popular because it is funny and weird which people enjoy. This commercial became even more successful thanks to the power of word of mouth. One person saw it somewhere, and started to refer it to a friend or relative, and so on and so forth (Marrs, 2014).

The most time-consuming way to get good exposure of word of mouth is to become a industry thought leader, which means that a person is engaging in dialogue with existing industry leaders and power players while staying up to date on the latest industry news (Whitler, 2014).

One of the most important things to consider when creating good WOMM is to create a good name. Which means that people appreciate a business that is honest and treat their customers right. Using false advertising or trying to trick their customers will experience in bad WOMM and will ultimately lead to a decrease in sales (Bughin, et.al, 2010).

Lastly, a company needs to create an active social community and engage with their customers online.
The most efficient WOMM power brands, convince costumers that by buying their product, they are making a personal statement and joining special ranks.
The most devoted fans may even refer to favorite brands as “family” since certain products or services become part of a customer’s identity (Whitler, 2014).

Negative Aspects of WOMM?
With everything business do on a daily basis handling negative effects that some campaign or product have is probably one of the most common.
The disadvantages need to be taken into consideration before a company decides to rely on WOMM as their primary method of bringing in business.

WOMM can spread slowly, it takes time for employers and employees to spread the word about the product and it can take even longer to reach out to customers who can then keep spreading the word around. To help this a company can post things on their company blogs or social media platforms to reach out faster (Groeger, et.al, 2013).

Tracking issues is another factor that needs to be considered. It is almost impossible to thoroughly track the amount of business generated by WOMM. Asking customers to fill in a survey is one way to find out, but it does not usually cover as many people as needed for the company to make future marketing plans.

The most obvious negative effect of WOMM is negative feedback. If a customer have a bad experience with your business, it is very likely that they will tell other people of the bad experience and they will in turn tell more people and so on and so forth. It is a increasingly bad experience wave that will lead to a lot of potential customers not buying from a business. The only way to deal with this type of issue, is to prevent it before it happens. Every customer needs to be treated equally and never be treated badly by staff or other (Buttle, et.al, 2014).

Conclusion
In conclusion, WOMM is very effective but can be time-consuming, it is always a good marketing tool, even for online based businesses and it can help a business to get a lot of positive feedback and increase sales.
However, it can go the other way and create bad publicity, it is hard to keep track of and it can be a very slow process.
WOMM needs to be taken seriously by any business in today’s society. It either helps increase sales, but it can also rupture a business with one bad experience.

References
How Powerful Is Word-Of-Mouth, Exactly? – The Definitive Guide To Referral Marketing”.ReferralCandy. N.p., 2016. Web. 9 May 2016.

Bughin, J, J Doogan, and O.J Vetvik. “A New Way To Measure Word-Of-Mouth Marketing”. McKinsey & Company. N.p., 2010. Web. 9 May 2016.

Buttle, F and L Groeger. “Word-Of-Mouth Marketing: Towards An Improved Understanding Of Multi-Generational Campaign Reach”. European Journal of Marketing 48.7 (2014): p1186-1208. Print.

Groeger, Lars and Francis Buttle. “Word-Of-Mouth Marketing Influence On Offline And Online Communications: Evidence From Case Study Research”. Journal of Marketing Communications20.1-2 (2013): 21-41. Web.

Marrs, J. “5 Ways To Wield More Word Of Mouth Marketing Power”. Wordstream. N.p., 2014. Web. 8 May 2016.

“The Disadvantages Of Word Of Mouth Advertising”. Smallbusiness.chron.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 10 May 2016.

“What People Watch, Listen To And Buy | Nielsen”. Nielsen.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 9 May 2016.

Whitler, K.A. “Why Word Of Mouth Marketing Is The Most Important Social Media”. Forbes 2014: 1-2. Web. 8 May 2016.

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How to Manage your Customer Relationship on Social Media

Socoal CRM

In today’s hyper social world, customers are likely to voice a complaint or offer a compliment about your product, service or business on Twitter or Facebook. And woe to the organization that does not acknowledge or respond to that Facebook or Twitter post promptly

These days, it is difficult to separate social media management from CRM, hence the increasing number of social CRM services. But just having a social CRM offering is not enough. Just like any technology, you have to first pick a customer engagement and management solution that is right for your organization and create a strategy and guidelines around using it (Schiff, 2013).

An active social media presence is more and more about how customers form opinions on which brands they like and which they don’t. Social CRM is a buzzword for sure but it’s one worth some thought on how the strategy behind it can color a business’ public perception. In a world where your followers are your customers, and where what you post or tweet can be screenshotted in an instant, it’s absolutely critical to have a plan and Social CRM can definitely help (Marvin, 2016).

Communicating
Social CRM 2

More than 60% of users interact with brands on social channels.
Twitter-users post an average of 500 million tweets every day, which means that social media is generating a higher volume of data on customer-brand interactions, which can be leveraged for better insights and more targeted marketing and support.
Social channels are about instantaneous communication, and customers expect companies to respond within an hour (Bennett, 2014).
Simply put, your customers want to be acknowledged.
But social CRM is not just about having conversations on social media or writing blogs for your company website.
Social CRM is built around the process of communicating and engaging across online communities. The conversations can take place on individual social media platforms, or on blogs, forums, and third party review sites.
A strong social engagement strategy allows businesses to remain in constant contact with their customers by providing excellent social care, advancing brand interests, and responding to feedback in a seamless cycle (Bober, 2016).

Managing Customer Relationships

Social media on Smartphone

As noted above, customers expect a high level of service. Regardless the quality of the product or service provided, they will not stay loyal on a long-term basis unless they are treated properly before, during and after a sale.
So we will cover some ways to manage the customer relationships.

Communicate with costumers, regular interaction with customers will help build trust and loyalty. If the customers believe that the company is communicating with them openly, they will feel their relationship with the company is one of mutual trust.

Use every channel possible to talk to customers. This does not just include Social Media, it can also be emails and telephone.

Measure costumer satisfaction levels. Gathering regular feedback and monitoring customer satisfaction is essential to maintain high standards of customer care.
You need to be constantly in touch with customers’ needs and market developments to keep a step ahead of competitors (The Marketing Donut, 2016).

Concusion

Social CRM 4

CRM is all about using the latest technology to make interactions between customer and company pleasant for the customer and fruitful for the company by squeezing out every drop of information given. Lately, that is meant using lots of automation software and cloud-based solutions that make CRM interactions faster, more intuitive, and ubiquitous in terms of UX across whatever device the customer is using.
Companies want to interact with users where they live. In today’s hyper-connected, always plugged-in world, that means reaching out to customers on social media platforms in a way that doesn’t feel like an invasion of privacy.
Social media is still a rapidly evolving internet phenomenon. The way users interact with social media is very different now than it was in 2010. Both companies and customers need to start to think about business as more online based in this day and age (Harrigan, et.al, 2014).

References

Ballings, M & Van den Poel, D. (2015). CRM in social media: Predicting increases in Facebook usage frequency. European Journal of Operational Research. 244 (1), p248-260.

Bennett, S. (2014). How Social Media Is Transforming Customer Relationship Management. Available: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/social-media-crm/498921. Last accessed 3rd May 2016.

Bober, K. (2016). A Facebook Page is Not Enough: An Intro to Social CRM Done Right. Available: http://www.clarabridge.com/a-facebook-page-is-not-enough-an-intro-to-social-crm-done-right/. Last accessed 3rd May 2016.

Harrigan, P, Soutar, G, Choudhury, M & Lowe, M. (2014). Modelling CRM in a social media age. Australasian Marketing Journal. 23 (1), p27-37.

Marvin, R. (2016). Social CRM: Where Social Media Meets Customer Engagement. Available: http://uk.pcmag.com/hootsuite-pro/71279/opinion/social-crm-where-social-media-meets-customer-engag. Last accessed 3rd May 2016.

Schiff, J.L. (2013). 17 Tips for Achieving Social CRM Success.Available: http://www.cio.com/article/2385481/customer-relationship-management/17-tips-for-achieving-social-crm-success.html. Last accessed 3rd May 2016.

The Marketing Donut. (2016). Managing your Costumer Relationships.Available: http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/customer-care/understanding-your-customers/managing-your-customer-relationships. Last accessed 3rd May 2016.