Buzz marketing is one of the most powerful and cost-effective forms of marketing there is. Let’s think about a recent example.
A course I had been waiting for was getting ready to launch. It hadn’t launched yet, and it only opened once a year. I was watching my calendar, waiting for registration to open so I could register and make sure I got a seat in this training.
And I had never gotten a piece of marketing or seen an advertisement from this person.
Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever been excited to get something that you had never actually seen an ad for? You had only heard about it from your friends or other contacts.
Maybe it was a new product that had recently been released, or an upcoming course, or a new restaurant coming to town that your friends and family have enjoyed in other cities where they live.
Whatever the case, I’m sure you can think of a time when you were eagerly awaiting the release or opening of something based only on what someone else has said.
This is, at its core, buzz marketing.
Essentially it is when word of mouth does the marketing for you. You allow your customer and clients, the community, and others to do your marketing for you.
And you are able to save some of the money you would have spent on traditional marketing.
While this is a very cost-efficient form of marketing, there are some pros and cons to consider.
First, let’s look at the pros.
Cost efficiency
Obviously you won’t be paying people to say nice things about you. And, if enough people are saying enough nice things then you can probably cut back some of your traditional marketing spend.
By being remarkable at all steps of your customer’s journey, you create opportunities and reasons for your clients to tell their friends about you.
By being creative you will get word of mouth advertising without even working for it. People will be talking about you without your knowledge, and those conversations will drive business.
"Opportunity dances with those on the dance floor."
Warm audiences
As you may know, there are a number of different kinds of audiences. Warm and cold are the most basic subsets of your audience, and dictate the bulk of your marketing.
When someone comes to you because they have heard about you through a friend or social media they are already warmed up.
They expect to like you. They are already preconditioned to view you as a good choice to work with.
This will significantly reduce the effort you need to put into turning them from a prospect to a customer and will shorten the time that transition will take.
"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."
More money
Study after study shows that customers you get through referrals or word of mouth marketing are worth more for longer than other customers.
In fact, customers who come to you through word of mouth are 4 times more likely to purchase from you and have a 24% higher lifetime value than those that come to you through other channels.
Brands that inspire a higher emotional intensity receive 3x as much word-of-mouth as less emotionally-connected brands. The same academic study also found that highly differentiated brands earn more positive word-of-mouth. [Journal of Marketing Research]
Stronger Loyalty
Customers who come to you because they heard wonderful things about you tend to be more loyal to you and your brand. Even if they have a less than stellar experience they are more likely to give you another chance than if they came to you cold from an ad or something else.
This loyalty will also translate to more word of mouth marketing as your new loyal and happy clients share their own stories of success with you.
You can easily see how this creates a cycle of success that will continue to feed your business for months and years to come.
The time, effort, and energy invested in creating a “buzzable” business will pay off in dividends for years to come.
Now, let’s talk about some of the downsides to buzz marketing. Like anything else, there is almost always a downside where there is an upside.
Luckily, this actually isn’t too bad.
Little control
With buzz marketing, since it’s not paid for, you do not control the messaging. I will use LinkedIn as an example.
On LinkedIn, people can recommend you for certain skills. You don’t necessarily get to choose the skills they recommend, and they can add skills that you never suggested.
Even skills that you don’t want others to know about.
It can truly be inconvenient. However, since you aren’t paying for those recommendations, you don’t have control over them.
Usually, because you are running an amazing business that is treating people well and doing good things, this is not a problem.
Occasionally though you can end up with someone who goes totally rogue and shares a message you are not proud of.
Prepare for this. Respond to these messages. And as long as you are doing what’s right in your business, the good buzz will outweigh the bad and you will come out way ahead.
Let Down
This can happen when the buzz is so big, and what people hear is so amazing that you have a hard time living up to the hype.
I’m sure this wouldn’t happen to you. In this environment you have to be better, stronger, more giving than you ever have. And you have to live up to the hype.
The best way to avoid this issue is to focus on being extraordinary. Be remarkable. Make the effort to ensure every interaction someone has with you is exceptional. And if it’s not, apologize. Offer a refund if appropriate. Be humble.
And find out how you can fix it.
We all fall short sometimes. What’s important here is to make sure that sometimes it isn’t very often, and when it does happen, you do what you can to fix it.
Right away.
Ok, now that we have talked about the pros and cons, let’s take a look at the 5 ways I promised to share that businesses are using buzz marketing to recover from the recent shutdown.
Innovate
Salons were among the hardest businesses hit in the recent shutdown. With many independent contractors in the industry, and most salons being so small that withstanding a 7 week shut down is questionable, it’s been tough for salon owners across the country to keep their doors open.
They have had to be creative and innovate new ways to make money and pay their bills.
My salon has been a leader in this, reacting quickly and making a difference for his clients like few others have done.
Within about a week of the shutdown, they decided to offer curbside pick up and home delivery for orders of their retail products.
Now, anyone who has ever been a regular client at a high-end salon will tell you, using their regular hair and skin products means the difference between a good and a bad hair day. And without our regular cuts and trims to keep our hair at its best, we need all the help we can get.
So this was a hit, right? And brilliant!
But they didn’t stop there. They went on to offer something I have never seen. And since they started offering it I have seen it mentioned all over local social media.
They offered curbside root touch up kits!
Yeah, bowl, brush, gloves, instructions…the whole thing!
Super affordable. Super easy. Super essential!
Needless to say, I was all over this! I know a lot of people are proud of their gray hair and their natural hair color.
And don’t get me wrong. I’m not ashamed. I’m just not ready to embrace all the gray quite yet.
But I digress.
By thinking outside the box and being willing to innovate and come up with solutions his clients wanted, this salon owner was able to keep the retail side of his business up and to keep the buzz up about his business.
Needless to say, when they announced salons would be reopening this past weekend his Facebook blew up with appt requests. I foresee a very busy calendar for his stylists in the upcoming months.
77% of brand conversations on social media are people looking for advice, information, or help. [Mention]
Pivot
Maybe you can’t just start curbside pickup and delivery. I get it, not all businesses can.
If that’s the case I encourage you to take a serious look at your business and see what services you can pivot to fulfill a little differently than you have, and to provide superior service and delivery to your clients.
I recently attended one of the most amazing virtual summits I have ever attended. And let me tell you, I have attended a LOT over the last 15 years. I have run them, attended them, and planned them for others.
And this was hands down one of the most amazing of them all.
What made it amazing?
The fact that the organizer and host had put it together quickly, right after the shutdown, and provided a near-live experience, but it was virtual.
Sure, the speakers were amazing and that didn’t hurt. 🙂
But more than that was the sense of community he created. The engagement he prompted. The passion he was able to stir in all of his attendees, even though none of us were in the same room.
And all because he asked himself how he could take his normal business (speaking at large events) and pivot for the strange conditions he suddenly found himself in.
Oh, and don’t let me forget to tell you how it worked out for him.
He had his best month of his entire business career!
Give
In times of stress and struggle, one of the most amazing traits of humans is our ability to pull together. And no one is showing this better than a pressure washing company in Mooresville, NC.
When they saw the downturn in their business during what is traditionally their busiest season they didn’t want to go quietly into the night. They wanted to give back to their community.
And they found a wonderful way to do that.
They decided to clean up the playgrounds and equipment in their community while they have this forced downtime. They didn’t spend their time complaining about how unfair the whole situation was.
They looked through the difficulties. They thought past the pain. And they found a way to make their mark on the community in a way they were particularly well suited for.
And they started a trend. Seeing the difference they were making, other power washing companies around the WORLD started adopting this idea.
Imagine how many children will have clean and sanitized playgrounds to return to once the stay at home order is lifted. All because one company decided to look through the current issues and find a way to give.
Serve
A similar but slightly different example is to serve your audience.
An industrious DJ in Salt Lake City found himself virtually shut down when the stay at home and social distancing orders went into effect. After all, his business is developed specifically to serve large groups of people in somewhat confined spaces.
Instead of shutting his doors, he found a way to continue to serve his community in a way few others have found.
He started what he calls Socially Distanced Dance Parties where he rolls through neighborhoods playing upbeat music while families dance on their doorsteps at a healthy distance from other families. Together but apart, neighborhoods are able to celebrate.
Offering this kind of healing and celebration through music has generated goodwill with his community that will last for months, if not years.
Create
When the stay at home orders went into place, Screwball Whiskey was effectively shut down. As a company that relies on other businesses and people to sell and buy their products, they were suddenly left wondering what to do.
“Screwball does not make business decisions based on our bottom line. Instead, we believe that if you help people when they need you, in time, you will receive it back tenfold. And, better yet, the world will be a better place for our kids.” says Brittany Merrill-Yeng, Screwball’s co-founder.
Instead of shutting their doors and waiting for things to reopen they created a new way to help their community. They launched a campaign to raise awareness and grassroots funding for bar and restaurant workers suddenly out of work.
They donated money to the fund. They created care packages to give out to families in need. They diverted production to create more sanitizer when it was desperately needed.
Their creation mindset has been able to help families in multiple businesses and situations.
As you can see, there are a number of ways that businesses have found to continue through this shutdown.
And by being creative, and thinking outside the box, these companies, and countless others are finding ways to make a difference, and in turn they will benefit from buzz marketing.
It’s important to note that none of these businesses made the choices they did for the purpose of generating buzz. That was the side effect.
Their goal, their motivation, was to provide amazing value to their prospects and clients. They were simply doing what’s right.
And by providing value and doing what’s right, they will undoubtedly benefit from buzz marketing for months, if not years to come.
So now I ask you, how can you generate buzz? What can you do to provide more value than ever before? How can you make yourself and your business indispensable?
