The Marketers Roundtable - A Discussion of Current Marketing Issues

The Internet show about small business marketing.

Episode #41 of Power to the Small Business podcast.

---

Hear ye, Hear ye! Interested citizens of The Internet, you are invited to the second gathering of the Marketers RoundTable.

Whereas marketers like to congregate and discuss marketing,

And Whereas I am a marketer with a podcast,

Therefore, let them gather at The Marketers RoundTable to discuss marketing issues for all to hear on Power to the Small Business.

Guests:
Al Lautenslager – Author of Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days
Stephen Denny - President, Denny Marketing
Connie Reece - Chief Community Officer, New Media Lab
Jay Ehret - (Host) Chief Officer of Awesomeness at The Marketing Spot
Length: 34 minutes

Email subscribers and feed readers - If you don't see the player, click here to listen to Power to the Small Business
You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #41 (for personal use only)

Press the play button on the Box player above and get started. Comments, questions? Please share it in the comment section below or call the audio comment line: 254-433-8529.

Marketers' RoundTable - A discussion of current marketing issues:

Selected quotes from the show:

ON MARKETING PLANS:

AL LAUTENSLAGER: “People want to plan it out just right, get it perfect. I have an old saying: “Done is better than perfect."

STEPHEN DENNY: "Very often it’s just more important to get something going than it is to be absolutely, positively, 100% that you’re absolutely, positively right.”

JAY EHRET: "There are no tactics that are right for everyone."

ON SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY AND LISTENING FIRST:

STEPHEN DENNY: "So much is social media centers around this idea of listening and dialog, and interestingly I’ve found that it’s the other way around that makes more sense.”

JAY EHRET: "Can you imagine Jesus sitting down with the 12 disciples and saying: “Ok, tell me where you think I should be on this issue."

CONNIE REECE “It’s useless to talk or listen, if you haven’t decided what your business is at its very core. Know thyself. That’s just fundamental."

ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING:

JAY EHRET: "Social media marketing, while I like it…I think this notion that it’s better than all other forms of marketing is unproven. There’s no data to back it up."

CONNIE REECE: “It’s one tool in the arsenal. I don’t ever think anybody should say, ‘oh, we’re just going to do social media marketing. It needs to be a compliment to the traditional marketing you’re doing."

STEPHEN DENNY: "Blogging, social media, Facebook, Twitter, whatever you happen to be engaged with is almost as much a cultural decision as it is a business decision.”

AL LAUTENSLAGER: “The ‘I’ in ROI is free, but time is money."

ON MARKETING OF BOOKS BY AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS:

AL LAUTENSLAGER: “I’ll take that risk every time of over-promoting a book…Because people will sometimes just buy the book, take you home with them and put it on the bookshelf."

STEPHEN DENNY: "The marketing starts before the book writing starts.”

CONNIE REECE: “If writers want to continue being published, they have to learn how to join their marketing efforts with the publishers."

JAY EHRET: "Publishers do want the authors to promote their own books, and if that’s the case, …do you really need a publisher?"

Show Links:

Stephen Denny: Denny Marketing, Note to CMO
Al Lautenslager: Market for Profits, Certified Social Media
Connie Reece: Every Dot Connects, New Media Lab
Jay Ehret: The Marketing Spot, Power to the Small Business

A complete archive of all past episodes can be found here: Power to the Small Business

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Your Online (and Offline) Marketing Mix

It's never all about one thing. That why you have to be careful with hype. So when you hear all the hype about "It's all about social media" or "it's all about community," be wary. A year ago it was "all about content." Really it's about the mix.

Photo credit: Raelene G

The Marketing Mix

Research shows that marketing is more effective when you mix it up. A recent report from Group M showed that consumers exposed to a company's mix of influenced social media and paid search exposure were 2.8 times more likely to search for that brand's products than users who who saw only paid search. Adding ingredients to your marketing mix produces a compound effect. So what is this marketing mix?

Click on the graphic to download a PDF copy

The three big funnels of marketing media are:

• Owned - Created by you
• Earned - unpaid conversation about you
• Paid - Exposure you pay for in other channels

In the online marketing world, that translates to:

• Your web presence
• Social media and online conversations about your business or brand
• Paid search ads, sponsorships and other forms of online advertising

In the offline world, the media mix translates to:

• Your store front, office or any physical location
• Word of mouth about your business
• Advertising and promotional efforts

Be Strong Somewhere

With all those choices, it would be tempting to try to be everywhere. But juggling too many spot can spread your resources too thin. Start with one thing and get good at that before you add another ingredient into the marketing mix. I recommend you start with the offline world. Once you have solidified your offline marketing mix, start sprinkling in the online ingredients.

Does your marketing have mix? How can you compound the effectiveness of your marketing by adding ingredients to your marketing mix?

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Share

Diet Cherry Limeades and the Power of Elaboration

My wife is a brilliant marketer even though she's not in marketing. Her secret weapon: Diet Cherry Limeades. But really, her secret weapon is elaboration. Even though my wife has never had formal marketing training, she intuitively knows that elaborate marketing messages are stronger.

My wife is a pharmaceutical sales rep and one of her drugs is a "triple combination" drug, meaning it combines three drugs in one pill. Here's how she uses elaboration to help doctors remember the benefits of her drug. She arrives at a doctor's office with some Diet Cherry Limeades from the local Sonic Drive-In, and asks the doctor if he's heard of them before. She then explains that they are delicious and offers the doctor a taste. Then she equates the three ingredients of Diet Cherry Limeades (cherry, lime, lemonade) with the three ingredients of her triple combination drug. She explains how the three ingredients of her drug work together to minimize side effects, just like the diet part of a Diet Cherry Limeade minimizes the calories.

This is quite a different approach than is taken my most pharmaceutical reps who cite research and information from product inserts (which my wife also does). And the tactic works quite well. Doctors will later, almost exactly, repeat my wife's message to her in subsequent calls. Her triple combination message was sticky because it was elaborate.

Elaborate for Memorable Messaging

As I wrote last year, elaborate messages are stronger because the extra information given at the moment of learning makes learning better, especially if that extra information is not complex. As Caroline Latham explains over on Sharp Brains, elaboration improves memory by creating a rich context of extra-sensory information. "By weaving a web of information around that fact, you create multiple access points to that piece of information."

My wife involves several senses in her presentation: sight, sound, taste and touch. Then she combines two unrelated and unexpected products into one powerful elaboration cocktail. Her triple combination message has more significance because elaborate details add meaning.

So how can you add meaning to your marketing message to make it more elaborate? Diet Cherry Limeades anyone?

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Tom Hopkins Discusses The Sales-Marketing Mix

The Internet show about small business marketing.

Episode #40 of Power to the Small Business podcast.

---

Businesses cannot survive on marketing alone. At some point you need to sell something and that's where sales comes in. Marketing is the plan and selling is making the plan come to fruition. Whether you have defined sales department or not, you should have a defined sales system and a regular sales training program.

Tom Hopkins is recognized as the world’s leading authority on selling techniques and salesmanship. In this episode of Power to the Small Business, master sales trainer and best-selling author Tom Hopkins discusses the relationship between sales and marketing. How do sales and marketing work together in a small business? Tom also addresses the myth of the natural born salesperson.

Guest: Tom Hopkins – Tom Hopkins International, Scottsdale, Arizona
Length: 25 minutes

Email subscribers and feed readers - If you don't see the player, click here to listen to Power to the Small Business
You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #40 (for personal use only)

Press the play button on the Box player above and get started. Comments, questions? Please share it in the comment section below or call our brand new audio comment line: 254-433-8529.

Show Notes:

Selected quotes from Tom Hopkins:

“If you really want to have profits, you have to work as a team. Don’t let barriers get built between groups…or separating marketing from selling."

"Leadership…has to let everybody know that from the top of this company to the very bottom, we are all in sales.”

"Don’t wait to hear it’s better to start working, start working now and you’ll be way ahead of the competition"

Show Links:

Tom Hopkins International
Book: How to Master the Art of Selling
Book: Selling in Tough Times

A complete archive of all past episodes can be found here: Power to the Small Business

If you liked this podcast, consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

The Uncharted Waters of Social Media Marketing

What you should understand before you commit to a social media marketing program.

Social media evangelists have been selling the idea that social media marketing is the must-do marketing strategy. But is social media marketing better, or more effective, than other forms of marketing, including traditional media? The answer is: I don't know, and I think that neither does anyone else. Because there's no widely, authoritative available data to prove it. Social media marketing's popularity is built on opinion, hype, and anecdotal evidence that it's better, but there's no real proof.

My Aha! moment came this past weekend while I was in Mari Smith's "Facebook & Twitter Success" session at the BlogWorld and New Media Expo. Mari Smith, has been called the Pied Piper of Facebook, and I've learn a lot about Facebook from her blog, Why Facebook?. During the Q & A portion of Mari's session, I asked her, (paraphrasing) "is there evidence that Facebook and social media marketing is more effective than traditional media?" After a minute or so of rambling, she stopped, then told me to talk to her about it later. She didn't answer my question, and it occurred to me that she couldn't answer my question, because she didn't really know.

(Note: I reached out to Mari via a Twitter direct message and asked to meet with her to discuss the topic and she has not yet responded)

Where's The Research?

I've been searching for verifiable data that social media marketing is better than other forms of marketing, but as of yet, have found no numbers to support the hype of social media marketing. There are numbers on social media usage, but no numbers on effectiveness. Yes, a lot of people are using social media, as many as 95 million Americans and 300 million people worldwide are on Facebook, but does that make it a viable marketing channel? After all, 284 million Americans watch television.

(Note: I called Forrester Research this morning and asked for some data. They said they will send me some information in 24-36 hours.)
(10/20 update: Forrester has responded with no specific data and informed me that I must be a paying customer before they can provide me with any information.)

Here's the data that's available, and what you usually see quoted in support of social media marketing:

• Members
• Followers
• Views
• Hits

There are also case studies and success stories of incredible success. But these examples are anecdotal evidence and not proof that social media is the most effective way to market your business. Case studies can be cited for the effectiveness of traditional media too. In fact, case studies can be found to support any claim. Where are the metrics to prove the overall effectiveness of social media marketing vs. other forms of marketing? Without that data, all the social media hype is just that: hype.

The Relationships Argument

As I shared these thoughts with other marketers on the final night of BlogWorld, they pushed back: "But social media allows you to have relationships with customers and potential customers." That's true. So what about the relationships? Does that justify starting a social media marketing program? No it doesn't.

Customers don't need to have a relationship with every business at which they will some day spend money. People just don't have time, nor the desire, to have a relationship with every business where they may someday purchase something. Do I really need to have a relationship with my plumber, my dry cleaner, my grocery store, my realtor (who I use once every seven years), or every restaurant I frequent?

Is Social Media Really Free?

Then there's the issue of cost. Traditional media marketing costs money, and sometimes a lot of it. Social media marketing is alluring, and perceived to be better, because it's free. Well, social media is free like a puppy is free.

The biggest decision about social media marketing is time, not dollar cost. What every small business owner needs to evaluate is, will the time you invest in social media be worth the return you can get from a social media program? I'm talking about ROI, in this case return on time invested. Social media evangelists are notorious for saying that you cannot measure the ROI of social media programs, often using arguments like "What's the ROI of your logo?"

But you better think about ROI, because social media takes a lot of time, five to ten hours per week, and sometimes more. Time is your most valuable resource. How much is ten hours of your time worth? You can buy a billboard advertisement and it can work for you for 30 days without you having to do a thing with it. Cost vs. time investments need to be weighed.

Should You Do Social Media Marketing?

You may get the impression that I don't think you should do social media marketing. But I'm not a social media marketing detractor. In fact, I'm a full participant. I have this blog, a Facebook Page, a Twitter account, a podcast, and a YouTube Channel. It's just that there is this hype, this belief, that everyone should be doing social media marketing. It's a belief that flows from an unfounded assumption that social media marketing is better than other forms of marketing. We just don't know if that's true.

The cheerleading comes from those who make their money selling social media advice. I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm just saying they don't really have the data to back up their stuff. I'm just saying they can't be the authority you use to decide. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't use social media marketing. It can be effective. Just not for everyone and not all the time.

You have to decide on an individual basis. Is social media marketing right for you and what should you do if it is? Do you have the time to devote to a marketing tactic that really has not been yet been proven to be more effective that other forms of marketing?

Note to marketers and researchers: Please share if you have research and numbers.

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Billboard Rewind - Still clever, or more effective?

Back in April, I posted the picture below of a Tarleton State University billboard on I-35 in Waco, Texas. My opinion was that while the billboard was clever, it was probably not effective (See: Clever? Yes. Effective? Probably Not). My main beef with the board was that it told me nothing about the Tarleton State brand. What is Tarleton State University, other than another state university that teaches kids? A good discussion followed in the comment section.

Last month, new artwork replaced the old, clever billboard. Compare the two pictures below. How did Tarleton State do with their new message? Do you get an understanding of the Tarleton State brand?

Tarleton State University Billboard - April, 2009

Tarleton State University Billboard - October 2009

Looking at the new billboard, I would guess that the Tarleton brand is preparedness. But did you notice the website address change? The Tarleton - Waco campus is an extension campus at the local community college. I wonder if the targeted website will confirm my brand guess. A trip to the special Waco website features this video:

Email subscribers and feed readers, to see the video: click here)

Unfortunately, the video is standard education institution fare and does not advance the brand. It's simply a list of products available, with no insight into what's special about Tarleton State University. It just says "here we are, here's what we sell."

A quick look at the website doesn't reveal much more:

Notice the emphasis on the "I am" in the two student videos in the lower right corner? That "I am" theme is occasionally sprinkled throughout the Tarleton State University parent website as well. Is that the Tarleton State brand? If so, does it carry any weight and do what a brand is supposed to do?

My maxim is that no advertising or promotion should be done that doesn't advance your brand. Now that you've had a chance to compare the billboards, watch the video, and visit the website, what do you think? Is the new Tarleton State billboard more effective? Do you have a clear understanding of the Tarleton State University brand?

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Taking Product Reviews Offline

Product reviews are a proven way to increase sales online. But what if you don't have a website that lists all your products? And then there's the cost, finding good review software and integrating it into your website can be expensive. So why not just post reviews offline, in your store?

Yes, even if you're a local, independent retail store, you can use product reviews. Just put them right there on your product shelves or display cases. Your biggest decision will be how to do it physically.

Product Review Binder

Many businesses like to keep a brag book of positive letters they receive from customers. Transform your brag book into a review book or binder. Get a small binder for your products that receive reviews. When you get a review for that product, just slip it into a clear sheet cover and put it in the binder. Leave the binder right there next to the reviewed item.

Solicit Product Reviews

Make it easy for your customers to provide reviews. People are comfortable providing reviews online. It's easy for customers to fill out a review in the comfort and privacy of their home. Help your customers provide an offline review by giving them an offline review box in the form of a self-addressed postcard. Just tell the customer you're placing it in their bag and then ask them for the review. There is the issue of postage, you will have to make the decision whether or not to provide postage.

What to do About Negative Reviews

Don't trash negative reviews! Keep them and include them in your review book. They add credibility and can actually help enhance sales. It also gives you the opportunity to make product improvements. When you do, include your own response to the negative review and thank the customer for providing the necessary feedback.

Tips on Getting and Using Product Reviews

- Allow the customer to provide the review anonymously. You will find, that even with the anonymity option, most customers will still provide their name.

- You may want to provide incentives to customer who provide a review, such as a 10% off next purchase coupon. Ask the customer if they would provide a review after they've used the product (using your review postcard), if they agree, hand them the coupon.

- To jump start your product review initiative, use your in-house mailing list and send product-review postcards to past customers. Start with a trial of about 100 to test the response. If response is good, mail to everyone.

In-store product reviews are quite uncommon, but there's no reason you can't be a trailblazer, right?

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

The Importance of a Marketing Plan for Small Businesses

Special bonus podcast, a re-broadcast of Fred Castaneda's Finance For Startups podcast.

The great thing about a marketing plan is that eliminates much of the guesswork associated with marketing. If you do the hard work of building a marketing plan, you no longer have to market by trial and error. Fred Castaneda recently invited me to be a guest on his Finance For Startups podcast to discuss the importance of a marketing plan for small business. With Fred's permission, I'm sharing that episode here. I recommend you subscribe to Fred's Finance for Startups podcast as well as his other production, The Struggling Entrepreneur.

Email Subscribers and feed readers, click here if you don't see the audio player: Marketing Plan Podcast

Length: 46 minutes (Click on the play button to listen)
Download the audio file for personal Use: Importance of Marketing Plan

Now build your plan with this free Build Your Marketing Plan series:
Build Your Marketing Plan - A free, eight-part tutorial series, complete with worksheets.

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

Made to Stick Messaging

My Top Three Takeaways from the Decker Communications Made to Stick Messaging event.

When I watch TV commercials, I'm dismayed that the messaging is just so bad. Virtually none of the TV commercials you watch have a chance of being remembered 15 minutes into the future. They're just not sticky, and it's easy understand why. Those commercials are produced using a creative framework, and instead should be produced using a stickiness framework.

This past Tuesday I participated in Decker Communications Made to Stick Messaging event, featuring Made to Stick">Made to Stick'>Made to Stick co-author Chip Heath and Decker Executive VP Kelly Decker. It was a full-day seminar and training session on how to create messages that influence. Sticky, or memorable, messages need structure, they need a framework. Sticky messages are not simple recitations of facts, figures, features, benefits.

"You can't build believability out of a mountain of facts and figures. You can't even build it out of stacks of elegantly crafted words."
- Bert Decker, You've Got to Be Believed to Be Heard

So what makes something sticky? What enhances a person's ability to not only re-call a message, but also be influenced by it? At the end of the event, without referring to my notes, I jotted down the top three things that stuck with me.

Take away #1: Don't Bury the Lead

The lead is a journalism term that means the most important information. It's the most essential thing your audience should know, and they should know it up front. When you craft a marketing message, you should ask yourself, "What's the one thing, the most important thing, I want people to know?" Lead with that one thing. Don't bury it in a mountain of data or toward the end of some intricate, clever story. Give people the most important thing right up front.

Leading with the most important thing makes it easy to structure the rest of your message and it makes it easy for your audience to understand what you are trying to say.

Take Away #2: Eliminate Abstractions.

What do these phrases mean:

"We specialize in dimensionalizing your offerings for greater impact."

"Our mission is to take your business to the next level."

"These initiatives will make America better place to live."

They're abstractions and to most people, they don't mean anything. They're just not sticky.

"Abstraction makes it harder to understand an idea and to remember it. It also makes i harder to coordinate our activities with others, who may interpret the abstraction in very different ways."
- Chip Heath & Dan Heath, Made to Stick

The solution is to be concrete. What makes something "concrete"? Chip and Dan Heath say in Made to Stick that "If you can examine something with your senses, it's concrete...concreteness boils down to specific people doing specific things." That can be as simple as attaching illustrations to your abstract language.

For example, "We do the heavy lifting for you" is an abstract claim. What does that mean if you are a HR management company? You can make that abstraction concrete by substituting an illustration or example of what you mean by heavy lifting, such as saying "it's like taking all those résumés you receive and loading them on a forklift, we drive that forklift away and process every résumé for you."

Take Away #3: Have a Cool Title...Or Be Unexpected

At the start of the Made to Stick Messaging event, each participant had to stand up and deliver a simple introduction. I stood up and declared that I was the "Chief Officer of Awesomeness" at The Marketing Spot. Almost everyone I spoke with for the rest of the day made a comment about my title. Even as we sipped wine at the after-event social hour that evening, someone asked me how I got that title. Why was my title so sticky? Because it was unexpected.

People expect you to have a title like CEO, President, Sales Manager, but they don't expect you to be the person in charge of awesomeness. Unexpectedness captures attention and enhances memory. Your marketing message works the same way. If you only say what's expected, no one will notice. Commercials filled with price, features and benefits are expected, and quickly forgotten.

Implementing Stickiness

How can you add concreteness and unexpectedness? What can you do to make your marketing message sticky? For information on creating memorable messages, you can read The Secrets of Stickiness or buy the book Made to Stick. Decker Communications also has several communications training programs that help you frame your message.

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---

ShareThisShareThis

Word of Mouth is Still Sexier Than Social Media

Social Media is sexy. Word of mouth is still sexier. Yea, I know, everyone wants a date with sexy social media right now, but trust me, word of mouth is the one you want to take home to meet your parents. Word of mouth is that long-term relationship that can turn into marriage. And I have the sexy numbers to prove it.

Photo Credit: Tiago Ribeiro

Yesterday morning at the Austin Social Media Breakfast, WOM Enthusiast John Moore, of Brand Autopsy, gave the numbers to about 40 marketing and social media students.
(*John Moore graciously sent me his cheat sheet with all the stats you see here.)

- 76% of consumers believe companies are untruthful in their advertising.
(Source: Bold Mouth’s “Perceptions, Practices, and Ethics” report 2006)

- 78% of global consumers say recommendations from other consumers are the most credible form of advertising.
(Source: Nielsen’s “Truth in Advertising” report 2007)

- The typical American takes part in 125 person-to-person/voice-to-voice conversations per week that discuss products and services.
(Source: Keller Fay Talk Track study)

- Specific brands mentioned 90 times per week in person-to-person/voice-to-voice conversations
(Source: Keller Fay Talk Track study 2009)

- 90% of brand-related conversations take place offline versus 10% online.
(Source: Keller Fay Talk Track study)

- Ranked from highest to lowest, the most common activity where word of mouth (WOM) occurs:

1. Face-to-face conversations - 75%
2. Voice-to-Voice conversation - 15%
3. Text message - 3.2%
4. Email - 3.1%
5. Social media - 1.3% <----- Are you stunned by that figure?
   (Source: Keller Fay Talk Track study 2009)

- Positive WOM comments out-weigh to negative comments by a ratio of 6:1
(Source: Keller Fay Talk Track study)

- 22% of all brand-related conversations are sparked directly from advertising.
(Source: Keller Fay Talk Track study)

- 78% of brand-related conversations are sparked by something else:

1. Great customer service
2. Explaining how something works
3. Remarkable and entertaining stuff

At this point, you may be wondering why social media seems like it's so much sexier than word of mouth. After all, social media gets all the press these days, and social media gets all the dates with the a-list marketers. In my opinion, that's precisely why. The a-list marketers and bloggers are heavy users of social media, and consequently, social media seems sexier. I believe it's borne out by this statistic:

- 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity on Twitter. And 75% of Twitter users joined in 2009. 94% of users have less than 100 followers.
(Source: sysmos “Inside Twitter” report 2009)

How to Score a Date with Word of Mouth

Social media looks good on your arm when you walk into a marketing meeting. All the other marketers will wink at you and tell you how good your Facebook page looks, how clever your tweets are. But you'd better pay some attention to traditional word-of-mouth, because that's where you can really score. How? John Moore had some relationship advice for those trying to court word of mouth.

1. People don't want to do business with a boring brand.
What's exciting about your brand? It's not enough to deliver good customer service and sell quality products. Anyone can do that. Create a little excitement by doing something unusual and unexpected.

2. A brand's personality is the best form of advertising.
Let your personality shine in your business. Are you outgoing, gregarious? Maybe you have a great sense of humor and you like to be playful? Whatever your personality, make it evident in your brand. Your brand is an extension of you.

3. Remarkable things get remarked about.
Customers don't recommend the ordinary. Add some magic spots to your business; products, services, and experience, that customers have to talk about.

4. Create an experience that sparks conversation.
Creating a remarkable customer experience may be the best way to earn word of mouth. Think of interaction with customers as the opportunity to write a customer story that they can re-tell to their friends and family.

Now that you know, who do you want to date? Sure go out with social media for some good times, meet some new friends. But now that you know the numbers, don't you think word of mouth is sexier? How will it affect the way you market your business?

If you liked this article, please consider subscribing. For updates on new articles: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

---