On this episode of the Engaging Marketeer, I want to talk about an issue I came across recently m at a networking meeting. I was speaking to somebody about their marketing, and they said, and I quote:
“I don’t need any sort of digital marketing because all of my business comes from word of mouth”
And that’s great. That’s great if you’re in the position where all of your business comes from word of mouth, referrals from existing customers, that’s wonderful for you. However, that isn’t the flex you think it is. If all of your business is coming from word of mouth, from referrals, and nothing is coming via the internet, for example, then there is something fundamentally wrong with your marketing. Because you should be getting business via other means. You should be getting inquiries and lead sales via the web. You should be getting stuff by other means than word-of-mouth referrals, and if you think that all of your business is coming via word of mouth, that’s technically not true. That means all the business you’re missing out on is not from word of mouth.
Now, if you think about it, if somebody recommends somebody to you, are you going to give them your money straight away to do some work for you, or are you actually going to research them and check them out first? Surely, you’re going to check out the reviews. You’re not just going to say ‘oh yeah, I’ll give him a call, he’ll be perfect’.
Then, if you do look them up and find that their website is actually several years out of date and looks amateurish, or they’ve not got any examples of the work that they’ve done online, or they’ve not got any reviews, any testimonials, nothing that gives the credibility that you’re looking for or, worse still, you can’t even find them online, chances are you’re not going to use them.
So, for those businesses who are potentially listening to this saying ‘well, I don’t need any sort of marketing, all of my business comes through word of mouth’ well, no it doesn’t. All the business you receive comes through word of mouth, all the business you don’t receive should be coming from somewhere else. A lot of the word of mouth that you should be getting isn’t coming to you because people can’t verify that you’re as good as they’re telling you they are.
I’m hoping people who are listening to this and watching this are going to want something that actually reflects what you are, so whenever people do say to you ‘all my business comes through word of mouth’ you can realise that is not a good thing.
What happens if you’re in a networking group where all your business comes through word of mouth, and that networking group closes? Or you have to leave it? All of your business will stop like that. Gone. Here’s the other problem for you, and this is the problem for people who want to be successful in their business, not for people who have lifestyle businesses or one-man bands that never want to get any bigger, but how do you scale a business like that? How do you scale a business where everything is word of mouth? You can’t. You can’t replicate word of mouth, you need other sources of referral, other sources of business, other sources of leads. Otherwise, you’re just going to stay the same size that you are, which means you don’t have a business, you have a job.
So, for those people who think all of my business comes from word of mouth referrals, have a word with yourself, look at your business, look at where stuff is coming from and realise that if you want to actually grow, then you do need you do need to take action.
I’ll see you on the next podcast.
