I agree that word of mouth marketing is by far the best ROI for a business.
However, if it is why do more businesses not focus on improving their WOMM?
Most businesses think that WOMM happens because of good service and having satisfied clients. I agree that that does happen and that should be the minimum a business should strive for.
In other areas of business we have systems. Systems for finance, operations, HR, sales etc so all businesses should have a system for WOMM. In my experience most do not.
Each business needs to innovate and produce a system that will work and DRIVE their WOMM and then measure the results then hone it .
Example.
I take clients on adventure experiences. The minimum I can do to provide good WOMM is ensure that we provide a experience from start to finish that exceeds their expectations and provides excellent value for money.
Achievement of that minimum objective will provide WOMM but to really drive it we need to provide reasons for the clients to act as walking ambassadors of our business.
To get that to happen we do the following some examples included.
Each client leaves with a CDR disc of photos that we know get shown to other and posted on social media websites etc etc
At various times of the year we contact past clients with the news that they have won a free weekend with us etc. We always ensure these are of high value normally around £250 and up. ( The individual may for example work in a very large call center and knows it is a genuine prize as they know who we are, WOMM is driven far an wide quickly around the work force)
A female client raves about about here weekend break with us and how she must get here husband to come along. In response to her thank you email we sent a free half day gift voucher for her husband for her to give as a xmas present. With in two weeks we had sold 14 gift vouchers to her friends for their husbands xmas presents. Husbands , then seen this as an excuse to get a weekend away so the booking ended up as a full weekend package.
Long drawn out way to explain, but hopefully you will get my message. WOMM can be improved by a system