This is a guest post from Andy Sernovitz — CEO of WordofMouth.org and SocialMedia.org and New York Times best-selling author of “Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking.”
Advertising is the cost of being boring. With a remarkable product or service, you can get your customers to talk about you for free. Here’s why:
Conventional marketing is a spending cycle
With traditional advertising, you buy ads and hope they get noticed and bring in new customers. If you’re lucky, you bring in enough new business to buy the next round of ads. That’s sinking dollars into commercials and magazine spreads that don’t stick around long.
Word of mouth marketing is an investment cycle
Word of mouth marketing is different: Every time you invest in being a remarkable company, the love and loyalty for you grows instead of being used up. Instead of buying impressions, you earn fans. And because you’re not paying for ads to earn these fans, you get to reinvest these savings into even better products, services, and customer experiences — putting you even further ahead.
Word of mouth marketing earns loyal fans in any economic climate
Over the long haul, with word of mouth, you end up with a recession-proof competitive advantage that will carry you through good times and bad. That’s something traditional marketing just can’t do.
About Andy Sernovitz
Andy Sernovitz builds organizations that help people help each other. His company, GasPedal, builds peer-to-peer communities for people leading meaningful change at the world’s biggest companies, including SocialMedia.org and SocialMedia.org Health. He wrote the best-selling book Word of Mouth Marketing, which teaches you how to earn the respect and recommendation of your customers.
