The Internet is abuzz with chatter. Many times the comments flying around forums, blogs, and social networks are unsolicited feedback about businesses, products and services. Positive word-of-mouth (sometimes classified as viral marketing) provides marketing results that money cannot buy, and negative feedback can have the opposite effect if not handled properly.

How to Get the Right People to Talk about Your Company

To identify the people that will give you the best results when talking about your products or services, look for groups online that are most like your customers. There will always be more people talking about you than customers – just picture how many people talk about sports cars but do not actually own them.

Finding people that use your product or service, who are also the types who will vocalize your product in a good way takes some research and time but you wil find them with a little diligence. Create a list of qualified target “talkers” from sources such as:

1. Bloggers who run blogs that relate to your product or service.
2. People who request free promotional items and samples by phone or online.
3. Trade show visitors who complete contest or “more information” entry forms.
4. Website visitors that complete your reply form online.
5. Find a few good online forums to hang around in like Google Groups or Yahoo Answers.
   

After you have identified your target commenters, think about what you could do to motivate them to write about you. Talkers are usually motivated by some combination of the same three elements; perks, recognition, and feeling important.

How to Identify the Topics Related to Your Business that will Keep them Talking

Create something in your business that is worth talking about. If nothing new, interesting, or out-of-the-norm is going on, then any discussion about it will probably feel contrived and boring.

For example, when cereal-maker General Mills released Fiber One bars last year, fitness and diet forums were blasted with discussion about the snack bars. The bar was hailed as one of the best quality and most nutritional granola-like products on the market, and sales of the product skyrocketed.

How to Chime Into the Conversation

Provide a forum and easy ways for people to talk about you. Some common online techniques will provide a place for your admirers to talk, and you to join in where appropriate.

NOTE! Be respectful. Remember that people are in those forums to chat and learn - not to hear your marketing pitch. They hate that and can smell it a mile away no matter how cleverly you insert comments about “this new product you found.” Add valuable and helpful comments to the discussions.

Try these techniques:

• Post positive testimonials from satisfied users on your blog or website as a conversation starter.
• Send an e-newsletter.
• Create a forum.
• Start an active blog with fresh new posts regularly.

How to Know if the Word-of-Mouth Campaign is Going Well

Believe it or not, there is actually a Word of Mouth Marketing Association. Within this association, there is a segment called the Research and Metrics Council that deals specifically with gaging the effectiveness of word of mouth campaigns.

They break down online word of mouth marketing into four categories of social networking sites; online communities, blogs, forums, and ratings/reviews.

You know you are successful with word of mouth marketing when people are saying good things about you. If your most influential customers are satisfied, and are talking about it, your marketing is working.

A tool you can use to gauge if your word of mouth campaign is working well is called the Net Promoter Score. This number can help you gauge the level of customer loyalty. This information comes from the answer to one commonly-heard question – something along the lines of “How likely are you to recommend XYZ Company to your friends.” The answer to this question divides respondents into three categories; Promoters, Passives, and Detractors. Promoters are the most value resource since they are the most loyal, and will give profitable referrals. Passives are neutral, and Detractors are seen as a liability, actually working against business development efforts. A business can calculate its own score by using this formula:

% Promoters - % Detractors = Net Promoter Score

When compared to competitors, this score is said to correlate to business growth, profit, and development.

The Flip Side of Word of Mouth: What to Watch Out For

Jack Trout has wrote “Is Word of Mouth All It’s Cracked Up to Be” for Forbes Magazine to help put word-of-mouth marketing into perspective, and explain some unavoidable consequences to people talking about your product. Most notably on his list is the inability to control what people are saying about you. He points out that word-of-mouth is finicky and unreliable, and should be used as one of many marketing tools in your promotional efforts.

The best marketing strategy is to use multiple methods that integrated with one another to clearly state your main message about your company. When people are talking positively about you, you have definitely done something right.

How do you get someone to think your website is so important they bookmark it? Better yet, try becoming a saved TAB in their browser, automatically opening each time Firefox or IE is opened. That is an accomplishment.

1. Offer Free Samples and Giveaways

An excellent example of this technique is Wal-Mart’s site. They have developed a free sample page on their site where manufacturers offer free samples of their products. The four or five samples offered change regularly and cover a wide range of products from coffee to skin cream. People bookmark their site and check it like clockwork. Deal forums buzz about the latest additions to the page, and people talk about it on the Wal-Mart blog.

2. Take a Poll

Ask an interesting but simple question. People that are interested in the topic will come back later to view what the consensus is by other like-minded site readers. A good example of this is USA Today. After you select your vote an updated tally of all votes appears. People become fascinated by what others are thinking, and the anonymity gives the belief of honest answers.

3. Provide Fresh, Original Stuff to Read

By offering new content to readers, they will come back to read more about the topic of interest. Make sure it is well-written, and you may become a resource in the business.

4. Give a Chance to Win a Prize

Of course, the prize needs to be something that readers will value. Daytime television shows are excellent at promoting their website through contests and prizes. For example, Rachael Ray’s daytime show regularly gives the studio audience substantial prizes worth several hundred dollars, like digital cameras, for example. Her active website is cross-promoted after the TV giveaway is announced, and at-home viewers are encouraged to go online to complete an online contest entry form for the same prize.

5. Become a Directory Resource

Within your page, you can provide links to other related resource pages where visitors can go for additional, related information about the topic. Lists of links, called directories, are a great way to do this. Be sure to check the links regularly to make sure they are still functional, and continue to add new ones as you find sites that might be of interest to your readers.

6. Report the News First

In your specific business, you are probably one of the first to know about breaking news stories. Report them on your site, and you will become the industry news leader, where people interested in your field check back regularly. Sports sites typically do a good job of including a news section where readers can go to see the latest information on games, players, and stats.

Use All Available Resources and Try all of the Above

Social bookmarking is another new way to get people coming back for more. Darren Rowse has written an article entitled, “Social Bookmarking: Getting Your Blog Noticed”, where he details the major social bookmarking sites, and how to use them to your advantage. Something you can learn from Darren is that creating a valuable website or blog involves more than just writing. He is very honest about his efforts in the areas of getting out there and networking, learning, meeting, greeting, and doing. It takes a lot of hard work to create real value and value is what keeps people coming back.

Do all of the above to help you get there. Just one or two are a great start but you should experiment with each of them from time to time and use most of them on a regular basis.

The beginning of a new year is a time when people reflect on their personal and professional lives.  It is a time of goal setting and reflection. This makes the flip of a new year a wonderful opportunity for leveraging the high level of motivation to make notable change in your small business. 

Get SMART about Your Goals

As with any change, it is essential to first carefully plan your goals and objectives. Goals need to be S.M.A.R.T., which stands for:

• Specific. The goal must answer the six W’s: Who, What, Why, Where, When and Which.
• Measurable. The goal must answer: How much? How many? When is the goal reached?
• Attainable. Have a reasonable timeframe, detail a goal achievement plan.
• Realistic. Is your business willing and able to work toward the goal?
• Timely. Without the urgency of a deadline, the goal will probably not be achieved.

5 New Year’s Resolutions to Consider

This year, resolve to make changes in the way you do business that will improve the quality of your work, increase your profit, and make your company the best that it can be. While there are thousands of possible goals your can work on, these five can have the biggest impact on your small business. 

#1: Fix Profit Leaks

Nurture a mentality of finding ways to save the business money. Reward cost-savings and profit leak identifications. When you spend your time getting it right first, you avoid costly “do-overs.”

An example of a concrete plan used in the building industry, including a worksheet for calculating the cost of quality, can be found in this article by Ed Caldiera called “How to Fix the Profit Leaks in your Business.” 

#2: Create a Marketing Plan, and Stick To It

Make a plan to be more involved in learning about marketing for your business. Network with others in your business online and in person to find what is working for similar businesses in different markets.

#3: Pay Attention to Your Marketing Database

Many small businesses do not have one - gasp! Perhaps you do but it is so full of clutter, inaccuracies, duplicates, and incomplete profiles that it is useless. Clean it, start one, or do whatever you need to do to accurately capture your customers’ and prospects’ information. This invaluable tool is essential for small businesses today. 

#4: Make it Easier to Work

Make it a goal to look at the internal work processes of your business. Are you working the smartest way possible? Do a work-flow analysis of your small business and look for ways to trim processing times, and cut out unnecessary tasks. There are plenty of workplace activities that happen “because we’ve always done it that way.”

#5: Make it Easier for Prospects to Work with You

Track your customer and prospect comments, especially the negative ones, and make changes when feasible. Are people telling you that your phone system is a pain in the neck? Fix it! An hour or two spent correcting the phone system can save you hundreds of abandoned calls.  The same holds true for your company website. Do people say they cannot figure out where something is? Make changes to help customers buy from you!

New Year , New Opportunity

Small businesses need to constantly evaluate what is working and what is not. Begin the New Year with a plan that plots out a year of goals. Break down the goals using a simple system like the SMART method and design a plan you can stick with until your resolutions are achieved.