Word of Mouth – An Internet Marketer’s Tool

I was on a Twitter conversation with Ken McArthur (JVAlert Live) where we were talking about word of mouth.  The sales of his book, Impact, have really taken off because of what people are saying about it.

Word of mouth… it makes me think of that old Clairol commercial… and she tells two friends, and she tells two friends, and she tells two friends.  Pretty soon the whole TV screen was filled up with ladies all talking about how wonderful Clairol’s hair product was.  What a great illustration of the power of word of mouth.

The beauty of people spreading the word about you and your products or services is that it doesn’t cost you a cent.  It is viral, and like a virus, can spread faster than any ad campaign you’ve paid money for, or any other advertising for that matter. 

So what can you do in order to become word of mouth worthy in internet marketing? 

Offer great value – excellent content and more than expected. 
Help people who ask for help. 
Help people on forums.
Have quick response time on your help desk. 
Follow through on what you promise. 
Give away valuable free stuff.
Be a positive person.
Go the extra mile. 

Think about the marketers that you gush about to others.  Look at what they’ve done to earn your respect and word of mouthness.  I’m sure they didn’t earn it by simply sitting up on their throne all day.

Just think, if you had only 20 friends who love your blog, and they each told 2 friends, who then told 2 friends, and then again, you’d be up to (um, let’s see, carry the one…) 160 people before you could say word of mouth 5 times fast. 

Or if you’re Ken McArthur and start with 1000 chatty friends, you’d be at 8000 rather quickly.

One of my favorite examples is the 10 man accapella group called Straight No Chaser.  They disbanded in 1998 but were asked to come back to Indiana and do a show April 2006.  Just for grins one of the guys put some clips of the old performances on YouTube. They had 6 million YouTube hits and many rabid fans by that Christmas. YouTube was the vehicle that took SNC viral and straight to a recording contract and now an album that came out this October. 

If you want to go viral in internet marketing, and who doesn’t, you’ve got to get yourself noticed first.  You can help yourself out by using Squidoo, HubPages, YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, forums, etc.  Social networking has been coined “The Internet’s word of mouth“.  You can also get interviewed, do podcasts, author free viral ebooks and reports, and use press releases.

It’s nice to hear others say good things about you and your business, and if the comments are from someone other than your mom, you’ve earned them.  Good job!

Now go forth and tell two friends about this blog post…

Thanks.

Send me a Tweet

 

 

I keep forgetting to mention that I’m on Twitter now.

http://twitter.com/pegbaron

Please follow me if you want to and I’ll follow you back!

I can see how much fun it is… and also a good marketing tactic.

The key is to make it a successful tool while having fun but not spending too much time on it! 
I just purchased Dana Wilhoit’s Twitter Gold Rush ebook from her WSO so that I Twitter correctly and don’t get myself banned or anything.

Take care and hope to see you on Twitter,
Peggy

Cleaning Up My Internet Marketing

I was sitting here thinking that it’s time to organize my office again.  I don’t know how it ends up looking like such a hell hole.  I think maybe it’s because I’d rather work on all the great ideas I come up with than take time out for the minutia (see, had to look up how to spell that word it’s so foreign to me).

But not only is it time to organize my office, it’s time to organize my business.  Whenever my office is a mess, it’s likely that my business is in the same state.  I need to stop doing and take a look at what I have done.  What is working?  Which branch is making me the most money?  How many branches do I even have?  What is the biggest time suck – the most amount of work for the least gain?  Have I given that project 100% and it’s a loser or have I only given it 25% and just really don’t like doing that?  How can I take my most profitable stream and multiply the results?  How can I make more money at it while putting less time into it?

When all is said and done, I can’t put more than 24 hours into a day and I want to work what is working.

After assessment of my income streams:

Less favorable streams – stop, sell, or grow them.
So-so income getters – stop, sell, or grow them.
Great money makers – do more of them in number, add higher ticket products, outsource some of it to help put it on autopilot, capitalize on my expertise and find similar but grander projects.

With any decisions I make, I will formulate a plan on how to achieve what I want.  How do I get from where I’m at with a particular model to where I want to be?  There are steps to take; some easy some steep, but they are always concrete steps.

I get a little sad when I say goodbye to a niche that isn’t working or an idea that doesn’t turn out to be one of my better ones, but there is also this sense of relief because I no longer have the work involved in those projects nagging at me from the midst of the messiness that is my office.

Everything is cleaner and clearer now.  Next up… I’m going to come up with some goals for 2009.

PLR Articles>Opt-In Report>Growing List

I’ve got a WSO going right now that I’m proud of.

It’s not a pie-in-the-sky dream I’m selling.
Oh no… it’s practical information you can use! Right now.

If you have PLR articles sitting around (or even if you don’t have any) and you want to know how to put together a great opt-in report to grow your list, then this WSO is for you. http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-…your-list.html

Go for it – step by step instruction with links to how the report looks each step of the way from raw PLR to awesome report. 

Take care,

Peggy
P.S. You can create any kind of report you want with this information, not just an opt-in report to grow your list. You can create short reports and sell them!
http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-…your-list.html

P.P.S. This ebook is not the same as the Rewrite PLR Quickly and Easily ecourse. This ebook is like the next step in using your PLR to your best advantage.