Word of mouth marketing (WOM) gives people a reason to talk about your products and services. If you want to create a BUZZ, word of mouth marketing is the best way to promote your business.

WOM is the act of building strong consumer-to-consumer or consumer-to-marketer communications.  WOM also makes people want to talk about your company – you empower people and give them a voice. What better way to brand your business than to have others do the work and “spread the word”?

Basic Elements – Word of Mouth Marketing

•    Educates customers about products and services

•    Gives away freebies and prizes to customers

•    Transfers communicate message effortlessly between people and uses other’s resources and websites

•    Integrates common human behavior and motivations (i.e. the need to be popular, loved, happy, etc)

Don’t use WOM to fake out your customers – people aren’t fools and they deserve respect.  Remember to treat them with integrity and INTELLIGENCE!  Artificial WOM will only come back to haunt you and your reputation – stay away from deceptive and manipulative tactics!

Blog Viral Marketing – Explode Your Message to Millions
Blog viral marketing uses the same elements associated with WOM. Viral marketing is a promotional strategy that encourages people to pass along marketing strategies to others. Like a computer virus, “viral” marketing EXPLODES messages to millions of people across the world.

When it comes to viral marketing, it’s like a tiny pebble thrown in the water that causes a widespread ripple effect. You only need to make a small effort in order to see BIG results!

Benefits of Blog Viral Marketing
• FREE – You don’t incur promotional costs – use other people’s FREE online resources and sites!

• REACHES HUGE audience – People contact others for you and then they contact more people – experience “chain results” and watch your traffic and revenue increase!

• BUILDS Reputation and Credibility – Since people are spreading the word about your blog, your company will gain credibility and earn a great online rep!

WordPress Tell a Friend Plugin – Spread the Word Quickly!
The most powerful tool used in viral marketing is the WordPress Tell a Friend plug in.
Tell a Friend is a FREE plugin added to blogs that allows users to pass along sites to other people.
•    Place “Tell a Friend” button on your blog and when blog visitors want to spread the word, they simply click the button and an email form pops up.

•    Visitors fill out the email forms and send out emails to their friends telling them about your blog – it’s that EASY!

Tell a Friend supports major free email providers (Hotmail, Yahoo, Google, etc). Log into your account and it pulls your address book instantly! Instead of sending out ONE email at a time, you can email hundreds of your contacts at a time.  HUGE exposure to your blog!

Additional Perks:
• You can add plugin to sidebar text, end of blog posts and/or your home page.

• When visitors click on widget button and email screen pops up, it doesn’t re-direct away from your blog.

• Tell a Friend scripts can also be used on e-commerce sites and to promote e-books.