Let Your Voice be Heard – The Importance of Word-of-Mouth Marketing

“Where should we go for dinner?” This is always a dreaded question in my household. My family has never been one that is up on the new trendy places or familiar with places that are getting rave reviews from critics. Lucky for us, we can now turn to social media for plenty of suggestions. More and more social media has become a platform for individuals to voice their support, enjoyment, gratification, or dissatisfaction for a product, service, or event. With all of this word-of-mouth publicity, smart businesses are starting to take note.

Screen Shot of Yelp.com/Santa Monica

Yelp is currently atop the list of websites that allow customers to search for local businesses and review their experiences. This is a great example of word-of-mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth marketing is a great way for businesses to advertise without breaking the bank. But with sites like Yelp, that basically allow any user to become a critic, businesses also have to be sure that customers have an all-around pleasant experience. Otherwise, there are negative consequences that have to be dealt with.

In a recent blog at http://wordofmouth.org/tag/yelp Kevin Lee explains how businesses should work with these online reviews. In three seemingly simple rules, Lee gives valuable advice for the best results with user review sites such as Yelp. In a nutshell, he advices businesses to never write fake reviews as a way of marketing, to never respond to negative reviews negatively, and to be sure and respond to the feedback that is given.

As a Yelp user myself, it is very easy to see how strong of a marketing tool this can be. Any time I am looking for a new restaurant, gym, hair salon, etc. I visit Yelp. I read the reviews to see if it is a business worth exploring. When there is negative review after negative review, I quickly move on. Obviously, those businesses are not yet aware of how word-of-mouth marketing can significantly influence customers.

On multiple occasions I have read negative reviews that were later retracted because the business reached out to the user and corrected whatever issue the user had. Those businesses are likely aware that Yelp can be a great way to bring in new business. There are also many organizations that proudly display the “look for us on Yelp” banners. It’s clear that these places are using word-of-mouth marketing to its full potential.

Resources:

http://www.yelp.com

http://wordofmouth.org/tag/yelp

http://bumslogic.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/yelp.jpg