I was very fortunate to attend the Word of Mouth Supergenius conference, put on by GasPedal, today in New York. The one day event featured fantastic speakers like Tony Hsieh, Saul Colt and Geno Church. Since this conference was targeted at SMBs, with small or no marketing budget, I thought you might be interested in what we talked about. Even though many of the examples at the conference were B2C, most of the theories discussed could easily be applied to B2B marketing.
Here are my top 3 takeaways:
1. “Delightful surprises earn long-term customer love.” (Tony Hsieh, Zappos)
Make customers happy!
Try taking most of the money that you would spent on paid advertising and invest it in the customer experience. I know this sounds radical, but it’s equated to a billion dollars for Zappos. The example that Tony gave was giving free shipping upgrades to loyal customers. This may be a very simple concept, but it’s something that makes Zappos customers very happy. This is how Zappos earns, “WOM by delivering wow customer service”.
2. “It’s not about your product; it’s about what you do with your product.” (Geno Church, Fiskars)
Wow, this one really hit home for me. Especially when it was announced that Geno helped increased sales by over 300% for a brand that was more than 350 years old. Geno put a lot of emphasis on bringing customers together offline to meet and discuss, which he believes is one of the best opportunities to create positive WOM. This really validates what Itracks and GOMC is doing with the On the Road events (our next stop btw is New York).
“If you want people talking about you, you need to make them fall in love with you and your idea. Love makes people talk.” Very nicely said, but how do you make people fall in love with you. Here are a few of his thoughts on the subject:
- Break the relationship of advertising and money by giving people a reason to talk – do something compelling
- Make it easy for others to talk - email and social media are great examples. Andy stressed that WOM is the carrier and the brand message just rides along.
- Remember the WOM test and ask yourself this question, “Would anyone tell a friend what you are doing?”
All and all this has been a great event at a fantastic location, the Chelsea Piers. The common themes throughout most of the presentations have been: keep it simple, be creative and if your WOM campaign doesn’t work, don’t worry . . . no one will know.