Use Brand Advocates to Drive Sales Using Word of Mouth Marketing

Did you know that the recent hit music video “Gangnam Style” was made so popular due to simple Word of Mouth marketing?

Today, “word of mouth” is the most powerful form of advertising, as 92 percent of people say they trust word of mouth, while only 33 percent of people trust online advertisements. 

So how exactly do you spread word of mouth messages about your company?

Rob Fuggetta, founder and CEO at Zuberance, suggests using Brand Advocates, customers who recommend a company or product without pay or incentives. Fuggetta discussed in an ITEXPO (News - Alert) session today “How to Leverage Brand Advocates to Drive Leads, Sales, and Positive Word of Mouth” just how effective advocates can be as a company’s marketing team.

“We are all brand advocates because we are all constantly recommending things to each other,” said Fuggetta.

One company that has found success through brand advocacy is VoIP provider Ooma, which has struggled with marketing in the past due to a low advertising budget. Ooma decided to turn its customers into its marketing department since they can’t afford flashy, expensive advertising, and use word of mouth marketing with the help of Zuberance.

According to Fuggetta, in order to have successful word of mouth marketing, you must identify, amplify and track. Utilizing e-mail, social media, forums and more to get its message out there, Ooma identified 27,690 advocates using word of mouth.

Using Zuberance’s platform, Ooma invited its advocates to write reviews for the company on preferred sites including Amazon, OfficeMax, Target, Sears, Facebook (News - Alert) and Ooma’s own website. Also, Zuberance invited Ooma advocates to create stories about Ooma that sell.

All in all, advocates completed over 4,000 positive reviews and stories about Ooma.

Additionally, Zuberance can also track in real-time everything that advocates do. Customers simply visit the Zuberance dashboard to see how their well advocates are performing.

With 11,000 advocates, Ooma got a 50-percent CTR (click through rate) and a 25-percent conversion rate using Zuberance’s Word of Mouth marketing strategy.

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