How are most restaurants, spas, hair salons, grocery stores and other local businesses built up? The answer: word of mouth. It’s been said that word of mouth advertising is the most powerful kind of advertising there is. This is absolutely true – yet most business owners put very little attention on deliberately cultivating word of mouth advertising.
How can you increase your chances of getting great word of mouth advertising? Here are a few tips.
==> Provide Great Quality Service
First and foremost, you need to have a fantastic service. This is the backbone of your word of mouth advertising.
If you run a restaurant, provide fantastic food with a friendly smile. If you run a spa, find the best massage therapists in your area. If you run a hair salon, get stylists who really know how to make people shine.
This is the beauty of word of mouth advertising: people tell their friends the truth about the product’s quality. If you aren’t providing fantastic service, word of mouth just won’t work for you.
==> Add a Personal Touch
There’s nothing quite like a personal touch. Someone who takes just that extra step to reach out to others makes a huge impression.
For example, the waitress who smiles and takes the time to remember your name. Or the stylist who really asks a lot of questions to get to know what kind of look and impression you’re going for.
When you create a personal connection with your customers, they in turn will want to help you out. If they feel like you’re a friend working there, they’ll tell their friends about you.
==> Ask!
Like many things in business, often time’s the best way to get people to talk about you is to just ask them to.
Ask people to bring their friends. Ask people to tell their friends about you. If you’ve established rapport and connection with people, they’ll be more than happy to help.
==> Create Consistency
People want to talk about consistent businesses. People want to know that if they send their friends your way, they’ll receive the same level of service that they themselves received.
For example, if you run a restaurant and provide great food one time and mediocre food the second time, people are going to have a hard time deciding if they like you. Even if you provide great food every time but cook the same dish differently each time, people are still going to hesitate to recommend you.
People won’t admit it, but consistency is actually a huge factor for determining whether or not you get recommended. Build a business that not only provides fantastic service, but provides it in a consistent way.
Finally, you need to have a realistic time frame. Word of mouth won’t book out your business in weeks. It happens in months, even a few years. Have patience, apply these tips and the rewards will come.