What was the best type of marketing you have ever done...

[Adventurelife]

I use a range and mix it up all the time as well as trying new ideas.

Normal mix is

Website seo
PPC
Printed material
Beermats
Online networking
Video production and distribution
Making sure every client leaves with a CDR full of photos of their event
Giving events away
Films on large screens in good locations

Without doubt the website seo brings in the most new business though

[andrewburnett]

Marketing campaigns have to be engineered towards your target market and there is never a 'one size fits all' approach. A garage will never do well with a on-line viral campaign but a door drop just might work. But still word of mouth is the best marketing anyone can have.

Word of mouth most definitely is the best marketing anyone can have - largely because the person being given the word does not consider the mouth to be a marketer, but rather a happy customer.

That marketing needs to be engineered toward the target market is without dispute, but I can't agree entirely that an on-line "viral" campaign cannot work for a garage - let's take a moment to analyse this:

Take a garage in Edinburgh, any garage that has a website. Let's say this website ranks #9 for "edinburgh garage" (the worst position you can have on the front page) and are looking to improve their rankings for this search term.

They do a video of a mechanic trying to pull the wool over a "blonde babe" motorist's eyes only to have her show herself to be more knowledgeable than them. The video is promoted cleverly and gets so many views it damn near buckles their server. People link to the funny video using relevant anchor text in their links and the garage now ranks #2 or #1 even - attracting 20 times as much relevant search traffic as it did before.

Just as in word of mouth marketing people don't get the feeling that they're being targeted in a marketing campaign - and that my friends is the best marketing technique. Nobody likes to feel they're getting marketed at.

[TFGtv.com]

Originally Posted by andrewburnett

That marketing needs to be engineered toward the target market is without dispute, but I can't agree entirely that an on-line "viral" campaign cannot work for a garage

Quite so.....

Wheelie Cheap

Or remember the wee Chinese lassie that came on to Dragon's Den

LINGsCARS DRAGONS' DEN BOOK

She came on looking like a cross between a bag lady and an errant twelve year old. Spoke Chinglish throughout the show and appeared to be half mad with her nuclear missile truck et al....

I met her at a CNY do a year or two back. An elegant young Chinese woman who spoke perfect English and is so sharp she'd cut you to ribbons!

She shifts a lot of motors too!

[Adventurelife]

I agree that word of mouth marketing is by far the best ROI for a business.

However, if it is why do more businesses not focus on improving their WOMM?

Most businesses think that WOMM happens because of good service and having satisfied clients. I agree that that does happen and that should be the minimum a business should strive for.

In other areas of business we have systems. Systems for finance, operations, HR, sales etc so all businesses should have a system for WOMM. In my experience most do not.

Each business needs to innovate and produce a system that will work and DRIVE their WOMM and then measure the results then hone it .

Example.

I take clients on adventure experiences. The minimum I can do to provide good WOMM is ensure that we provide a experience from start to finish that exceeds their expectations and provides excellent value for money.

Achievement of that minimum objective will provide WOMM but to really drive it we need to provide reasons for the clients to act as walking ambassadors of our business.

To get that to happen we do the following some examples included.

Each client leaves with a CDR disc of photos that we know get shown to other and posted on social media websites etc etc

At various times of the year we contact past clients with the news that they have won a free weekend with us etc. We always ensure these are of high value normally around £250 and up. ( The individual may for example work in a very large call center and knows it is a genuine prize as they know who we are, WOMM is driven far an wide quickly around the work force)

A female client raves about about here weekend break with us and how she must get here husband to come along. In response to her thank you email we sent a free half day gift voucher for her husband for her to give as a xmas present. With in two weeks we had sold 14 gift vouchers to her friends for their husbands xmas presents. Husbands , then seen this as an excuse to get a weekend away so the booking ended up as a full weekend package.

Long drawn out way to explain, but hopefully you will get my message. WOMM can be improved by a system

[TFGtv.com]

Originally Posted by Adventurelife

A female client raves about about here weekend break with us and how she must get here husband to come along. In response to her thank you email we sent a free half day gift voucher for her husband for her to give as a xmas present. With in two weeks we had sold 14 gift vouchers to her friends for their husbands xmas presents. Husbands , then seen this as an excuse to get a weekend away so the booking ended up as a full weekend package.

Long drawn out way to explain, but hopefully you will get my message. WOMM can be improved by a system

This is very true....

Time permitting I often re-cut footage into little client profiles which I simply give to the client. Likewise if a potential client's very close I'll occasionally spend an afternoon doing a very simple free profile for them. As I have client confidentiality policy which means that I generally don't use pad-for programmes for promotional purposes this is not only a way of yielding material for demo policies but invariably generates 'good karma', fresh leads and more often than not 'paydirt' business that vastly outstrips what I've given away.

[andrewburnett]

Actually I've just been reading through a report by Universal McCann which shows that the motivation for sharing an opinion through social media channels is higher for:

Good personal experience
Someone you trust having a good personal experience
The brand is high quality
A friend’s recommendation

than Bad personal experience.

Are we facing an age where positive messages are passed on by word of mouth more than negative ones? (This flies in the face of the conventional wisdom on word of mouth which states you tell 9 people of a bad experience and 1 of positive experience)

Ultimately if your (online) marketing efforts entertain / offer a resource / provoke thought and do not directly put the hard sell on people you will have more success. In the digital age these more abstract methodologies can also be quantified....

[TFGtv.com]

Originally Posted by andrewburnett

Are we facing an age where positive messages are passed on by word of mouth more than negative ones? (This flies in the face of the conventional wisdom on word of mouth which states you tell 9 people of a bad experience and 1 of positive experience)

No, no a zillion times no! It's EXACTLY that notion that floats around many big corporations and it's simply an excuse to abdicate responsibility for real customer care.

I DO however think people are more willing and able to take what are far more effective and powerful platforms which means that there is far MORE feedback 'out there' both positive and negative.

A good example. The other night Heather (Idea15) felt the need to let off steam after a bad experience with a retailer. She posted of her experience on her blog. Personally I've pointed a good dozen folk to that blog entry. If she'd posted of a positive experience I'd have made a mental note and only passed the positive message on when I heard of someone actively in the target market....

[andrewburnett]

A good example. The other night Heather (Idea15) felt the need to let off steam after a bad experience with a retailer. She posted of her experience on her blog. Personally I've pointed a good dozen folk to that blog entry. If she'd posted of a positive experience I'd have made a mental note and only passed the positive message on when I heard of someone actively in the target market....

Haha, I caught that steam on here... some internet marketeer or another suggested she write it as a blog post

[andrewburnett]

No, no a zillion times no! It's EXACTLY that notion that floats around many big corporations and it's simply an excuse to abdicate responsibility for real customer care.

Big corporations that think this evidently have seen the Universal McCann report and failed to realise that it only applies to one channel of influence!

[TFGtv.com]

Originally Posted by andrewburnett

Big corporations that think this evidently have seen the Universal McCann report and failed to realise that it only applies to one channel of influence!

There do seem to be a lot of them though. Witness the crap service from RBS, SKY, Littlewoods et al.... Tweak their noses and they'll all scream 99% customer satisfaction. It's like standing in a hail of bullets quoting the statistic that 99.99% will miss.

It only takes one and you're a gonner!