Get People Talking About Your Brand!
Making Your Brand Word-of-Mouth-Friendly
In this episode of The Brand Cure, we covered how to make your brand more word-of-mouth-friendly, so you can generate referrals and turn your small audience into a big one!
You can catch it on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify — or you can listen to it right here! Or you can read the abbreviated outline below.
Enjoy!
Abbreviated/Edited transcript below
why does this even matter?
for more reasons than you think!
Making your brand word-of-mouth-friendly:
Makes you more memorable.
Telling a more word-of-mouth-friendly story about your brand makes it easier for your customer or prospective customer to remember you! If they can’t easily understand what you offer and why it matters to them, they’ll have a hard time storing it away in their memory for future use.
Makes you more shareable.
You want to make it easy for people to tell their friends about you — others who may want what you’re selling! That one person you’re telling about your business, represents everybody he or she knows, so making your story compelling and easy to pass along is important!
Improves your marketing.
Making your brand more word-of-mouth friendly forces you to get really clear about your own brand! If it doesn’t work on a person-to-person level, it won’t work at a business-to-consumer level either. Get it right at an individual level first, and then carry that into your marketing for a powerful impact!
the signs of a word-of-mouth-friendly brand
It’s a story people want to tell.
People want to tell their friends about it. It’s exciting and rewarding to have something cool to tell people about! We all want to have the inside scoop on the next big thing, and be in a position to tell our friends about something cool and exciting. But we need a hook — something that will get the attention of the listener!
**Listen to the podcast episode to learn the two main qualities of a story people want to tell!
It’s a story people are able to tell.
If your customer or loyal fan can’t find the right words to articulate why you’re awesome and worth checking out, they probably won’t try. Why? Because it’s no fun to try and convince someone that something is cool, if they’re just going to lose interest while you’re struggling to find the right words. Give her an easy way to explain what you do!
It’s the story you want told.
Having a word-of-mouth-friendly brand only really serves your business if people are telling the right story about you. If people are misunderstanding what you do, or missing the point, and sending the wrong curious seekers your way, that’s not what you want. You want people to tell a story about you that attracts your dream clients and sends the right opportunities your way!
how to make your brand word-of-mouth-friendly
know what you want.
Imagine how you’d like people to talk about your brand. Picture what you’d love people to be saying about you, and how you’d like them to tell their friends about you! Start here, because once you do the next step, it may be hard for you to remember exactly what you wanted in the first place, without outside influence.
know where you are.
find out how people actually talk about your brand. Ask 4-5 friends, peers, or customers how they would describe you or your business to a friend or colleague who might be interested in what you do, and listen to what they tell you.
Assess the story people are telling.
Based on the factors listed above, decide how strong that story is. Is it:
A story they want to tell? Are they excited and eager to tell the story, and would the story they’re telling make people want to come check you out?
A story they’re able to tell? Are they able to easily express the main idea, or are they struggling to find the words, adding lots of extraneous detail, and having trouble conveying what makes you awesome?
The story you want told? Is this the story you want told about you? Will it attract the right opportunities and people to you or your business?
Decide what action you need to take.
To get people telling the story you want them to tell, you may need to:
Adjust your business. You may need to do things a little differently in your business in order to earn the story you want. If you’re building a business that does one thing, but you really want to build a brand and leave a legacy about something else, now is the time to shift. Figure out how to change course to build your business in the direction you truly want!
Adjust your messaging. You may just need to revise your messaging to give people the right story — one that they’re excited to tell, and able to tell, and that you want them to tell. You may need to remove friction and simplify your story, or shift your messaging to focus on something more aligned with what you truly want to build.
That’s the gist of making your brand more word-of-mouth-friendly, so you can start turning that one engaged person who follows you, or buys from you, into 10, or 20, or 100 people.
Be sure to listen to the podcast episode (on Apple iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify), because there are lots of examples and tips to help you really leverage word-of-mouth marketing for your career or business!
Free download
P.S. There are two free worksheets included for this episode, to help you apply everything I covered, and start making your brand more word-of-mouth-friendly. Click the button to grab it!
Hey! I’m Ashley.
I’m all about growing your mission-driven business with heart and intention! If you need help connecting authentically with your dream clients, you’re in the right place!
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