How to do word of mouth marketing

We can say that we are in an era where the attention economy has reached its peak. In my previous article, 'The Age of Masses,' I talked about how the power, which was once completely neglected and managed without the need for manipulation centuries ago, is now in the hands of the people. Therefore, all politicians and companies are now trying to convince the public in some way.

Currently, all companies resort to various techniques to sell their products/services. However, very few of them can be successful. Even those that are successful eventually become ineffective after a while. How? Think about door-to-door advertising, think about television advertising, phone advertising, email advertising, social media advertising, their subcategories, and many other advertising methods... When these were first used, they all performed very well because they were new, and there were very few companies using these methods, meaning less competition. Moreover, people had not yet developed immunity to these new methods.

• Immunity, you said? Wasn't that for diseases?

• Yes, immunity.

Just as we gain immunity to diseases, we also gain immunity to advertisements.

Think about a new painting hung in your house for the first time. In the early days, it catches your attention a lot, and you may stop and watch it for a few minutes from time to time. How do I know? Because my father is a painter, and every new painting he made would give me such a feeling. Then, after a few days (at most a week), you completely stop seeing that painting. The same goes for advertisements and everything else.

Our brains are evolved to focus our attention on things that are new and extraordinary. Otherwise, our ancestors wouldn't have survived in nature because our attention is extremely limited, and we can only focus on one thing at a time. If we spend our attention on things we constantly see around us that do not pose a threat, we may not notice the approaching lion, right?

Another reason advertisements have lost their effectiveness in recent times is that people are now tired of advertisements. I'm sure you'll agree with me on this. We see ads everywhere, on every website, every app, every movie or any content, every street, every square; we see so many ads that it's impossible for our brains to remember them all.

So, is it easier to memorize a single-digit number or a 10-digit number? The answer is simple, the fewer, the easier to memorize. The same is true for advertisements... if you see one ad a day, you probably won't forget it, but in this period, seeing hundreds of ads, you'll likely forget even the most effective one.

Talking about ineffective advertising methods, I cannot skip mentioning the advertisements given to influencers on social media. About 5-6 years ago, influencers were very popular, and many people trusted them. Seeing this, companies gradually started giving ads to influencers. At first, these ads worked well because people considered these ads as a kind of recommendation. Then, after some time, they realized that influencers were not recommending a product because they genuinely liked it but were paid to advertise it. Well, when money comes into play, honesty, trust, honor, and many other virtues disappear. Some influencers even started to commit fraud, and we are not unfamiliar with this in Web3.

What is the most reliable source of information about a company?

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, the answer to this question is "someone like me." The CEO of a company is in the 8th place, and public relations is in the 10th place.

As we can understand from here, we have very little trust in the information provided by company members. We trust our friends, acquaintances, and people in our environment more.

So why do companies still continue to advertise even though they don't work or work very little?

Answer: they have no other choice; they have no other way to promote their products. This is not a big problem for very large companies because they have enormous advertising budgets, and they are already known worldwide. For example, think about Coca-Cola; even if it doesn't advertise, I think it will continue to be consumed for decades.

But when it comes to small companies or a newly established company, they don't have the luxury to spend money on ads that work very little. They need something else. They need something that they can do with very little money, something with a very high impact, something that will allow them to compete with the budgets of giant companies, something that has spread everything since ancient times. That method is word of mouth marketing.

So how does word of mouth marketing work?

As the name suggests, word of mouth marketing is based on the power of rumors that spread from mouth to mouth. It existed even when there was no advertising industry. In fact, it is still one of the biggest reasons why many brands have spread worldwide. So, is there a way to control these rumors? Yes, thanks to the science of sociology, we have learned a lot about societies and now know why some things spread like an epidemic and why some do not.

There are two factors that will spread a rumor. If you can control these, you can spread anything, whether it's an idea, a brand, or a belief.

These two factors are the Stickiness Factor and the Power of the Environment.

Stickiness Factor:

It is a measure of how long an idea, behavior, brand, etc., can stay in people's minds. Think of a virus that infects half of the people it comes into physical contact with. This is a high rate. But suppose the virus loses its effect only one hour later, and the immune system defeats the virus. In that case, it would be a bit difficult for the virus to spread worldwide. However, if we think that it sticks for 10 days instead of one hour, then it would be a case like the corona pandemic.

Brand awareness or the use of a product also spreads like a virus. Some products we always use. Some products are used only once, and then they are not used again. Some brands are very important in our lives, while we have never heard of others.

The extreme point of the Stickiness Factor is habit. If you are going to try a brand's product for the first time, you think a bit. However, if the Stickiness Factor is high, after using that product a few times, you no longer think when you buy that product again. If you buy a coffee from Starbucks every morning on your way to work, you don't think about it every day.

So how can we increase the Stickiness Factor of a product/service?

• First and foremost: it has to be useful. It is not easy for something that does not work to spread among people. Everything spread around the world is something useful in a certain field. For example, even football spread because it was very good at entertaining and exciting people.

• The second one is to be provocative. For the Stickiness Factor of something, whether it's a product, an idea, a behavior, a belief, or an emotion, it needs to be provocative. By provocative, I don't mean it necessarily has to be physical. Even if it makes you think about something, it counts. The best way to ensure that something is not forgotten is to put it into practice. Does reading a recipe make it memorable, or is it making and eating that dish?

• The third is to make it exciting. This is very similar to the one above and closely related. Don't waste time explaining everything; get people excited. Have you ever seen someone in a movie trailer explaining why you should watch that movie? Of course not. They excite you by presenting cut scenes from the most effective parts of the movie with good music.

• The fourth is to be simple and understandable. It is impossible for complex and incomprehensible things to stay in our minds. Especially, if you address the masses, use a language as simple as a child can understand. Think of politicians speaking in front of the masses. In fact, if you carefully listen to what they say, you will notice that they do not say very wise things; they just talk using concepts such as democracy, freedom, justice, nation, nationality, which the people they address have adopted and which evoke certain images in their minds, even if they do not fully understand them.

• The fifth is repetition. Advertisers say that a commercial needs to be repeated at least 6 times to be memorable. Is it easier to memorize a single-digit number or a 10-digit number? The answer is simple: the fewer times, the easier to memorize. You need to show people your brand's logo, products, music, etc., repeatedly if you want them to remember. Even Coca-Cola advertises constantly. Of course, seeing the same ad for the same brand all the time can be a bit boring. That's why we'll do the repetition not with advertising but with the repetition of the rumor.

The Power of the Environment:

I want to tell you about the Broken Windows Theory. If a window of a house stays broken for a certain period, it indicates that there is no one living in that house or that it does not belong to anyone. It gives the illusion that there is no punishment for breaking another window or stealing something inside.

This theory says that small things like this cause an increase or decrease in crimes. Imagine a city where streets are poorly lit at night, drunk people roam around, dirt is everywhere, there are spray-painted writings on walls (mostly swear words). Do you think the crime rate in this city will be higher or lower than in a clean city? The answer is very simple. But why? Because dirt means no order and no law. Well, without law, chaos is inevitable.

What this theory tells us is how even the smallest environmental impact can greatly affect our behaviors. By just changing environmental conditions, you can control whether a person will show any behavior, adopt any thought or belief, go into any emotional state, or like or dislike anything.

Another effect of the environment is the society itself.

If something is adopted by the majority, it is inevitable that it will also affect the rest. In fact, the majority is not even necessary; if something is adopted by a group of people, it is inevitable that it will attract the attention of others. For example, imagine walking on the street, and you see a dozen people looking at the sky. Wouldn't you stop and look if there is something interesting? If there is something really worth looking at, then very quickly everyone's eyes in that place turn to the sky.

There is no connection between this and social pressure. If many people are running away from something, it means there is something to run away from. If a song is listened to a lot, it means it is a good song. If a lot of people shop in a store, either there is a discount or the products are very good. You can multiply these examples as much as you want. Regardless of whether we want to admit it or not, the environment affects the decisions we will make; there is no escape.

If you are not at the head of the state or a very large company, it is very difficult to change the environment or shape society. Therefore, what you can do is to produce products and services that are suitable for the environment. The importance of doing this, especially today, is very great. Because in the Middle Ages, the lifestyle of people did not change even within a century. There was no change in thinking or lifestyle between the previous generation and the next. However, today, every generation is completely different from each other, technology is developing very rapidly, and our lives are changing with it. It is impossible to predict how people will live a century later.

If you look at the big companies that have gone bankrupt in the last fifty years, you will mostly see that they went bankrupt because they could not keep up with this environmental and social change. Some of them are: KODAK (1889-2012), GENERAL MOTORS (1908 – 2009), COMPAQ (1982 – 2002), TOWER RECORDS (1960 – 2004), PETS[DOT]COM (1998 – 2000), BORDERS (1971 – 2011), PAN AM (1927 – 1991), TOYS R US (1948 – 2017), POLAROID (1937 – 2001), BLOCKBUSTER (1985 – 2010). If you want your company to be long-lasting, you will either create change or adapt to it; there is no other way.

While writing this text, I thought of the breakfast cereals I consume frequently at some point. I thought, did these breakfast cereals change our breakfast routine, or did we start consuming these breakfast cereals because of the fast-paced life, everyone rushing somewhere, and not having time to prepare a nice family breakfast except on weekends? In other words, did the companies that produce cereals succeed because they produced a very good product or marketed it very well, or did they succeed because our lifestyle changed, and we needed a quick and nutritious breakfast?

Thank you for reading this far. In this article, I tried to explain how something spreads from mouth to mouth. Actually, this topic is very comprehensive, so I couldn't talk about everything, but you can think of this article as a start. In my next article, i will explain how you can use the power of word of mouth to market a brand.