A Complete Guide to Word of Mouth Strategies with Examples

Psssst. Did you hear about the new charcoal ice cream joint down the street? A friend at work mentioned it, and then you saw it on your Instagram feed from your social circle. 

People you trust like that particular ice cream, so you decide to try it — that’s what 88% of people would do, as we tend to trust friends’ recommendations over other channels. Put it all together, and those recommendations contribute to a whopping $3 trillion in revenue generated from word-of-mouth marketing.  

Hello, word-of-mouth marketing is the organic communication between people about a brand’s product or service or the brand itself. 

We’ll explain the different types of word-of-mouth advertising, its benefits, examples, and how to measure progress for this unique form of marketing.  

What is Word-of-Mouth marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing is a form of marketing that involves organic communication between people about a product, service, or the brand that sells them. 

Think about it: you’re quicker to trust word-of-mouth recommendations from your circle for a place to grab dinner than the billboard or Instagram ad you see after work. Why? Because you trust the people in your life more than a brand, even if you’ve heard of the company before. Word-of-mouth marketing is particularly effective because your social circle greatly influences your opinions, habits, and purchase behavior. 

Of course, casual word-of-mouth marketing occurs when two friends, family members, or even acquaintances discuss their experiences with a brand’s offerings. 

But brands can leverage a few different types of word-of-mouth marketing, including: 

• Affiliate marketing: Brands pay commissions to various partners like influencers, bloggers, coupon websites, and other publishers for each sale they bring after promoting the brand’s products to the partners’ followings. 
• Customer reviews: Happy customers write about positive experiences they had with the brand, which act as social proof to promote greater audience trust in interested new customers. 
• Referral program: Brands offer incentives to existing customers to refer friends and family to their businesses.

So, why is there so much hype around word-of-mouth marketing?

The Benefits of WOM Marketing

WOM marketing grows brand awareness and leads exponentially more than other forms of marketing — at a lower price, too. 

Word of Mouth marketing can provide businesses with additional visibility and trust that they need to grow their businesses significantly.

Yulia Belenkova CEO at Tapfiliate

Here are a few more details about the benefits of WOM marketing: 

• It’s more cost-effective than traditional advertising. Do you get paid to tell your friends about your favorite new makeup product or latest recipe? We know; we wish, too! See, WOM marketing is nearly free for brands because it leverages a part of the human condition that’s been around for centuries: our desire to connect with others. Even commission-based word-of-mouth marketing campaigns are much more cost-effective than billboard rentals, pay-per-click (PPC) ads, and internal content production. 
• It has viral potential without the cost of PPC ads. Social media platforms give your audience ample room to tag, comment, share, and mention your brand with their social circles, which can create a viral marketing bonanza that skyrockets your brand awareness with minimal investment required. 
• It increases the average order value (AOV). Customers tend to spend 200% more on purchases through WOM marketing than they would with other marketing models. Since there’s more trust initially, new customers won’t feel like they have to tread carefully or test a purchase before going all out. 
• Still, the same benefits of WOM marketing can be detrimental as well. Viral exposure isn’t beneficial to your brand if the sentiment is negative. Same goes for customer testimonials. In fact, 26% of people will actually avoid a brand if they hear a negative story about it from someone they know. 

However, you can mitigate the risk of poor sentiment with the correct data and analysis. 

How to Measure Word of Mouth

WOM marketing can spread the brand’s offerings and values to thousands or even more of their target audience. Keyword: can. Sometimes, word-of-mouth marketing campaigns fall short of the results you want. This isn’t a cause for concern unless you leave it unchecked. 

What is the best way to improve and optimize your WOM campaigns? Find out where you stand with performance tracking. 

So, what are we tracking? Everything that makes your WOM go round, including: 

• Mentions: How often your audience mentions or tags your brand in social media posts and comments. 
• Engagement: Comments, follows, and likes from your potential and existing customers on your channels. 
• Customer feedback: Conduct online surveys to find out how your customers perceive your brand and products.
• Website traffic (clicks): The number of people who navigate to your website as a result of your WOM campaigns.  
• Conversions: The number of people who purchase a product after hearing about your brand through WOM marketing. 
• Leads: The number of people who become marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) by downloading a demo or filling out a lead form. 

These are key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you assess performance. But how do you make sense of all this data? This is where an affiliate marketing platform like Tapfiliate comes in. 

Our software uses real-time tracking via cookies, affiliate links, and pixels to help attribute leads and conversions to the affiliate that brought them to your brand. Plus, you can filter reports by metadata and view performance specs by:

• Affiliate: View clicks and conversions brought by each affiliate, see highest-performing affiliates, and compare multiple affiliate performances over time. 
• Channel: See results by channel, including PPC ads, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok. 
• Product SKU: View best and worst-selling products based on the number of sales and total order value. 
• Social media assets: See performance for specific videos, infographics, and other assets used by your affiliates. 

But if you want a bird’ s-eye view of your results, our dashboard shows you total or time-based results from your campaigns, which you can access easily. 

Examples of Word of Mouth Marketing and What You Can Learn

Curious to see word-of-mouth marketing in action? Check out these examples.

Forever 21: User Generated Content

Forever 21 has over 14 million followers on Instagram, with plenty of word-of-mouth marketing that happens organically as well as with internal strategies. A quick browse through the #Forever21 tag generates a ton of results like this customer, who had her video watched over 4,000 times: 

You’ll note a few hashtags like #Forever21Haul to show up in Instagram’s search results. While this poster decided to share the content of her own volition, Forever 21 as a brand has actually created its own hashtag and encouraged other shoppers to use it when they post their content: #F21xME

Key takeaways:

• A dedicated hashtag for shoppers generated buzz and triggered word-of-mouth from loyal customers. 
• Brands with high followings have better luck directly asking them to promote their products. 
• Instagram is a particularly effective social media channel for retail fashion brands. 

• A dedicated hashtag for shoppers generated buzz and triggered word-of-mouth from loyal customers. 
• Brands with high followings have better luck directly asking them to promote their products. 
• Instagram is a particularly effective social media channel for retail fashion brands. 

Susmiescollection Influencer campaign

Influencer marketing is a great way to spread word of mouth. If you don’t have the same high following as Forever 21, you can partner with people who do have a high following of your target audience to promote your brand. Susmie’s Collection leveraged influencers to spread their brand awareness and reach a wider audience. 

Key takeaways

• Influencers help you tap into more of your target audience, especially if you don’t have a large social following. 
• Brands must pay influencers a commission on every sale generated from their campaigns. 
• Influencers use a variety of formats to promote products, like TikTok videos, Instagram stories, live Qs and As, product reveals, and more. 

Tapfiliate: Customer reviews

Customer testimonials are a great form of word-of-mouth that cost you nothing more than the duty to provide a stellar customer experience. For example, our customers here at Tapfiliate regularly post positive reviews about our software on popular review sites like G2 and Intercom. 

Key takeaways

• Customer testimonials offer objective and trustworthy information from existing customers that potential customers will trust. 
• Brands might consider sending infrequent email reminders, even with a small incentive, to encourage customers to rate their brand. 
• You can post customer testimonials directly on your website. 

Buzzfeed Shopping: Affiliate campaign

Buzzfeed is a well-known online publisher with millions of viewers worldwide. They often post articles that round up various products by niche and function for different target audiences and receive commissions from the brands that own the products they feature. While the brands don’t get product placements for free, the commission is well worth the cost if they receive ample conversions and sales as a result. 

Key takeaways

• Affiliate campaigns are flexible, with customizable cookie times and commission values to best suit your program. 
• Look for affiliate publishers that align with your target audience’s interests. 
• Watch out for fraudulent clicks and ensure you track affiliate performance on a secure platform like Tapfiliate. 

Start Word of Mouth Marketing Today

Word-of-mouth marketing gives your brand the juice to reach new heights without sky-high marketing costs. We see it every day on our dashboard, where our clients generate and track thousands of dollars in affiliate revenue from their partners. 

Ready to leverage word-of-mouth marketing for your brand?

Chrissy Kapralos

Chrissy Kapralos runs a Toronto-based writing agency called No Worries Writing Co. She’s passionate about helping businesses communicate and share their stories. When she isn’t writing about the latest tech and marketing content, you’ll find her traveling, cooking, or watching horror movies.