Effective Word Of Mouth Tactics – Part X

Last weekend I was relaxing on my deck, reading a few books on sales and marketing, when I heard a loud POP just a few feet away.

Apparently, my beautiful wife Michele had been watering our garden, when our “As-Seen-On-TV” expandable pocket hose suddenly exploded in her hands, spraying water all over her.

“It’s was only 20 bucks,” I thought to myself. “I’ll just go right onto the internet and buy another one.”

If you’re like me, now that spring has arrived, you’ve been bombarded recently with a zillion TV commercials for various versions of these hoses.

One of those commercials impressed me, because its star claims to be “the original inventor” of this revolutionary type of hose, and the owner of three patents for his innovation. I found the “official” website for this XHose Pro and was impressed by its claims of quality and durability.

Another factor in its favor was that this XHose Pro cost 50% more than its competitors. That helped convinced me that this XHose Pro was the high-quality leader in the field, and was the one I should have bought in the first place (had I known it existed).

So there I was, just about to enter my credit card information and click the “Order Now” button, when something told me to pay attention to this current Word Of Mouth series I’ve been writing here on this blog and check for online reviews about this XHose Pro.

I was completely shocked by what I found.

Amazon.com listed 245 reviews, 188 of which were the lowest 1-star rating, for an overall 1.5 out of 5 stars.

Here are the Top 4 reviews that appear for this product on its Amazon.com page:

Then, when I checked again yesterday, I found these two most-recent reviews:

And this one, posted two days ago by a homeowner very near me:

Needless to say, I did NOT buy the XHose Pro. In fact, after doing a quick check of all of the various “expandable hoses” on Amazon.com, I discovered that almost all of them had similarly-overwhelming negative reviews.

I went down into my basement, carried up our “old-fashioned” hose, and connected it to our outdoor faucet. This one doesn’t expand and contract – but it also doesn’t explode.

So there you have it, dear reader: A powerful, timely example of the power of Word Of Mouth to influence a buying decision. And, of course, I’m not NEARLY the only one whose buying decision was influenced by negative online reviews.

Today, we continue our multiple-part series with an overview of an extremely powerful form of Word Of Mouth marketing: the phenomenon known as “Viral Marketing.”

Here are some simple steps to generating a message that spreads like wildfire online…

1. Come up with an interesting idea related to your products or services
2. Make it easy for people to experience your products or services
3. Spread the idea with people who have significant online followings
4. Use paid advertising to boost your social media efforts
5. Develop a way that people can check out your products or services that automatically draws more people to check them out

There are many websites you can use to launch your viral marketing campaign, but you should focus the large majority of your time and effort on the Big 3:

• YouTube
• Facebook
• Twitter

One of the most successful examples of viral marketing is the famous “Will It Blend?” campaign orchestrated by Blendtec, Inc., which incorporated all of the steps I’ve listed above.

Through a series of fun, interesting, outrageous videos where Blendtec founder Tom Dickson “blended” various unusual items, including golf balls, cellphones and video games, the company amassed over 300 million views on YouTube and reportedly increased its revenue by over 700%.

Oh, and by the way…

The Blendtec “Total Blender” has 568 customer reviews on Amazon.com, including 474 of the 4- and 5-star variety.

According to Amazon.com, 115 reviewers have posted similar comments to this review, which appears at the very top of the list:

“This blender is worth every penny and one of the best investments I have ever made.”

If you are a loyal follower of mine, then you know how strongly I feel that the most basic obligation of any business owner is to provide an excellent product or service.

The effects of Word Of Mouth on the Blendtec Blender vs. the XHose Pro illustrate the power of this principle in a crystal clear way.