Effective Word Of Mouth Tactics – Part XI

In last week’s post, I discussed the fact that the “XHose Pro” and other brands of “expandable hoses” have an overwhelming percentage of extremely negative customer reviews on Amazon.com, yet people continue to buy millions of dollars worth of these worthless garden tools through television commercials and internet websites.

One of my loyal readers alerted me to a similar situation, this time involving a brand-new book recently published by a VERY famous author.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Hard Choices” is currently the #4 book in overall sales on Amazon.com, and #1 in three different categories: “U.S. History,” “Women’s Studies” and “Gender Studies.”

This, despite a dreadful 65% of reviews giving it the minimum “1 Star” rating (there is no “0 star” rating option on Amazon.com).

The most common review is: “This book only tells her side which is a lie” (according to Amazon.com, “76 reviewers made a similar statement”).

What conclusions can we draw from this?

1. Mountains of publicity and/or marketing can lead to a flood of sales, despite the public’s judgment that the product or service is of poor quality (prime example: McDonald’s)
2. Celebrity status can trump overall negative public reviews about a lack of skill or talent (prime example: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s box office success)
3. When a company or individual has a large number of raving fans, overall negative feedback from the general public can’t stop massive sales (prime example: Kim Kardashian)

*By the way, this not only applies to Ms. Clinton’s book. After all, The next President Of The United States is likely to get skewered all over cable news channels and social media, and have at least 60 million Americans vote against him or her.

Does this mean you shouldn’t care at all about negative Word Of Mouth about you or your business?

Well, if you have a multi-million dollar marketing budget, are an internationally-recognized celebrity figure, or have tens of millions of raving fans, then I guess you’ll make plenty of sales no matter what.

For the rest of us mere mortals, we need to make sure that we…

1. Provide an excellent product or service,
2. Maintain our personal and professional integrity,
3. Maximize positive Word Of Mouth, and
4. Minimize negative Word Of Mouth

…at all times.

Last week, I shared the phenomenal success of the Blendtec corporation’s internet-based “Will It Blend?” viral marketing campaign.

Now here are six things every business owner, entrepreneur and sales professional should be doing to maximize your benefit from positive Word Of Mouth on the internet…

1. Include as many Word Of Mouth components on your website as you can
2. Make sure to constantly monitor your viral marketing efforts
3. Place testimonials throughout the various pages of your website to walk a prospect through the purchasing cycle
4. Set up a multi-step email marketing campaign
5. Stay up to date on whatever products and services the experts in your industry are recommending
6. Use your website to demonstrate all the great ways people are successfully using your products or services

Oh, and here’s one more Bonus tip for you…

Make sure to encourage your most-satisfied customers, clients or patients and most-enthusiastic raving fans to post online reviews about you, your company and your product or service, and have a system in place to minimize and overcome any negative reviews you might get.

*Unless you’re a politician. Then there’s really nothing you’ll ever be able to do to avoid getting negative publicity and nasty attacks from your enemies.

Then again, the whole name of that game is to sling more mud at your opponent than he or she can pile onto you.

As a result, millions of books are sold, millions of votes are captured, and the political pundits and late-night comedians have plenty of fodder for their ongoing routines.

The politicians don’t really care about any of this, just as McDonald’s isn’t concerned about its poor food quality, Arnold Schwarzenneger provides box office magic despite horrendous “acting,” and Kim Kardashian continues to count her ever-increasing millions of dollars while scarcity-minded people grumble and complain that she has “no talent.”

Oh, and authors pack in adoring fans at book signings and top the best-seller charts, no matter how bad their books may be.

You, dear reader, should be a lot more caring and careful about your reputation, and that of your company – both online and off.