Spending LUSH-iously on SEO? We wish we spent zero on advertising too.
Friday: Collaborate and Innovate
Word of Mouth (WOM).
In my years as a consultant, I’ve seen how WOM is one of the best marketing strategies to make your brand known. Aside from that, it is quite cheap as well.
As an independent professional, you have to know how to properly generate positive WOMs from people who’ve encountered your brand. It is their words and testimonies that will be vital as you establish your brand’s reputation.
In today’s business landscape, networking is key, and that includes letting your customers do a bit of the marketing for you and your brand. As an independent in the industry, you should always make sure your brand has positive engagements with your customers and target market.
Keep reading to find out how this brand saved up on a lot of money by utilizing the WOM strategy wisely.
I hope you find this week’s social media spotlight helpful as you work to make your brand known.
Miles Everson
CEO, MBO Partners
Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute
Collaborate and Innovate
LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics has a zero-spend policy on advertising.
ZERO!
Imagine how much they saved to reallocate the budget to other areas of the business.
Lush Cosmetics uses organic social reach to promote their brand. They create content that revolves around issues and events that they and their consumers care about.
Veering away from the usual methods of advertising, the brand focuses on their mission and values to raise awareness on the environmental and social issues that we (and their consumers) are exposed to.
Animal welfare, fair trade, ethical buying…
Even spreading the cause of controversial campaigns such as anti-fracking and the Guantanamo prisoners.
Because of this, people REALLY talk about them.
Their marketing strategy is to build customer favor and loyalty. It’s proven to be effective.
Effective = worldwide sales increased 26% YoY in the year 2016.
On top of their marketing, the shopping experience they offer is unique. Another layer of their brand identity is to make sure that their customers have a great time shopping in their stores.
The design and layout of their stores are colorful and fun, and they give their customers the chance to touch and smell the products. Their friendly and chatty employees give product demonstrations, too!
People love this set-up and they also love the cause that the brand stands for.
People buy things or are loyal to certain brands because they all have an important cause behind them.
It makes the consumer feel that they are contributing more than just buying a product.
Lush Cosmetics has definitely created “an almost cult-like following” without spending for advertising and by creating a great in-store experience.
Doing all that made people talk about them.
Word of Mouth (WOM)
It’s free.
It’s natural.
And, you make your customers do the marketing for you.
They’ll be happy doing it, too, because why wouldn’t they want to talk about something they love and are loyal to?
Customers have friends and family. Friends trust other friends. Family members trust other family members. One person will tell another, and that person will tell someone else.
It’s a chain of events.
With the right strategy, you can turn your brand into something viral. Much like what Lush did.
Your target market will talk about you both online and offline.
They’ll want to know more and they’ll want to buy more.
With the right strategy and planning, you can successfully promote your brand by using WOM to:
– Make your brand and your brand’s cause interesting
– Create a trigger for customers to notice you
– Gain value through happy customers’ experiences
– Provoke emotion (people share something that makes them happy)
Like Lush Cosmetics, are you ready to take your business or brand to the next level and utilize the power of WOM?
Word-of Mouth is one of many tactics of FYO, Find You Optimization. Lush provides us a great example of how we need to think beyond SEO and into FYO.
Hope you’ve found this week’s insights interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Friday’s Collaborate and Innovate!
