As a small business owner or entrepreneur, you may not have the funds to hire your own marketing department. While it’s fine to not have a department that works on marketing and advertising your business, these two things are still incredibly important if you want your business to grow and become successful. A successful business relies on proper marketing and advertising techniques, and there are many ways that you can accomplish this solely with word of mouth.
What Exactly Does Word of Mouth Mean for a Business?
The term, word of mouth, basically refers to your customers, clients and other business owners talking about your company and spreading the word that you’re there, in business and ready to provide your services. If you’re a restauranteur, for example, your word of mouth might come from customers who love the food. It could also come from you just letting people know in the local area that there is a new business open and that they should make use of it and check it out for themselves. 
Word of mouth could also refer to people talking about your business on the Internet. Nowadays, review sites and social media sites allow for people to talk about your business, spread the word and let people know what you’re all about. Unfortunately, not all word of mouth marketing is good, since many individuals who are dissatisfied with your company may write bad reviews about it or just tell people the bad experience they have had. This is why it’s so vital to try to keep word of mouth concerning your business positive so that people actually want to come in and make use of whatever type of company you happen to be running.
Tips for Better Word of Mouth Marketing
Word of mouth marketing is easy to accomplish when you provide a good service and superior customer service to those who have made use of your business. For example, those who own a store will want to put extra effort into their customer service so that the clients walk away and have something good to say about your company. If you provide bad customer service, you’re taking the risk of people spreading rumors of bad experiences that they might have had while there. This is definitely not something that you’ll want if you’ve just opened a new business and are trying to get it known to the public.
Word of mouth could also come from your own doing both locally and online. Go to local businesses and tell them about the business you’ve just opened. If you have business cards or brochures, be sure to share these with local companies so that they can hand them out to their own customers if they would like. If you live in a small town or city, let people know that you’ve just opened and what type of company you’re running. You’ll be surprised how quickly word of mouth will spread when a new company comes to town.
Also, don’t forget that word of mouth also goes for your online presence as well. Social media sites can be a wonderful place to spread the word of mouth that you’re in business and what types of services you offer to the public. Create a social media page for your company and link it to other businesses in the area. Make the sites searchable for those who might want to learn more about you. You could also put emphasis onto creating a website specific to your own company, and this can be a great resource for those who want to learn more about what you’re offering.
How to Deal with Bad Word of Mouth
Word of mouth can be both positive and negative, and you really never know what it’ll be like until you start hearing some feedback from customers or other business owners. One way to prevent bad word of mouth is to provide your customers with good service and superior customer support if they should need it. Even with good support, you may still get some people who simply want to bad mouth your business to anyone who will listen, and this can severely hurt a new business owner who is simply trying to do their best.
The best way to deal with negative word of mouth is to respond calmly and professionally to these individuals. For example, if someone writes a negative review on your social media page, there is no reason to blow up on the person and yell via the Internet. However, you can respond in a professional manner apologizing for their experience and doing anything you can to remedy their issue. By creating a professional atmosphere for even the negative comments, word of mouth will resound with your company so that it brings more business in for you.
