Due to budget considerations many small and medium business owners base their marketing strategy solely on having a website and getting good word of mouth. Word of mouth can be an effective form of marketing because people tend to trust personal recommendations, and although word of mouth may be a PRIMARY GOAL of your advertising strategy, it is NOT an alternative to advertising.
Advertising creates thousands of times more word of mouth interactions than product sales alone. The companies that believe most in the power of word of mouth, also spend the most money on advertising to generate it AND help take control over what people are talking about. Advertisers maximize and optimize word of mouth while those who don’t advertise just let it happen to them. They get much less of it and have no say in the narrative.
Word of mouth is restricted geographically or “socially”. You won’t be able to reach a very wide audience if that’s the only type of marketing you rely on, while advertising allows you to target the right audience for your product or service and expand the reach considerably.
Word of mouth is not predictable, measurable, nor reliable. You have no say in what’s being said about your business, to whom, or when. This means you should never count on word of mouth, but treat it as a helpful and welcome bonus.
For example, if you are a Real Estate professional and your expertise is in specific geographic areas, chances are you are known to the local community and enjoy a good reputation based on local recommendations. This carefully created reputation, however, needs to be reinforced with local advertising, such as ads on condo digital screens about the area of your expertise, to make sure that your name appears at the top of mind of your potential customers more often than any competition in the same area.
If you are interested in finding out how advertising on condo digital screens can enhance your marketing strategy and support the word of mouth for your company, give us a shout and one of our local marketing specialists will be happy to customize the best solution for you.
