I talk a lot here about social networking and word of mouth marketing.  I ran across a recent report from BIGresearch that finds that 94.2% of consumers regularly or occasionally give advice about products and services they purchased, and 90.8% regularly or occasionally seek advice about products and services before making a purchase. Are you doing anything to harness the power of WOM advertising?  Or are you running in horror that someone might post a negative comment?

When you go online to research a product or buy something don’t you always look at the customer reviews? I know I do. I wouldn’t even think about buying something on EBay without considering the Seller’s rating. When was the last time you bought a book on Amazon and didn’t read the customer reviews? What are you doing to give brides a way to check out your fabulous reputation? Hoping they post on theKnot.com? Asking them to tell all their friends? Come on. The only time most people are going to go out of their way to post about you is if you made them mad. “Going out of their way” was the key phrase in that sentence. How about making it easier for them?

Let’s look at EBay and Amazon. When I buy something on EBay I quite often receive a follow up from the seller to post a positive review to up their rating. They always include an active link where I can post my rating. Do you do that? If you did, where would they post?  Look at any book on Amazon and there is a link to “Review this Book”. It is right out there, easy to find and for the world to see. Even blogs do this. At the end of every post is a cue to “Post your comment”. It is all about making it easy for the people you please to spread the word. Trust me, the ones you anger will find a way no matter how hard it is. (More on that later)

I met with my web designer and am having him enable comments on each one of my columns. I’m making it easy. I want to know what you think and I want you to know what my other readers think. You should be doing the same. You need to have a comments page on your website. It needs to be easy for everyone to find to both post and view. Since it is on your website you control it and have the ability to delete something if you need to. You also need to follow the lead of the EBay sellers and send a follow up email with an active link to each of your clients encouraging them to share their experience. You have to prod them to post. . By having it on your website, front and center, it lets your potential clients know that you have nothing to hide. “Yes, please review me. I have ever confidence that you will be happily satisfied.”

I have said it often enough that you should know it by heart now; today’s brides trust personal recommendations far more than advertising. How far are you going to use that bit of information? A marketing site I read made the comment that anyone can post one or two positive testimonials, but who can argue with one or two hundred? Give your potential clients the personal recommendation of as many happy clients as possible Yes, there is a good possibility that the random negative comment will show up. I want you to know two things about that. First, like I said if it is on your site you have control and the power to remove it. Second, I hope you will read it and learn from what was said. It may sting but you need to know what is being said so you can fix it. It is how we improve. Better that a disgruntled bride limits her negative comment to a site you can control rather than go completely off the deep end like this young lady did. http://angrybride.proboards107.com/index.cgi Yes I buried that url as far into this article as possible but feel free to post there. I’m all about transparency.

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