5 Strategies to Amplify the Power of Word of Mouth Marketing With Examples

Traditional acquisition channels such as paid ads are expensive and unpredictable. But with the power of word of mouth marketing, you can acquire customers for your Shopify store while keeping your acquisition costs predictable and under control. 

Plus, recommendations from friends and creators are perceived as more trust worth and genuine compared to recommendations from paid ads. This makes shoppers feel more confident about their purchase decisions, saves time, and reduces the risk of disappointment.

In this article, we’ll discuss what word of mouth marketing is, its benefits, and five effective strategies to boost word of mouth marketing for your ecommerce brand. Let’s dive in!

What is word of mouth marketing?

Word of mouth (WOM) marketing is a strategy that encourages customers to share their positive experiences about a product, or brand with their family, friends, and followers.

This form of marketing is incredibly powerful and effective because people trust recommendations from those they know. 

In fact, Nielsen study, which surveyed 40,000 people across 56 countries, found that 88% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know above all other forms of marketing messaging.

WOM marketing offers several benefits for ecommerce businesses such as: 

• Cost-effectiveness: WOM marketing allows brands to set their own commissions and incentives, making it more sustainable, predictable, and often less expensive than paid ads.
• Higher conversion rate: WOM marketing has a 30% higher conversion rate than other marketing channels. 
• Increased Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Customers acquired through word of mouth marketing spend 200% more than the average customer. 

Now that we know the benefits of running WOM campaigns, let’s discuss five powerful strategies that can amplify your word of mouth marketing.

Strategy #1. Turn your customers into affiliates 

One of the effective ways to get more people talking about your store is by turning your customers into affiliates.

After a customer makes a purchase, invite them to join your affiliate program. Once they do, give them special discount codes or trackable links they can share with their network. Whenever someone uses their code or link to buy from you, they will earn an affiliate commission.

By building a customer-centric WOM campaign, you’re creating a system that encourages and rewards happy customers to spread the word about your brand. This results in more customer recommendations, increased brand awareness, and more sales for your store.

However, turning your customers into affiliates via email flows can be a time-consuming and inefficient process. 

Social Snowball allows you to automate that with our “Turn customers into affiliates” feature. It will help you turn each customer into an affiliate on the Thank You page right after they buy from you. All you need to do is toggle the button to activate the feature. 

Now whenever someone purchases from your store, Social Snowball will automatically create an affiliate account for them. Additionally, they'll also get their custom tracking link or discount code to share and start earning rewards. Here's how it looks ⤵️

Goorin Bros, a hat-making company, used this unique feature of Social Snowball and onboarded over 30,000 customers as affiliates. This resulted in more than $30,000 in new incremental revenue from word of mouth.

Strategy #2. Leverage user-generated content

Content created by customers such as photos, videos, or online reviews about your products or brand is called user-generated content (UGC).

Many people trust this kind of content more than what brands create because it is more genuine and authentic. Your target audience can rely on the experience of another consumer more than a brand trying to sell their products with promotional content.

Here are some effective ways to leverage UGC to boost word of mouth marketing: 

• Create a branded hashtag: Craft a unique hashtag for your brand and encourage customers to use it while posting about your products. This makes it easy for you to find and share their content.
• Run contests: People mostly don’t have the time to actively create content about your brand. So, you need to run contests and offer attractive incentives to motivate them to share more photos and videos using your products.
• Engage with and share UGC: When customers feel appreciated and valued, they tend to talk more about your brand. So, repost content created by your customers on your social media sites on a regular basis. 
• Simply review system: Make it easy for customers to leave product reviews on your site. Then, post positive reviews of your business on social media platforms. These act as powerful word of mouth recommendations.

Take a look at how Solawave, a skin-care brand, leveraged user-generated content to boost word of mouth marketing. They published a social media post sharing a positive customer testimonial, which showcased real results and experiences from their customers.

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Strategy #3. Incentivize affiliates generously

Your affiliates are the ones who actively talk about your brand and bring in new customers. So, it’s important to incentivize them well so they stay motivated and prioritize your brand over competitors.

Also, well-incentivized affiliates tend to stick with you for a longer period of time, create more videos about your products, and post them on their socials. This boosts word of mouth for your Shopify store.

For instance, Prettylittlething, a women’s fashion clothing brand, offers a generous 20% cash commission and motivates their affiliates to promote their brand actively.

Along with paying good commissions, it’s also important to pay your affiliates on time. But when you have multiple affiliates in your program, managing and sending payments can get difficult.

However, Social Snowball’s integration with Trolley allows you to pay your affiliates in bulk with just two clicks. You can choose between PayPal, bank transfer, Wire, Check, or Venmo to process the payment right from your dashboard.

Here's what Oliver Brocato, Co-founder of Tabs Chocolate, said about his experience with Social Snowball’s bulk payout feature: 

"Earlier, I used to get anxious at the end of the month because I'd have to sit down and find out everyone's PayPal information and make sure I'm sending them the right amount, there was a ton of back and forth. I had to hop on phone calls with a lot of the creators and would block out multiple days every month just for that. But now, using Social Snowball, I’m able to distribute all of the payments to our creators with one click of a button."

Strategy #4. Gamify your affiliate program

This strategy involves adding game-like elements to your affiliate program, which encourages affiliates to actively promote your brand and earn more rewards. It makes the whole process both fun and engaging. 

One of the best ways to gamify your affiliate program is by using a tiered structure. Here’s how you can implement it: 

• Create different levels or tiers based on performance metrics like the number of referrals or revenue generated
• Offer increasing rewards as affiliates move up the tiers (e.g., higher commissions, free gifts, higher-value store credits, or gift cards)
• Provide clear goals and milestones for affiliates to strive for

When your affiliates see the potential to get better rewards at each higher level, they are more likely to increase their efforts in promoting your brand.

PurelyB, a superfood brand, has successfully implemented the tiered structure and gamified their affiliate program. Here’s how they have structured their tiers:

• Tier 1 - Refer $0 - $999some text
  • Affiliates give 10% off to new customers
  • Affiliates earn a 10% commission
• Tier 2 - Refer $1000 - $4999some text
  • Affiliates give 10% off to new customers
  • Affiliates earn 15% commission
• Tier 3 - Refer $5000 or moresome text
  • Affiliates give 10% off to new customers
  • Affiliates earn 20% commission

PurelyB has designed it in such a way that as the affiliates move up the tiers, they earn more commission.

If you want to learn more about how to gamify your affiliate program and get better results, we have created a massive 20-page playbook with strategies and examples to help you. You can download it here.

Strategy #5. Activate your affiliates with email flows

Activating affiliates through strategic email flows helps you engage and motivate your customers to become active promoters of your brand.

This strategy allows you to onboard your affiliates, send them resources about your product, share content guidelines, and tips which can help them get you more sales. 

Activation email flows can also help you consistently remind and encourage affiliates to share your products. It will keep your brand fresh in affiliates’ minds and consequently boost word of mouth marketing for your brand. 

Social Snowball’s integration with Klaviyo allows you to seamlessly incorporate affiliate data into your existing email flows and marketing campaigns. This creates additional touchpoints with your customers to nurture referrals.

For instance, you can include affiliate information, such as referral codes or links, in your post-purchase flows to introduce your brand’s affiliate program.

Here are the 10 custom properties you can add to your existing or new emails with Social Snowball:

For example, Fanjoy, an ecommerce merchandise, leveraged Social Snowball and Klaviyo's integration to include their affiliate program details in the post-purchase email flows. Here's how it works:

• After a customer buys a product, they receive a thank you email with shipping details within 24 hours.
• About two hours later or the next day, Fanjoy sends another email explaining how the customer can make money by promoting their products.
• If the customer doesn't sign up or engage with the previous email, Fanjoy sends follow-up emails.

With this email flow created, Fanjoy onboarded over 60,000 customers into their affiliate program. Also, they earned $100,000 in new incremental revenue through referrals.

Conclusion

To run a successful word of mouth marketing campaign, you need more than just quality products, good customer experience, or reliable customer service. You need to constantly motivate and reward your customers to share their experiences with your products. 

By implementing the marketing strategies we’ve discussed, you can turn your happy customers into brand advocates who will spread the word about your ecommerce brand.

Want to take your word of mouth marketing to the next level? Schedule a demo with Social Snowball today and turn your customers into motivated affiliates.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a way to measure the impact and effectiveness of word of mouth marketing?

Absolutely! While word of mouth marketing can seem intangible, there are some key metrics you can track to measure its effectiveness:

• Conversion rate: Track how many customers become affiliates after purchase.
• Referral orders: Monitor the number of orders placed using affiliate links or codes.
• Referral revenue: Measure the total revenue generated through referrals.

Social Snowball can help you track these metrics effortlessly, providing valuable insights into the performance of your word of mouth marketing. 

How does word of mouth influence consumer decisions?

Word of mouth influences consumer decisions by building trust and credibility. People tend to trust recommendations from friends and family members more than traditional advertising. Positive word of mouth can make people confident about purchasing something, while negative word of mouth can discourage them from buying.