Classics: 4 Ways to Generate Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) Marketing: Show Notes & Transcript

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, we revisit our conversation with Sue Frech about how to generate word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Strategic Counsel Summary
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Strategic Counsel: Classics: 4 Ways to Generate Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) Marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing (WOM) is the most coveted – yet elusive – marketing channel for many. It is generated by a consumer who loves your brand SO MUCH, they openly and frequently recommend you and talk about you to others. You can’t buy your way into these authentic testimonials – you must earn them. For this episode, we invited Sue Frech, Co-Founder & Former CEO of Vesta (acquired by TINT), a digital community platform company, to discuss ways to generate WOM marketing. This episode covers everything from WOM marketing to testimonials. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• How do you generate word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing?
• What are Sue’s examples of compelling products?
• How do you exceed expectations with your product or service?
• What are Sue’s thoughts on promos & deals?
• How do you leverage influencers?
• What are the best ways to use PR?
• How effective are PR stunts at creating results?
• Why should you build a digital community instead of a Facebook group?

And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

• Classics: 4 Ways to Generate Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) Marketing
  • [0:32] Welcome to Strategic Counsel: Classics
  • [0:39] How do you generate word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing?
  • [0:45] Learn more about Sue on LinkedIn and at TINTup.com
  • [2:54] How do you offer something people will be compelled to talk about?
  • [7:25] What are Sue’s examples of compelling products?
  • [9:58] How do you exceed expectations with your product or service?
  • [14:34] What are some memorable experiences Sue has had?
  • [16:15] How do you make sure your product or service is valuable?
  • [18:16] What are Sue’s thoughts on promos & deals?
  • [19:48] How do you leverage influencers?
  • [26:25] What does Sue think about influencers?
  • [29:28] How do you invest in a digital community platform?
  • [33:05] How do online communities work?
  • [35:18] How do you focus on PR (Public Relations)?
  • [40:28] What are the best ways to use PR?
  • In-the-Trenches
  • [43:48] What kind of ROI (Return on Investment) should you expect with WOM marketing?
  • [49:04] How effective are PR stunts at creating results?
  • [52:22] Why should you build a digital community instead of a Facebook group?
  • [54:32] How do you find influencers?
  • [57:45] How do you pay your community back?
  • [1:01:52] How do you know if your brand is ready for an online community?
  • Strategic Counsel Shoutouts
  • [1:06:01] What’s the story of Vesta?
  • [1:09:40] Learn more about Sue on LinkedIn and at TINTup.com
  • [1:10:04] What is her background?
  • [1:13:44] Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
  • [1:13:46] Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

What is Strategic Counsel?

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic. 

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:01
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct, and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team, and your business. Now let’s get to it.

00:28
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel podcast. I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we’re pulling from the vault a marketing smarts episode that is always relevant. Four ways to generate word of mouth marketing with guest Sue Frech. So Sue is now starting her own thing as an EOS implementer, helping founders, CEOs, and business leaders get more from their business. Definitely her expertise in building word of mouth marketing is going to be critical in translating her credibility and reputation in this new space. But also her relationship’s gonna be very key here as well.

00:58
So this episode’s a great reminder on how to build relationships that are central for business growth. In the world of AI instead of forget it systems, it can be very easy to neglect generating order math marketing, but it’s still raised supreme of all marketing channels generating the best ROI. So as you approach your 2025 planning, we recommend revisiting your efforts here using this episode as inspiration. So let’s get to it. So.

01:21
Word or mouth is generated by a higher level consumer, and this is someone who loves your brand so much that they openly and frequently recommend and talk about you to others. And it’s the best form of advertising because it authentically comes from the consumer in their own words. But it’s also probably the hardest to generate because it isn’t something you can directly buy, unlike other forms of media.

01:45
Yeah, and for people with marketing smarts, they can learn how to ignite word of mouth and then stoke it. So sometimes this is done mechanically, sometimes more organically, both of which we’re going to talk about today in this episode on four ways to generate word of mouth marketing. But first, we have a special guest today to give breadth and depth to this topic, and that is Sue Freck, co-founder and CEO of Vesta. Sue, thanks for being with us today. You want to say hi and introduce yourself?

02:14
Hi, yes, I’m Sue. Thanks so much, Anne and April, for having me. I’m really excited. You know, word of mouth is something I’m passionate about, but I am the founder and CEO of Vesta. Excited to be here. Great. And we are looking so much forward to you providing some additional context to a lot of these topics we talk about, because you have a special platform that could be of really big use to our listeners as they are developing their word of mouth platform. So we’re going to talk about that a little bit later.

02:44
Great, so let’s jump into the four ways to generate word of mouth marketing. All right, the first way. Offer something people feel compelled to talk about. And the key to this is to find a way to really impact life. And this is about generating what we call emotional integrity. So it’s similar to what people talk about in terms of themselves. So you’ll hear people talk about.

03:11
IQ and EQ and IQ being kind of like that intellectual quotient or that smarts. And then there’s the emotional cue, which is more of the emotional knowledge that the people exhibit. And brands are actually thought about it in the very same way. So if you talk about the brand’s IQ, you’re talking a lot about their product performance benefits. And this is very, very common for a lot of brands and businesses. But

03:40
you may tend to ignore the EQ, which is more of that emotional impact that the brand delivers. And this is really what drives word of mouth. It’s the impact of the emotional versus the functional impact. And really the fact that when they work together, that they create this element of compelling content or message or value that people really, really crave and want. So for example, when I was working on Tide,

04:10
We would talk about the fact that Tide removes 100 stains or a thousand stains, or you name the number of stains, and other laundry deterges would do very similar. That’s the product benefit. But when somebody is talking about Tide or somebody wants to recommend Tide, they’re not talking about how many stains were removed. They’re talking about the situation in which the stain was removed. For example, if somebody got a stain on a garment or a sweater that they absolutely loved and it was extremely special to them.

04:38
They would talk about the fact that Ty was able to remove that stain and it was able to save their sweater. Or if Johnny’s white baseball pants were extremely, extremely dirty, moms would just rave about the fact that we were able to get those baseball pants clean and they didn’t have to soak them in bleach forever and they didn’t have to replace them. So this is an example of how the product benefit or the IQ translates into an EQ to give something compelling for people to talk about.

05:07
April, I know you had some examples on this too. Yeah, so the first one I’ll start with, I’ll keep the laundry train going here. So I worked on Downy Wrinkle Release, and similar to what Anne just said, I mean the product performs. You spray that on your clothes, there’s a couple steps you have to follow, but it’s super easy and intuitive, and you don’t have to use the iron anymore. Now of course, when this product comes out, right, it’s a game changer in and of itself for that reason, but really it built to almost like a cult following.

05:36
because people no longer had to stress so much about when they were running out the door and they realized they were wrinkled, their kids were wrinkled, their husband was wrinkled. You know, it’s kind of an entire family in those moments where you’re trying to race out the door and you’re like, shoot, now we’re gonna look bad because our clothes are wrinkled. And so there was this whole emotion that built around it and this whole almost like secret.

06:00
to what was a way that you could make yourself wrinkle free and really put together was the essence of that emotional piece so that when you went out to whatever event you were rushing out the door to, you didn’t necessarily feel that stress anymore. And I would say similarly, another product that I worked on was boogie wipes. And so mom’s another huge component to this one. But you know, when your kids are little and they’re super congested.

06:25
and you’re trying to clear out their nasal passages, it’s excruciating for mom and for the kid because they’re screaming and then you’re sweating and you’re super stressed out and trying to figure out what to do. Well, boogie wipes and the subsequent mist was something that worked really well to, yes, dislodge all that, make them feel some relief, get everything moving in the way that it should, but the calmness of the process and the lack of anxiety for mom and kid once they started using those products.

06:54
was hugely instrumental, another cult following situation. I use them, they’re recommended to me, I give them to every new mom that I meet, know, and I rave about the product. And so that’s the EQ that we’re really talking about here. Yes, they’re effective and they have to work, so we’re not saying that’s just dismissed from the whole situation, but really wanna get to that place where you’re connecting on that very emotional level. Right, Sue, do you have some examples to throw in there?

07:22
I do. And I’m so aligned with you on that emotional connection. And we know it makes it more memorable and inspires that conversation. We have a cold and flu brand that we work with. And when we first met with them, we were talking about all of the features and the benefits and what it does. But at the end of the day, when we talked about putting that messaging in front of their consumers and their community, we decided that it made more sense to talk about that emotional tie to their product. So it’s not about.

07:49
reducing your fever, reducing your cold, it’s about getting back to the things you love. So it’s getting back to playing with your kids, being at a sporting event, you know, when the world opens up, going to a party, or maybe even going back to work. So then when the consumer is standing at the shelf, they’re not thinking and being overwhelmed by all of the features of every product, and they do look so similar, they have that emotional tie. And when they’re ready to share and a friend says, what cold and flu product do you use? There’s that memory there.

08:17
of that emotional tie. So 100% aligned with you on that piece of the EQ. Yeah, and that shelf, man. You can just forget it. I mean, I think that’s exactly right. I mean, you get there, and unless you can remember, if you have that recall of that brand for that differentiating reason, otherwise it’s just a sea of, I have no idea what to choose. Right. Right, right. Yeah, and I think you guys all made good points too, in the fact that the product has to work well. So your EQ can’t overcome your IQ.

08:46
But it is definitely the differentiating factor that can make somebody choose you. And that’s also a reason why a lot of people tend to use cause and purpose marketing, which can also be a way to differentiate and create some EQ. And if this is something you guys are interested in, go to our episode, Four Guidelines for Effective Cause and Purpose-Based Marketing, and we explain all about cause and purpose based marketing and how to most effectively use that.

09:16
In that, it’s definitely a connection of IQ and EQ together. For example, we talked about Tidal as a hope as being not only an extreme torture test for the product, but also the EQ of helping people in times of need. So it’s a very interesting way of being able to pull those two together. But another way to offer something people feel compelled to talk about is to exceed expectations on what you promise. April, you have a good one for this one. Why don’t you jump in?

09:45
Yeah, so I’ll jump in here. You know, we’ve talked, if you’ve been listening many times about restaurants and hotels are another place where loyal clientele programs really exceed at this. And so when they’re done right, they’re creating an experience that goes well above and beyond what you think you’re going to get from that hotel and they’re rewarding.

10:05
the loyalty that you have for those chains. And it becomes kind of a reciprocal thing. So it’s like you get treated well, so then you go back and then they treat you well again, and then you continue to go back, and then suddenly you’re talking about them to others. So all that word of mouth we’ve been talking about. But very specifically to the hotel space, one that I will mention is Marriott with their titanium status. So.

10:27
I’ll be transparent. I haven’t done a lot of traveling lately. I’m not the one with the titanium status, but I do have a sister and a husband who did tons of travel before we got into COVID. And so they’re both at this level. And I would say they do a really, really nice job of calling those people out, whether it’s you check in and they very loudly say at the desk, thank you for your titanium status, you can get extra points or you can get kind of a welcome gift, they have a separate, usually like top floor.

10:56
lounge area where you get your breakfast and it’s a limited number of people. You get a happy hour with free drinks and some snacks and you’re just encouraged to kind of hang out there and take a breather. And so there’s all these kind of little perks and elements that make you feel super special and that happen each time you go. And then on top of that, on top of just kind of those regular things that you know they’re doing sort of standard for every titanium guest, they’re on the lookout for you.

11:23
So a couple examples there, we’ve taken our kids to the JW in Indianapolis a couple of times. The first time we went, my son was still pretty little, maybe two and a half, three. And so we were a fixture at the bar, we have small children, and he was playing there and the bartenders really just fell in love with him. And so we got back up to our room that night and there was a gift for Sam with his name on it, a little teddy bear, some boy…

11:48
friendly three-year-old toys and a little note for him. And that bear still sits on his shelf and he still tells us every time, remember when we went to that hotel in Indy and I got that bear. So that’s number one. Number two was actually a kind of bad experience that was turned good when we returned there a year and a half later with our daughter in tow as well.

12:09
And one of the reasons we picked it is because it had a really nice pool area inside for the kids and it was winter and we wanted them to be able to swim and this and that. So of course we played that up. Well we go to the area of the hotel where the pool used to be and we did not understand that they were changing the pool into a business slash conference place. So it had been completely replaced, taken out of the hotel in that year and a half and now there was a really great business center there.

12:35
Well, of course, the kids didn’t understand, so we’re flustered. We go down to the front desk. We explain they see us coming and them in their cute little swimsuits. And out came the basket of like every child friendly thing they had. And it was like, we’re so sorry. Just take the entire basket. And so slowed the flow of tears. Make good in a, you know, not so great parenting moment, perhaps. But that’s a hotel and part of that chain and part of that status that I just continue to talk about for those reasons. Yeah. Yeah, I think.

13:04
Similarly, Brian Chesky, one of the co-founders of Airbnb, he talks about this a lot. He talks about the 10-star experience and that’s how they developed Airbnb. So staying with the hotel theme, whether you’re brick or mortar or not, it’s very interesting if you start thinking about what a 10-star experience could look like.

13:24
Not necessarily that you have to go there and you have to deliver that. You can always back it up, but you know, for example, the Airbnb’s 10 star experience is like you show up at the airport, they have like paparazzi out there and there’s a red carpet and stuff like, you’re not necessarily gonna do that, but then it makes it something that’s more of a five star experience feel a little bit more obtainable. You know, just really good customer service having.

13:47
Like they talked about if you’re in California, having a surfboard available for you to go surfing and surfing lessons lined up, you know, those sorts of things. And it just allows you to open your mind a little bit about what you could do versus what you’re currently doing. Yeah, I mean, I remember being in Majorca and we just made a casual comment. We were staying on this, you know, crazy cool place in the middle of a orange and lemon field. And in the back they had tennis courts. And we were like, oh, do you have tennis rackets?

14:13
And she was like, oh, you know, I think there’s some old ones in the garage. Let me look. And we go out and come back and there’s four brand new tennis rackets on the front porch. And she was like, I couldn’t find any. So here, we just got you some new ones. So there you go. So do you have any experiences like that, that have totally exceeded your expectations and now have been extremely memorable and give you something to talk about?

14:33
Yeah, I have. And you know, one of the things that I love and I’m a, I’m a Marriott traveler. So, and you know, United Airlines, platinum, and I appreciate the expectation that comes knowing when you’ve reached a status, but I also love when it’s completely unexpected. You know, we were shopping in a local store here.

14:49
called Shields and it’s kind of like a Dick’s Sporting Goods meets a Cabela’s or a Bass Pro. And when I walked in, you know, I saw two managers speaking and I asked where the cafe was cause my son was hungry and the manager stopped what he was doing, walked us over there, you know, and took the time to walk us over. And then we went looking for a bike and they didn’t have the color. And she went online to search, then went up into the stock room to really make sure that they didn’t have the color we wanted. And then on our way out, they’re asking how our day is, what the weather is. And it just felt…

15:19
genuine and authentic. And I think people can say, you know, they get that experience sort of in Chick-fil-A as well. But I love when it’s unexpected and that they treat every customer as if they’re platinum. And I think that’s a really good lesson also for some of the other brands that might be listening. That’s a really, really good point. The unexpected nature, which really delivers above and beyond the status quo is so incredibly critical when you’re talking about

15:49
It’s definitely all of this really good examples for how to really delve into and think about that. So that’s awesome. And the last way of giving something people feel compelled to talk about is through a promo or deal. And really, this is the most mechanical or transactional way of being able to give somebody something to talk about. And it also tends to be the most short-lived because if you don’t do it on a regular basis, then your consumers start

16:19
questioning what have you done for me lately. And we’ve talked about this in certain brands like Bath & Body and Yaking Candle that if they’re not on discount, people start questioning, well, is this really of value to me? And so it starts to erode their brand a bit, and then it also starts putting them into a commodity bucket. And so that becomes a brand model that may not even be sustainable. So you have to really think about

16:49
how you’re going to do your promo and deal, and how that’s going to connect with messaging that is going to be compelling or an offering that’s going to be compelling in order to be able to make this something that is tangible enough for your consumers to really appreciate it, and then also link back to your brand. I think it’s really important to just emphasize that point about brand here, because

17:14
I think it is really tricky and you heard Anne say that, but I think the promos and the deals tend to start distracting as well. When you go and you try to go back and you do some of these more meaningful things, like you just heard all of us talk about this whole doing the unexpected or something way above the status quo, it just doesn’t connect anymore. A lot of times I feel like with promos and deals, unless it’s related to those status

17:41
Like you get extra points because you have the status or those types of things. I think it’s really tricky to do this and preserve your brand as well as your really strong community of consumers and also people that will speak on your behalf. Because then like you said, it’s almost like you don’t want to be a part of it unless there’s a deal. Yeah. And Sue, I know you have a lot of experience with this through the platforms that Vesta offers that we’re going to get to a little bit later. But maybe you could speak a little bit to…

18:10
what your learnings have been there with regards to promos and deals and people’s attraction to them. Yeah, I would absolutely agree. And I think the other thing with promos and deals is you might be giving them to the wrong people. You could have your best customer that might not need one. They love your products and services and they would go there anyway. So I think it’s also really important that personalization is tied to it and really understanding who you’re giving those deals to.

18:35
because it might be to convert someone. And then that makes sense. They are loyal to another brand. How are they gonna try your product for the first time? I think that also leads to sampling. If you’re tying an opportunity for them to maybe try something for free in exchange, you want their feedback or you want them to share about it, but then they might have an opportunity to get a discount if they’ve shared or if they’ve told somebody about your brand.

19:01
I think there’s so much value in targeted sampling for reciprocity and sort of promoting and giving them something to talk about, which is really what this whole section’s about. And I think to your point, you have to be really careful about the timing of promotions and deals. You have to also be just as careful about the timing of samples, but we know that sampling drives trial. So there’s so much value. And so it’s really that twofold putting the trial for someone that’s either a competitive user has never tried your product before.

19:30
and then giving them that value in that promotion or deal after saying, hey, you know what, we value your opinion. We value you sharing about us. So that’s just another strategy. That’s a really, really good point. The second way of building your word of mouth platform in program and marketing is by leveraging influencers. So these are the people who can be relevant spokespeople of the brand.

19:59
And if you have questions about influencers and influencer platforms, you could go to our episode on four tips for using influencers effectively. And the reason why they work is because they can provide an endorsement of your messaging, or your brand, or your business. And they act as an extension of your actual personal network. Now, these can be paid. They can also not be paid. But more often than not, they are paid. And that’s still totally fine.

20:29
Because the way that the influencer networking is accepted now is that it is a paid position, right? So this is how people are making their living. Now what helps it to be authentic is the stories that they are able to talk about on your behalf. So it’s really, really important that when you choose influencers, they can authentically tell the story that you want them to tell about you.

20:54
And resist the urge to just to tap into celebrity ambassadors just for the sake of their A-list status, because that will be a flash in a pan. It’s very infrequent that a celebrity ambassador can really speak authentically to your brand just as a kind of a mouthpiece. If they have a connection or a tie to your brand in a way that is authentic, then maybe you want to pursue them. But there’s lots of levels of influencers that you could connect with.

21:21
Yeah, and one of the ones that we really feel like can work pretty well are special interest groups and organizations that others admire. So we kind of think of these as influencing groups. And so they can be things that are maybe more local to your community or just something on a larger scale that you are aligned with. And so you wanna start to look for potentially your ins with the group and that’s where you start to tap into the actual people.

21:49
These groups can tend to be a bit selective. They’re not gonna let just anyone in. If they sniff out that you’re being inauthentic or you’re in there for a reason that’s very self-serving, they’re not gonna necessarily allow you to join. But if you can communicate a really authentic reason for wanting to be a part of it, an aligned purpose, a mission that you both talk about, and we’ll get more into this in the trenches where we usually talk about very specific examples. This is what we’re talking about.

22:17
with these groups. So I will tell you for me specifically, you’ve heard me talking about running as a passion. And I know that we’re not necessarily racing right now. When we’re racing, I’m very heavily engaged with the groups, but I’ve found that there’s a couple locally that I still really tap into on a regular basis. So the first is Bob Ronkers and they are a store locally, but they’ve also built up a substantial community of runners. And I will say that while I’m more of an independent runner, I get more out of going by myself.

22:47
They’ve done a really great job of building groups of runners and then also branding them. So a lot of people are wearing the Ronkers gear around the city as they’re going on their runs and prep for whatever race. We have virtual races right now. But for me, I’m tapped into them because I see so many people loyal to them. I’m a runner myself, and I wanna know what they’re talking about. And one of the things I do as a follower is I go there every year or two.

23:14
to check in and make sure that my feet haven’t changed and that I don’t need a different shoe. And so while I could get those shoes a lot cheaper on Amazon, and I’ll admit I do that in the interim, I spend the two, 300 bucks every year or two with them for one pair out of the year, because I just wanna make sure that I’m doing the right thing, because to me, they are the experts in the space. They watch me run in them.

23:36
They watch me jump in them. They watch my gait. And so I feel really good that, you know, things change over time with age and all of that, that I have the equipment that I should have. On the other hand, we have the Flying Pig Marathon, which, you know, is typically the first weekend of May here in Cincinnati. And although that’s not happening, I’m following them as well. And so they’re doing virtual events, or they offer tips for staying motivated as a runner without the races, or they encourage you to try certain

24:06
you know, routes that they have based on where you are and what you’re looking to do. And so another reason to continue to be part of that community. And I think, I mean, you hear me talking about COVID, right? It’s tough. I think these communities are doing a lot of work to maintain and then the people that are loyal to them want to stay a part of it even when those events aren’t there. But you know, those are two groups that I just feel like do a really amazing job, especially in a category that’s

24:30
overly saturated with races, runners, groups, shoes, gear, all of those types of things. Kite I think that’s a really good example of an established network that you can tap into that is very niche-ly driven towards a specific mindset and towards a specific consumer. So just to build on what you were saying about the Flying Pig Marathon is that before the marathon, they’ll have their expo, right? So a lot of people will come and they will

24:56
display their wares at the expo in a hope to be able to show off whatever they have for the runners in that venue when the runners are the most receptive and they’re interested in improving whatever level they’re at. So that’s an example of a place that you can go and network, you can leverage an influencing network if you will, that allows you to more efficiently reach more consumers.

25:23
Sometimes you either need to pay to get into or you need to figure out, hey, is there somebody who’s a thought leader within these groups that allows me to have access to these groups that I can align to, provide them some value so that we can have a win-win relationship because rarely, as you said, will they allow you in just for the sake of the fact that you want in. You have to bring some value to the table.

25:47
Well, and they offer, you know, a bag of stuff just for the runners. And then even before we like, when we hit the finish line, there’s products we can pick from on both sides that aren’t accessible to the public, but that they’re very conscientiously giving their product in those moments, which is their pay to play, but only to the people that are actual runners versus the mass groups, as you just referenced. Yeah, I think that’s really, really good point. Sue, you have anything to add there?

26:12
I do. I think that when we work with brands and build online communities, oftentimes it is around this common purpose. And we look for the current members to bring in others because they’re like minded or they’ve got same ideals. You know, for example, we work with seven generation and for those that don’t know, you know, their mission is based on this like ideology that the decisions that we make today should really result in a sustainable world, seven generations into the future.

26:40
So their online community is built on this alignment of wanting to care for the environment or the planet. And when they sell things like laundry detergent or cleaning products or diapers or feminine care, their community members can feel really good about buying their products. In their community, it’s called Generation Good, and you can find it at generationgood.net. It’s filled with discussions about how we can work together to help create clean air and help reduce waste.

27:05
And brands like this, you know, when they’ve got that purpose or that mission alignment, they can really make this incredible connection, bringing other like minded people together. And then you’ll find those influencers within that community will rise up. So in a discussion forum, they may come to answer questions or they may be featured for a live chat. But it’s always amazing when you can in both of your examples, you can just bring those like minded people together and give them a home or and be tied around that purpose.

27:33
Yeah, well, and I had two thoughts as you were talking. The first one being that those product purchases then in a lot of ways become a no-brainer because you’re in the community and you feel really good. I mean, there’s so many things like we were talking about with the cold example on Shelf Now that when you can find a community that you really trust and you believe in, then it makes those choices easier and you can also have that great feeling about yourself. And then I think the second thing is that

28:01
once you get into these different communities, the ability to help people align with the brand or not, and you didn’t speak about opting in, opting out specifically, but I feel like that conversation continues naturally. It builds the brand organically. The right people are part of the community. So when people are speaking up, you’re really listening and hearing to what they say and then trusting again that they’re the right people to be in the community with you. And so there’s kind of that like,

28:30
Anytime you can get to the community led and that word of mouthpiece, which is obviously the point of today Your brand is working on its own kind of within those spaces because other people are your advocates Yeah, I think that’s really good point. I know a lot of our listeners are probably like, yeah, that’s all sound great, but

28:49
how do you get into these communities, right? And we’re gonna talk a little bit about that in the end of Trenches questions because we know that that’s a big question and we know it’s not easy. And I alluded to it a little bit earlier about having to align yourself with potentially individuals within that or having to pay to play. But there’s also another way and that’s to actually create your own community which leads us nicely into the third way of generating word of mouth marketing which is to invest in a digital community platform.

29:18
And Sue, this is all you because this is best. Yeah, we’re just going to shut up now. That’s excellent. You know, we’ve spent at our company last 11 plus years building online brand-owned communities. I think particularly in the time period we’re in today, consumers are online more than ever and brands are being challenged with things disappearing. Like

29:40
third party cookies and data collection. So we talk about a community platform, whether it’s ours or another one, you know, it gives you this exclusive access. It can be an exclusive brand channel just around your brand. And we’ll talk more about why that’s important later, but it’s about the data at the end of the day, you know, brands are losing all that access.

30:01
we talk about how you can gather first and zero party data. So we all know what first party data is, but the zero party data is data that consumers are willingly and knowingly giving to brands in exchange for better content services personalization. So they’re really knowing that they’re giving you feedback and there’s an opportunity to do that collection within a community and that constant feedback can give you the competitive insights. It can give you the ability to

30:29
drive innovation and also even test messaging. The third is really activation, being able to drive trial, new product trial, UGC, user generated content, ratings and reviews, and of course overall just general word of mouth, and that’s what communities are built on. So this is an army of consumer advocates and influencers that are willing to advocate to your brand. And you’re not controlled by these, what we’re hearing is external algorithms and not understanding how or when.

30:58
consumers are going to see your content. That’s a big challenge with some of the third party channels are out there. And then lastly, having a community platform allows you to measure, you’re able to directly measure the impact. You can track engagement, you can track new customer acquisition, loyalty, lifetime value. Really, you can also integrate and connect with your DMV or your CRM and you can track it down to sales.

31:22
So there’s so much value in having a platform and giving a consumer a home, but that’s really driven on the value of word of mouth at the end of the day. Yeah, and I think that’s, I mean, that’s amazing, first of all, and a key differentiator to your point about algorithms, because I was gonna ask you that exact question to kind of put that out there of how it’s different. And I think that’s one major thing because you and the community are controlling things versus having somebody else

31:51
has their own motivation, quite frankly, out there kind of finagling with things and also the fact that then you’re competing with all these other brands and people and whatever out there and kind of like the wild, wild west of these social channels. So I think it’s a really good point to be very intentional with the communities. Yeah, and just to- It is, it is. Yeah, and just to give people kind of a vision of what this actually is, cause maybe they’re like, this all sounds great, but what actually is this? I kind of call it your internal

32:20
Facebook or Instagram channel, right? So Sue, you correct me if you have a better description of it, but this is how I’ve always described it. It’s like having your own Facebook channel that you actually control the algorithms to. So it’s a way of communicating to your consumers, a way of developing network, and a way of really prioritizing your messaging in a way that you want to prioritize it.

32:43
and really connect in and develop a community that’s going to support your brand in a really magnificent way. So do you have a, you’re sometimes more articulate than I am, so do you have a better way of describing exactly what this thing is?

32:59
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. It is, we talk about being an online destination, online home, and it’s always sounds like a lot of work with people. Oh my God, I got to build my own Facebook. No, you’re not building your own Facebook, but you’re building the same functionality with a platform. It lives right off of your website. And it’s just a place for consumers to go, your customers to go to have conversations with each other, receive exclusive access, be able to share easily about your brand.

33:25
and to connect with obviously like-minded consumers to drive that, again, advocacy and word of mouth. But it really is just an extension of your brand. It’s a platform that lives off of your website. And I think that, you know, that exclusivity that you both talked about is so important because the last thing you want to do is build a Facebook group and then have them be marketed to by a competitor. So just again, having that exclusive access becomes so powerful and that data ownership, you own all that data. And with Data Security Day,

33:54
It’s full transparency. Consumers are opting in, they’re joining. They know exactly why they’re there. And so there’s no surprise about the data being collected and they’re excited to as long again as there’s that value exchange in return. Yeah, I think that’s a good point and a little anecdote. I remember in my years at P&G when Facebook used to come speak to us and I used to feel like, you know, if you ask them, well, what do you do? They’d be like, well, what do you want us to do? Because every year it was basically what we wanted.

34:22
them to do. If we wanted to be able to grow our followers, that would be the big motivation for the year. Then somehow they would be able to figure out how to monetize behind it. It was definitely always very interesting. So that’s why this community is 100% controlled and it’s something that you can engage in and you are the brains and the algorithms behind it. So I think that’s what makes this incredibly special. That doesn’t say that you can’t…

34:50
put a Facebook group together and it not work hard for you. We have clients that do that and it works very well for them. This I would say is like the next level up from that, that allows you to really access like that zero party data and really have insight that you may not be able to get from a Facebook group. But we’ll talk about more about that later too in the end of Trench’s question. So let’s go on to the fourth way to generate word of mouth, which is a focus on PR. So.

35:18
public relations, communications, all of this ways of being able to get your brand message in your story in publications that are credible and legit for you and your industry. So think about newspapers and magazines, online publications, so your Forbes, your Pop Sugar, your Good Housekeeping, your New York Times, USA Today, all of these are really credible ways of being able to generate word of mouth.

35:48
Now, there’s a couple different ways you can access these publications. There’s a pitch and there’s paid. Paid is more of your advertorial route, and that could look like a paid story. It could also look like a very copy heavy, generally, advertisement. Those can work. Pretty much any of those publications will allow you to pay to play within their publication in that way. There’s also an element of pitching, and pitching is when you’re able to craft a story, you

36:16
communicate with the actual journalist, and they feel compelled to write about your story. A lot of times you’ll hire a PR firm because they specialize in this. They specialize in crafting the pitches. They also have the contacts. It’s very, very difficult to be able to maintain contacts in the industry that allow you to have the influence you need in order for you to get your stories there. They’re over inundated now, especially since a lot of these publications are shrinking.

36:47
So you have to really make sure whatever you put forth and what you put out there is going to be compelling for them. Now, be very, very careful when you are looking at PR agencies that they’re not inflating their capabilities. This is very, very typical. What they will do is they’ll say, well, we can get you a billion impressions. But what you’ll find out if you dig a little bit deeper is that a good portion of the impressions are coming from press releases. And I’m going to talk about press releases in a second.

37:14
But what you want to make sure is that they’re good at their craft. They’re good at being able to generate this coverage for other clients and having these contacts because just because you have a contact doesn’t guarantee a story. So you need to really check in and really do your due diligence to make sure that they are going to be able to make those connections for you and create and craft a story that’s going to be compelling for these publications and these publications are going to want to publish you.

37:43
Now, we get a lot of questions about press releases. Should I do a press release? Should I not do a press release? And we literally just had one this past week. So if you think we don’t listen to you guys, this is a real world example. Yes, and press releases are very tempting, right? Because they’re generally easy conceptually, right? You put together your story, although there are good and bad ways of writing press releases.

38:08
and you pay to put it out on a quote unquote wire. AP has a wire, PR, yeah, they have the PR news wire. There’s also local wires as well. And that can be helpful from an SEM or SEO, but the problem is, is that it acts almost like a hope and a prayer if there’s not already the established connections that people are looking, and by people, I mean the publications, are looking for stories from you. So unless you are a,

38:38
big business or a big brand where they’re always sourcing that kind of knowledge and that kind of information from you, it could hit the dark border, it could totally miss. So what we suggest here is that you do your pitching first, you make your list of who your publications are that you want to reach out to, who would make good stories for you, pitch those first, and then come behind with your press release. So then that fills in all the gaps.

39:05
The reason why I say that is because if you put the press release out first, somebody who might have been interested in actually creating an organic story with you is probably going to just do the easy thing and pull the information from your press release. And then that information shows up in really random places that you didn’t intend. Like I would tell you 100% of the time I put out a press release at P&G, it always showed up at Yahoo Finance. Not a place that really…

39:29
I cared about, not a place my consumer was actually looking for information for me about Tide or Downy or Bounce or any of my brands. It generates a lot of impressions and it’s nice for PR agencies to be able to say, yep, check, that’s 10 million impressions right there. Actually, I think it’s probably closer to 100 million. But you want to make sure that you’re strategic about your pitching. So don’t just defer to a press release. It still could be a good mechanism in order to drive more eyeballs. But you have to really think about where is your consumer really looking?

39:59
for information and stories about you and your industry, and then trying to make those connections so you can get those organic stories there. And I know, Sue, you’ve done this actually for your communities where, and actually you and I have worked on this where we’ve generated PR for the community. So do you wanna speak more to that?

40:18
Yeah, I think everything you’ve said makes so much sense. And I would just add that when you’re pitching, you can also give the opportunity for exclusivity. So we’ll often go to the different publications and say, we’re coming to you first, but you have 48 hours. And then we’re going next. And what works for consumers works also for the media world is that they want that first access or that opportunity. So that might entice them.

40:44
We love that each community has a different story. And I think that also content and storytelling that we’re trying to make sure that there’s a story to be told and because every community is so different the brands we work with, how they engage their audiences and the engagement levels are large. We have some communities that they’ll put a survey out and they’ll get over a hundred thousand responses or they’ll have over 250,000 comments in their discussion forum. So there’s a story to be told in there and it’s an opportunity.

41:13
We’ve also had clients that say and go to their community members and say, listen, we want your stories. We want to hear from you. So we have a client veggies made great that did interviews with their members. And then they can use that content to go out and put it in front of media for some sort of press release. But I think the community does give you a lot of angles and a lot of different ways that you’d be able to pitch your story. Yeah. And I think one thing that I, you know,

41:42
heard both of you say, but I’m always the brand one, right? Is that with the pitching, whether it’s exclusive or not, or however that goes and not going to a press release first, this was not always my area of expertise, but what I internalized immediately getting into the idea of PR was the more that you as the brand can control the story that’s gonna be out there, the better, and that you have a better chance of doing that.

42:07
when someone’s not just taking the press release and then it gets almost watered down based on what they choose out of it. And so managing that story, so you just talked about that piece of telling that story, the better that you can keep that hold or that handle on it, then the more that content exists. So as you go into press releases or it does get watered down as people pick up different pieces, there’s always that ability to go back. And for people that wanna kind of dig in further to see the whole story the way you intended.

42:38
Yeah, I think that’s a really, really good point. And I think to build on that, it’s also an opportunity to use your brand assets to their fullest as well, right? So if you have ambassadors, if you have influencers, if you have spokespeople, you made a really great point, Sue, on the exclusive. If you have new news, you have have a new product launch, these are all things that journalists love and would compel them to actually write a story and feature you. Now, sometimes

43:06
They also could be in roundups and broader stories. So that’s OK as well. And maybe we’ll do an episode on PR specifically, because there’s a lot of nuances to PR. But all those are really, really fantastic points. OK, so we’re going into our next segment, which is our In the Trenches segment. And this is where we give real world examples. And we use specific industries to highlight and contextualize these examples. But we’re going to go into the next segment.

43:32
they are broad enough that you should be able to apply them to whatever industry you’re in. So we’re gonna get started with that. All right, so our first in the trenches question, what kind of ROI should expect with word of mouth marketing? Is the juice worth the squeeze? One of Ann’s favorite expressions is the juice worth the squeeze. It’s just so telegraphic. I mean, how many people sit there and like try to squeeze it like.

43:58
When I make my margaritas, I’m trying to do like, well no, actually Tony does, the fresh lime juice, like he had to buy a new squeezer, so his hand didn’t cramp up. So I mean- You roll them. You roll them and make them warm and then you squeeze. That’s the secret. Well, you could tell Tony that. I don’t make my own margaritas. Okay. This one is, as April pointed out, a question that we get a lot because it feels at first like small. It feels like, hey, I’m going after a few.

44:27
And really what benefit is that gonna provide to me? And what me and April always say back to them, it’s like, well, if you think you don’t need to focus on it, then you’re really basically saying that you don’t care about referrals and recos for future business, right? Because that’s all word of mouth. Being able to do all those things that we have mentioned already in our four points in order to generate word of mouth, like creating or giving people something compelling to talk about.

44:54
exceeding expectations. All of these things are what keeps you top of mind. And so if you find this irrelevant, then you’re really saying, okay, well, I don’t really care if I get referrals on my business, which if that’s really your positioning, then you’re probably not going to be in business for very long. So this is all about developing your impact. This is all about deciding how you are going to really become unforgettable.

45:24
One of the ways in which to do this and really think about whether it’s worth it is having credible reach. So credible reach will deliver higher conversion versus just mass reach. So really digging in and getting to those people that really care about what you’re talking about versus, you know, we’ve made the reference before of just putting impressions out there and then having, you know, impressions that really don’t matter to you.

45:53
So, I mean, when you think about some of the metrics we have here, like Nielsen will say 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family over any other type of advertising, or 74% of consumers identify word of mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision. All of this shows you the value of word of mouth. And to Ann’s point, if you think that that’s not important, you’re kind of turning off

46:23
funnel, if you will. I mean, I think about how many times you’re looking for a new person to have your hair done or a new doctor, or you know, you have kids for the first time and you need recommendations on what they should get or you know, you want to try out a new sport and you don’t know where to start. I mean, people start with people they know or groups that they’re part of that they trust. And so this whole piece about word of mouth and is the juice worth the squeeze? We say absolutely. And it’s because

46:50
make human decisions based on other humans. Right. And there’s definitely ways of making it more efficient. Sue, I mean, we were talking about the platforms too. I find that a much more efficient way of being able to generate word of mouth because you have already, like you said in April said, that group of like-minded individuals that are already engaging with you, yeah? Yeah, exactly. Everyone has an audience. You know, where is that audience and are you…

47:17
leveraging, are you leveraging that opportunity to have that audience engage and drive word of mouth for you? So we say it’s this army, as I talked about earlier, this army of unpaid advocates, and it’s about reaching their friends, their followers and their networks. And it will be more authentic because they’re telling their stories and their experiences with your brands and services. So instead of the brand pushing their message out, it’s coming from those community members. And if you can do it right and do it at scale.

47:46
you’re talking about being able to tap into them unlimited times, you know, without some crazy algorithm like we talked about earlier suppressing your content or your posts or your data. So it can be a really efficient way to drive word of mouth. And then of course you can track and measure it that way as well. Well, and I think you inherently just look at it differently too, right? So if it’s coming from someone that you know isn’t working for the brand, I think you’re open to a lot more of it.

48:11
than you are when it’s like, oh, 20% off from this brand for the fifth time this week, you know, or whatever the case might be, you start to see those things, and because you’re like-minded, and because it isn’t the brand pushing out the message, you’re open to a lot more. I mean, I just noticed myself, you know, and I’m not even in any of these dedicated communities, but it’s like, if it’s coming from the people that I believe in, that I’m constantly clicking, or opening, or wanting to see more, versus when it’s the brand pushing on me.

48:39
Yeah, I think that’s right. And there’s more to it than just the one lens. Yes. So there’s multiple lenses of interesting content and engagement and discussion that’s going on that creates the impetus for continuing to come back too. All right. Our next In the Trench is questions, how effective are PR stunts in creating word of mouth?

49:04
And I’ll take this one because you guys all know how I feel about PR stunts. As I said, I think stunt is a five letter, four letter word. So I’m used to and believes they are so very effective. Oh, my Lord. Let me just steal her thunder here. So I’ve I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, unless you’re Sir Richard Branson. You have really like a less than a one percent chance, even might be smaller that of creating compelling word of mouth marketing from a stunt.

49:33
that actually systemically drives your business and your brand. You may get a lot of interest in the moment, you’ll probably spend a lot of money in doing it and it won’t be something that people remember longterm. Now you can develop over the top experiences and spectacular moments that people may remember if you do a good job of intrinsically tying it back to your brand. And we give a lot of examples about that.

50:00
in the first section where we were talking about the experiences that we remember and what keeps us coming back to these brands. So there is a way of doing that without having to get gimmicky in order to grab people’s attention. Now, the other example I love to give is about Super Bowl. I call it the Super Bowl. It’s like the stunt of advertising, really. And this is where a lot of people fall into the trap too, because they will invest a lot of money in creating a Super Bowl ad.

50:26
that then nobody remembers the next day. I think one of my favorite ones, we talked about this one before, was a little kid dressed up in the Darth Vader who was able to start the car, but for the love of me, I cannot figure out what car company that was. The latest Super Bowl, there was about, what, 10 ads, feel-good ads about the evolution of the world. I cannot remember even one of the brands that did those ads. So it’s really extremely important if you’re going to do something that’s really big.

50:54
spectacular, especially if you’re putting a lot of money in it, it better be so intrinsically tied to your brand that people cannot think of it without thinking about your brand. With Richard Branson, and this is top of mind for me because I just listened to his episode on Masters of Scale, it occurred to me that the reason it works for him is because his brand has become synonymous with stunts, first of all. And so there’s that and how many people can really own that, right? One person, which is why you have the metrics of it not working.

51:24
But also there are a lot of failed stunts in his background. I mean, I can’t imagine jumping out of a plane, ramming into a building and bleeding over all the party goers below me. I mean, so you can’t say that just because it’s synonymous, it works for him. And I think that that’s really the tricky part about this. Yeah. Sue, any builds on that one? Yeah, I mean, I think that when we think about the stunts to your point, and I’ll just add to it, to the stunts that it’s,

51:54
It’s short-lived, but it’s that risk. It’s definitely throwing something against the wall and hoping it sticks versus having that strategic plan. And you know me, I’m a planner. No. That’s great. All right, our third in the trenches question, we’re gonna let Sue take this one. And we’ve covered a few of these points. Sue, maybe you could put some finer points on these for our listeners. Why would I build a digital community versus just using Facebook?

52:22
Yeah, and you know, what I love about Facebook, how and when it works well is when it’s part of an integrated strategy, and that’s the same for communities. I mean, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be building both. And when I talk about why building a community and how Facebook alone doesn’t work, it’s really about that ownership that we talked about, the data, the relationship, the deeper engagement and sort of that lasting loyalty. You know, at the end of the day, your brand can create a Facebook group or a Facebook community.

52:52
again, you know, they shouldn’t be surprised if the contents being suppressed or they shouldn’t be surprised if the consumers don’t come back without boosting with media dollars. And I always say, didn’t we learn our lesson from 10 years ago? I mean, how brilliant of Facebook to convince all of these brands and marketers to build their audience there only to turn around and charge to access them.

53:13
So we have to keep that in mind that if that is, you are putting all of your eggs in one basket, that is a risk. And so when we talk about community, it is that control. It’s the access to the data and that deeper engagement. But there certainly is a place for both the community and Facebook. Well, and I think you said it’s something interesting earlier on too, that I hadn’t totally thought about it through this lens, but people are at a different point in their journey with the brand when they’re…

53:42
entering it at Facebook versus when they’re becoming part of a community. And so I feel like Facebook, like to your point that you should have both because Facebook, they might experience you for the first time and opt in or out, but when they’re joining the community, I mean, the richness and depth and engagement from them in the experience is so heightened, you know, when it works for your brand, it’s like, why wouldn’t you go ahead and build that too?

54:06
Yeah, and that’s how so many of our communities are using to drive new signups. So they’ll leverage media and dollars in Facebook. They even have a Facebook group and sort of tease out some of that content and say, interested in more join our community. So it does really become a nice entry point to building that audience. All right. Our fourth in the trenches question. It can be hard to get into some of these influencing groups.

54:31
told you guys we’re gonna come back to this. How do you suggest we go about this? April, why don’t you kick us off? Yeah, I mean, we did cover some of this, so we set this one up nicely. So I’ll just kind of list off the things we said before, but then there are some additional points to be made here. So we talked about communities being tight and that you have to really do your research and then be authentic, find the decision makers in the group, and then reach out to them and make sure that they understand.

54:59
why you’re reaching out, not just that you want to be part of the group and so that they can see kind of that synergy. So we talked about that and you know, you’re finding those right people and then being authentic. But beyond that, you know, spend the time to think about what they could get from you being part of the community and then woo them, if you will. That’s another one of Ann’s terms. To get them to want to be part of a relationship with you, right? So not just a one-sided, I want to join.

55:29
but really, okay, what are you gonna do for me? What are you gonna do for the community? Maybe it’s money, maybe it’s resources, maybe it’s you do something that they don’t have in the group. There’s currency with everybody. So find theirs, focus on that, and do your sale, if you will, although soft sell, through that method. And then be persistent. It’s okay, and we’ve talked about this in other episodes and topics, to reach out multiple times and…

55:55
People are busy, you’re not their top priority, so go ahead and continue to be persistent, but then don’t be pushy. So at some point, you send maybe that breakup message of this is the last time I’m gonna reach out, or you just realize like, okay, I’ve given my five reach outs and I’m not gonna continue to pursue this one. You don’t wanna be annoying because that could get you some bad press real quick. And if we’re talking about an entire influencing group or community, as we’ve discussed.

56:23
That’s a lot of people to be annoying because you know it’s gonna get out there. And then also have several irons in the fire at one time because it can take a while. It can also take a while to find the right ones where what you’re offering is gonna resonate and that’s totally okay. And you know, there only may be a selection, a handful of ones that really apply to you. So give it a shot, reach out to a bunch of people, be persistent, but make sure you have a bunch of them on the list so if.

56:49
you know, your one or two turns you down, you’re not feeling horrible, and we feel like you’ll find your home then that way. Mm-hmm, those are all really good points. So you have any builds on that? I think you’ve covered it. Yeah, I think that was a really good assessment of everything where this is very relational too, and you have to really take that into consideration and make sure that you are maintaining the respect of the fact that these are…

57:18
people first that you need to develop a relationship with in order to get them to trust you and want to bring you into their group. So it does take some time and effort to do that. So don’t expect this as a email out and then all of a sudden the next day, oh yes, we’d love to have you as part of the group. It just does not work that way. So our fifth in the trenches question, once I have a community, how do I best use them, keep them enthusiastic and authentically pay them back for their support?

57:47
This is all Sue, Sue. We say here there are four main building blocks to having a successful community. You know, number one, that strong value exchange grounded in emotional ties. That was really everything we talked about in the beginning, give them that sense of belonging, but make sure they have a great experience. The second is around that data, collecting the actionable insights. That’ll help what we say, future-proof your brand. So really having you ready for what’s coming next, whether it’s innovation.

58:16
new launches, competitive Intel, but having that constant feedback loop. The third is focusing on the compelling, but also personalized experiences, whether it’s the promos that we talked about earlier, or it’s sampling, or it’s content strategy. Having those personalized experiences will drive the advocacy for your brand. And then the last, number four, is the cadence of engagement. We talk about creating habits, and this is normal human nature, but…

58:42
creating those habits drive excitement through setting expectations of what’s next. So on Mondays, you can launch a new discussion every Monday. On Thursdays could be your day, you’re launching polls. On the first of every month, you can launch a new activation. So creating some of those habits and having that cadence will help those members come back time and time again. I’ve got this great example with Veggies Made Great. So that’s a vegetable-based.

59:05
food product, frozen food product. And before having a community, they were using spreadsheets and Instagram to engage their most loyal super fans that they call, and I love this, vegheads. You know, they needed to, I love that. And they needed to give their vegheads a home. You know, they wanted an own channel, so it was becoming difficult to engage their fans, measure it, scale it. So now today, they have a community, it’s been about a year, they’ve got tens of thousands of vegheads.

59:31
that are organically sharing about their brand. They’re even going into stores and doing campaigns called Plant a Coupon, where they’ll stick a coupon on packages of their brand and actually talk to other shoppers. But they really are able to leverage their community, members to invite new users into the brand as well. So they’re driving new customer acquisition in a really efficient way on top of that advocacy in an efficient way. And they’ve seen about a 20% increase.

59:57
in sales from their community marketing strategies. So we love to use them as an example because they’re really using it to the fullest and they’re also integrating it with the rest of their strategies. On the other hand, we talk about brands that might have a traditional CRM or loyalty program that might have missed opportunities. And we know email marketing is so powerful but it can be a one-way message and also might not be personalized enough. And then we talk about the traditional loyalty programs and how effective it is, but it can also be transactional.

01:00:26
You know, I love Starbucks. They have one of the strongest loyalty programs, but they’ve never asked for my feedback and they certainly haven’t asked me to advocate. So imagine millions and millions of people going through their drive-throughs daily if they had a way to cultivate that love and turn it into a word of mouth program. And that’s really what having a community can do. You know, a few years ago, I said I signed up for an airline’s credit card. And then my next, you know, 12 emails from them is, hey, sign up for a credit card.

01:00:56
So that can be frustrating, you know, that constantly you’re talking about the persistent selling and messaging, but it’s the wrong messaging. I’ve already signed up. So, you know, understanding who your customers are and who your consumers are and what products and services they’re using and how they’re engaging and what level they’re at, are they coming into your brand for the first time or are they someone that’s super loyal? Being able to treat them differently is really, really important. And I think those are some of the ingredients that lead to the success.

01:01:25
of an online community. Well, and Sue, can you give a sense of what’s kind of the impetus or the turning point? Like you just talked about Veggies Made Great and the fact that they were trying to get to people through Instagram and spreadsheets or whatever the case might be, but what is the turning point or turning points? Is it size? Is it level of engagement? Is it kind of a combination of things? When do people start to look like, okay, I have enough advocacy, now I should have a community?

01:01:54
Yeah, it’s such a great, you teed this up so well. We have something on our website. I did it on purpose. We’ve not even spoken about this. This is brand new. We have something on our website that we just launched called the readiness scorecard. And you can go in and actually answer a couple of questions and see if you’re ready for a community and see where you’re at. And it’s typically around the time when you have an audience, whether it’s your CRM, your Facebook group, whether it’s your Instagram followers or your customer base.

01:02:23
and you’re saying, you know that there’s an opportunity to scale that and you can’t do that with spreadsheets and you can’t do that by having a Facebook group alone. So there are times where brands will come to us and we’ll say, you’re a little bit early. There are times where you’re a little bit early and maybe that is when you’re starting with a Facebook group, but nine times out of 10, most brands we work with are ready because by the time they come to us, they understand that they’ve got a strong value proposition. They have a product that delivers excellence and on their word.

01:02:52
And now they need just a way to scale that and turn those super fans or customers into advocates driving that word of mouth. So you can check it out, our readiness tool and just see if you think your brand is ready for community. Yeah, I think that is fire. That’s just everything you said is really just very well said and it embodies everything about word of mouth marketing so beautifully.

01:03:22
And I think the one point that I want to just make sure everybody specifically heard is that community is a two-way engagement. We get so comfortable in treating all of our advertising and our marketing channels as one-way engagements. Social has become one way where we’re trying to push out. All of our advertising on TV, billboards, cloud, it all feels very one way. The opportunity with…

01:03:49
communities, especially in this format to generate word of mouth, is now your consumer feels heard. They feel part of your brand. They feel invested in your brand because you have brought them into the fold. And it’s a way of creating that advocacy that is so rich that it creates that loyalty that is going to extend beyond just that little one moment that you’re having that reaction with.

01:04:17
feel part of something. That is another way of making sure that your brand is resonating in a way that is differentiated from your competition. So I think that is a spectacular point. So I think another thing that you need to think about if you want to invest here is are you ready to engage with your consumer? Are you prepared to be able to have people and resources that are going to communicate, that are going to respond, that are going to be present?

01:04:47
because that’s part of making this thing work. If you’re just going to sit on the outside and watch it all happen, this isn’t gonna work for you either. Am I saying that right, Sue? You are. The most successful communities are the ones that integrate it with the rest of the brand. So having it be a silo and the standalone thing that says, let me throw up a community, put it out there and see what happens isn’t going to work. So again, it’s not that it’s making more work, it should actually be more efficient for you.

01:05:16
but it is going to take strategy and thinking about how you’re going to engage them. And like I talked about earlier, that cadence, what is that going to be? And what content are you going to put in front of them? Yeah, I think that’s fantastic. Yeah, very interesting. All right, our third and our final segment is a real world example of a brand is doing this well or not well. And of course, we’re gonna talk about a brand that’s doing this extremely well. And we’ve talked a lot about it through the episode today, but Sue.

01:05:43
Would you take this one and tell them a little bit more about Vesta, you guys as a company, maybe a little bit more about your background and how you got here, because it’s so interesting how you’ve continued to evolve from where you started to where you are now based on how the whole environment has evolved. And of course, end with how people can find you. Yes. Yeah, oh great.

01:06:06
So yeah, when I first started this company, I mean, I was working at a social media startup and there was the time when everybody remembers it was about building a million fans. That was the goal and the number. And we had built this incredible virtual app. It was a dorm room app and it costs half a million dollars. Today would be about $5,000, but it was the first of its kind. We had built the first API for Facebook and it was really incredible about being able to share.

01:06:35
But the problem was that the dorm room app that we built in Facebook, it was for a retailer that college kids don’t shop at. And so we build this incredible app and nobody shows up. And so that was my fail moment, because I had sold that program in that turns into an opportunity. Imagine if I could create an audience, a ready audience for a brand that wanted to engage in social and didn’t have to build the app and the content first. They could actually have the audience there and ready.

01:07:03
and then they could talk about how they’re going to engage them. And that was really the early premise for Vesta and building communities. We started with our own community. It still exists today, Smiley 360. We have about 1.2 million consumers in that community and brands can engage them, a targeted audience to deliver a sample or an experience in exchange for UGC, user generated content, content ratings and reviews. And of course, word of mouth advocacy. And those are campaigns.

01:07:33
And then we had brands coming to us and said, we love what you’re doing with Smiley, but we want to build our own. We’re worried, this is around 2014. We’re worried about the algorithms changing in Facebook. We already have the million fans, but we want to actually own that relationship. So we turned around and rebuilt our entire platform so that it could be white labeled. So now a brand could take our Smiley platform and make it their own. And so that was really where we began the…

01:07:58
the building of online brand-owned communities. And it’s really exploded from there. And everything that’s happened is because the brands are challenging and asking us, can we do this with the community? Can it do that? And we go back to our product team and figure out how we can enhance the features and functionality to drive better engagement, better measurement, and really be able to drive that advocacy again at a greater scale.

01:08:25
And so today our Vesta platform is our flagship product. And it’s not just the software, you know, we deliver at Vesta marketing software to help you manage, grow, engage your audience, but we also have a team. So there’s a methodology of, you know, 11 years of building and managing communities. We’re one of the only companies that has not only deliver software, but we actually test our software daily. You know, we are using it. Smiley sits on our platform and technology.

01:08:52
But we have a team, so you can either do it as software, as a service, a SaaS platform, completely self-serve, or you can use us to manage the entire thing for you or some sort of hybrid in between. No matter what, you are going to get the playbook, you’re going to get the strategy, but in either case, we’ve got something that really fits you at whatever size you’re looking for. And it’s all the reporting and the dashboards is all there for you in cloud-based access. So again, it’s that data that you’re able to collect.

01:09:22
If people want to hear more, learn more, maybe get a live demo or see some more case studies, they can go to vesta, V-E-S-T-A dash go dot com. Of course they can find me at LinkedIn at Sue Freck or in my email, susan.freck, F as in Frank, R-E-C-H at vesta dash go dot com. But I’d love to connect with you. Certainly take a look at, we’ve got some great video case studies and the readiness ranking tool right on our site as well. Awesome.

01:09:51
That’s fantastic Sue, thank you for that. Now I think hearing all that, you must be like an expert in social media, isn’t that what your background is, right? Yeah, so it’s so funny, it’s about like with the social media it’s so funny, our name used to be social media link and every day we were getting.

01:10:13
customers and prospects saying, hey, can you buy media for us? And at the end of the day, gosh, I wish I could, we were getting so many calls. So we ended up rebranding in June of this year to Vesta, which makes so much more sense for our business. And what I love is that we’re actually social networking platform agnostic. So our platform integrates with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, blogs, YouTube, and now TikTok and LinkedIn. So no matter where your audience is, we actually can prompt them to share on those platforms.

01:10:43
So we are definitely integrated with social media networking, but we’re certainly not a social media. And I am not an expert in media buying and planning. I will say that. And why don’t you tell them what your personal background is? Because I always find this interesting. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that early, early on, I tell people that I was adopted. I was abandoned on a doorstep at birth. I don’t have a birth certificate. My birthday is actually made up, even though I’m a Pisces.

01:11:11
which I just celebrated recently, but I was an abandoned on a doorstep. And then my parents here in the US decided that they wanted to adopt. And I was randomly selected out of a crib of 12 babies at the time. We slept with 12 babies in the crib in an orphanage and randomly selected and brought to the US when I was about 18 months old. You know, anyone that has kids, I weighed 13 pounds when I came here with a completely malnourished. So…

01:11:38
I am, and people know this about me, I am so grateful. I’m grateful for our clients, my family, my parents that adopted me, people like you, and in April and this opportunity. But I’m just so grateful because I think about where I started and came from, and it’s what motivates me every day. And I just wanted everybody to hear that because I know a lot of times we get stuck in our own just, you know, stuff and think that, hey, how can we possibly succeed based on what we’re facing?

01:12:08
I think it’s always inspirational to hear stories like that. It just gives a lot of perspective, I believe, for just persevering and setting your goals and just really living life like you mean it. I’ve always admired you for that, Sue. Another little tip, so you’re a nutritionist or a food scientist by background, right?

01:12:35
Yes, yes. I had like 15 majors by the time I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. And I always say that too, if you follow your passion, it will work itself out. But I went to school for nutrition. I have, you know, a bachelor’s in nutritional science. I’ve gotten associates in interior design. So I think that, you know, we all kind of take your engineering background. We all take these really interesting paths.

01:13:00
And I don’t regret any of it. I’ve learned something, you know, all the companies that I’ve started or been at along the way, I’ve learned some incredible lessons. And I think that that is really important as well. So another lesson about journey that you hear April and I talk about all the time is that where you are isn’t necessarily where you end up. So it’s pass open to you if you’re brave enough to take it. So I think that has been a…

01:13:27
jam packed full episode. And Sue, we want to thank you again for being part of this and bringing so much depth in context to this topic of generating word of mouth. Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, fort We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business. And make sure to follow or subscribe to strategic counsel on your favorite podcast platform.