Houlifans are recruited from a database of 600,000-plus customers who either visited the corporate Web site or signed up in-store for email coupons. Each must fill out a questionnaire that tests both their "brand love" and how socially active they are beyond the keyboard. HQ averages between 200 and 400 fans per restaurant, most of whom bring in friends once a week. "You can't buy that," Gulvik says.
Here's a few of Saul's tips.
- Sometimes less is more. People will talk about you more when you don’t talk so much about yourself. The more you keep your mouth shut, the better you’re doing.
- Communicate rather than sell. Always try to connect with the consumer on more than just a business level. As Saul says, business actually begins when you stop selling.
- Ask people to spread your message. Sometimes even the biggest fans don’t know how to talk about you or how important their word of mouth is to you.
Here's a good reminder from Andy Sernovitz. He's right about GE's approach to stimulating conversation. How else do you get people talking about jets and trains -- outside of the context of business?
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"The rules of word of mouth marketing apply even more to BtoB marketers:
1. Be interesting or be invisible. The more boring the product, the more interesting (and pleasant) the company has to be.
2. Advertising is price of being boring. If people won’t talk about you for free, you have to pay them to do it.
3. BtoB buyers are people too. Products may be serious, but people have emotions."
You're out of touch if you're not doing stuff like this..especially restaurants.
Founder @ Dearing Group LLC.
George can be reached via email at george@dearinggroup.com or on Twitter, and Facebook Subscribe to this site via RSS here.
