All of marketing is just a poor substitute for word of mouth

Word of mouth is the ultimate marketing power, but it's slow to gather momentum, it can run down quickly and it can carry negative messages as well as positive.

So we use advertising and promotions to speed the process and ensure a stronger presence for positive messages.

You can directly encourage word of mouth through:

• Opinion leadership via professional articles, letters, blogs etc
• Providing customers with information and materials they can pass on
• Critical point encouragement, eg at time of delivery/installation
• Providing "boasting tools" such as certificates or coffee table material
• Case studies: people love to talk about others
• White papers that help people understand or do
• Discount vouchers or free trials that customers can give to others
• Social media including Twitter and blogs

See also The great Aussie referral.