Customers = Your Best Marketing Team
The best person to endorse your products and services aren’t celebrities that get paid millions of dollars for an ad. Everyone knows they are bought and although in US celebrity endorsements are highly influential, it still beats the endorsement of a regular “normal joe.” The best person that could ever endorse your product is someone you don’t pay to do it but who actually pays you for your product and services. Your existing customers are the best marketing resource a business can ever have.
Turning your existing customers is one of those things that is easy to talk about but hard to implement. Few have successfully done it and many fail to even embrace this “top of the line” marketing approach.
If you were looking to buy a laptop and your friend suggests Toshiba, your friend is actually helping you make a decision (intentional) and he is also marketing for Toshiba (unintentional).
That is exactly what you want from your customer base – word of mouth marketing without them even knowing. Here are a few tips on how to achieve that :
- Your product/service needs to be top of the line. Not in terms of luxury but in terms of what it is supposed to do. Create a product that fills a gap and you will have your customers talking about you.
- Customer service is the holy grail of any business. Provide service that makes your competitor’s bite the dust and your customers will talk.
- Build a community around your business and product. With internet growing day by day and with services like Twitter and Facebook, the need to create an existence on web isn’t an option – it is a necessity. Be seen by the masses and participate. Become a major player on social media scene and people will talk about you as a business which will turn into increased ROI.
- Take negative feedback as a feedback and not criticism. Work on it, fix it. Your customers will talk when they have a bad experience and you make it good after hearing from them.
- And finally, do not follow the norm. Think outside the box and be creative. Creativity is contagious…make your customers feel the disease and they will talk about you and the way you promote your products and services.
Like I said its easy in talks but really hard to implement. But to know whether or not it works for you, you have got to try 
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very good point. People gain trust when they read actual people saying good things. Can't forget the power of a happy customer.
Referral marketing is one of the best ways to pick up new business, for sure. I think that's why Twitter and Facebook have seen tremendous growth from businesses.