Who do you turn to when you are about to make a major purchase? It's likely a combination of your friends, internet rating/review sites and brand name recognition. It really boils down to this: 50% friend word of mouth; 40% non-friend word of mouth and 10% marketing. Know how to utilize and activate a community effectively? Suddenly, you could find that you have over 70% influence over a consumer's purchasing decision.
Word of mouth may not hold as much weight as it used to. Just look at the gaming of RTs, vote whoring, and a variety of other less savory habits of social media junkies.With more success, these platforms run into the same kinds of problems of other media types before it: More Noise.
Word of mouth is becoming devalued within the larger streams. One size fits all marketing messages, astro-turfing and spam all try and drown out your relevant voice. Even if the messaging is on target, appropriate and fulfills an immediate need. Sucks doesn't it? Do all the right things and sometimes your message still isn't effective.
Does this make a community less valuable for influencing purchasing decisions? No, in fact I would argue that it actually puts you in a stronger position. The issue is knowing where your community of consumers hangs out (Yes it's still important.) then being able to effectively move them towards supporting and facilitating a conversion (or "sale" for those of us who still like to use dirty words).
How do you activate a community to become closing agents for you? Do you yell at them and berate them? Despite how awesome the above scene in Glen Garry Ross is. Definitely not. (I maintain that coffee is only for closers though.)
Sales suddenly become less about life and death and more about utility and value. This shift is key in providing a customer with a variety of different dialogues (and options) before deciding on a purchase. Dialogue is a natural part of the sales process anyway. Why not speed up the cycle and try to reach a consensus faster by utilizing your evangelists.
This method of closing may seem unorthodox by some (and crazy by others). It probably will be criticized for not being scalable. However, I think that community encompasses more then just online phenomena. Your peers are your community and they certainly influence the sale's success or failure.
Selling by not selling. This is a weird world we live in, but one I am happy to be a part of.
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tagged as close with community, community evangelists, Community Manager, community marketer, evangelist salespeople, salespeople in community
Amazing to think that if you can get this community thing down pat, you can essentially create sales people out of your customers with the help of WOM.
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