Make Your Sales Copy Remarkable - And Trigger Word of Mouth

Everywhere you look these days marketers are talking about “word of mouth”:  how important it is …  and how to trigger it.

Yaro Starak writes about word of mouth at the Small Business Branding blog, saying that on a recent trip he spent some time listening to other people’s conversations on the street while walking around Melbourne, Australia. 

Eavesdropping?  Nah!  Market research, he says.  He was listening to word of mouth as it was taking place and spreading. 

Yaro says the secret to word of mouth is simply to be remarkable.  He notes, “The more remarkable you are the better your chance of being the subject of a street story – just make sure you do something special that generates positive referrals and not the reverse because word of mouth can make or break your business.”

In practice, being remarkable is hard to carry out.  Take, for instance, your typical software company selling to small businesses.  Most B-to-B software providers do little to be remarkable, at least not in their marketing and sales materials.  Every website sounds the same, with the same stilted dry web copy.  “We provide real business results.” Or “We help companies solve critical business challenges.”  How many times do you think small business managers have read this or something very similar on a website or in a sales brochure or in a PowerPoint presentation? 

With many B-to-B software providers you need the Rosetta Stone to even figure out what their products do, let alone how they may be different from other companies.  You could take one company’s website copy or sales brochure and replace the wording of a competitor’s — and it would sound the same.  As a result, many small business owners and managers are baffled by tech companies.

The Web 2.0 companies that cater to small businesses, though, have this business of being remarkable all figured out, at least based on their sales material.  They do a much better job at being remarkable.  And the interesting thing is that it doesn’t take a lot of money –  most of these companies are startups operating on the proverbial shoestrings –  just creativity.

Recently I was contacted by the folks at Blinsksale, the online invoicing tool, asking me to take a look at their product.  What immediately struck me was the simple, playfully worded – yet remarkable and memorable – website.  You visit the website and the first thing you see is a clear statement of what the product does: “The easiest way to send invoices online.”  That’s nice and clear, you’re thinking. 

Then right underneath that is a two-word testimonial, “Blinksale rocks!”  Maybe this testimonial is no more substantive than the big company’s statement ”we deliver real business results.”  But I’ll tell you what:  it’s much more memorable.   It’s much more likely to get me talking about their product – maybe even repeating the testimonial to someone over lunch.  If the subject of invoicing processes comes up (in my line of work that does happen) I am likely to remember and mention this company, even if I’ve never used their product.

Take a page out of the Web 2.0 companies’ playbooks, and start triggering word of mouth by making your sales material remarkable.  While you need more than intriguing copywriting to make for sustained word of mouth, consider the copywriting as low hanging fruit.  Then move on from there to other word-of-mouth triggering strategies.