If we’ve learned anything from #WallStreetBets, it’s the power of word-of-mouth (WOM).

I’ll even go out on a limb and say that word-of-mouth is the most successful, yet difficult, marketing strategy a business can implement.

A thread for #marketingtwitter:

Word-of-mouth is the ultimate marketing strategy.

- It’s organic
- It creates genuine loyalty
- It builds real communities
- It drives a staggering amount of highly qualified business

WOM is one of the oldest forms of marketing.

When Jesus helped every day people with his magical healing hands, he would sometimes ask them afterwards: don’t tell anyone I did this.

The grateful recipient would almost always go tell everyone about his good deeds.

There are at least 3 reasons why WOM doesn’t sound as sexy as #automation (which I adore) or #neuromarketing (which I also adore).

1. It requires people to do the work first.
2. It helps people one at a time.
3. There's no guarantee your work will be successful.

The genuine factor surrounding WOM is the fact that you’re helping people with their problems by offering a solution you rightfully enjoy doing.

That’s how real communities are born.

My first taste of WOM.

In the 90s, I sold phones at the now-dissolved #FutureShop when "digital phones" were first introduced.

My colleague saw this as a killer opportunity and made sure every customer got spectacular treatment: free cases, discounts on multiple phones, etc.

He always made sure they got his business card, and asked them to send business back his way.

He knew digital phones would sell themselves, so he made sure to be that dude everyone went to for them.

Every day, people would come in asking for him, and if he wasn’t in or was busy with another customer, I’d end up having to do the work and give those sales to him.

He was the ultimate cell phone slangin’ hustler.

Reddit has literally become an infinitely-sized Q&A forum. People with problems all over the world search for answers on Google, who inevitably find a random Reddit thread with a few answers.

Eventually, they’ll create an account, join a few subreddits that talk about something they believe in, and start asking and answering questions.

Communities grow, loyalty strengthened, and now WallStreetBets took on Wall Street. WOM wins.

WOM is more than just helping one customer at a time, and banking on referrals. It can be embedded in your product or service too.

That’s where WOM meets #growthhacking.

Hotmail became the world’s first and most popular email service because they added a tagline at the bottom of their emails that offered email recipients to create their own free email. WOM.

Dropbox was one of the first to offer free storage space to users when they invited their friends & family to create an account. WOM.

Craigslist, one of the greatest "lost opportunities" ever, had most of its travel users poached by Airbnb. WOM.

Recently, @JoinClubhouse became one of the fastest growing startups utilizing WOM. The skip-the-line tactic had people go frantic for an invite from another user. WOM.

WOM will forever be the ultimate marketing strategy.

You could outfit your business with the latest in artificial intelligence like it’s Skynet, spend dump trucks of dollars on ads, or pay $150,000 to John McAfee for a single sponsored tweet.

But nothing will replace good ol’ fashioned word of mouth.

I originally posted a longer version of this post on my #Substack.

If you enjoyed this thread, I send out two articles a week on stuff related to marketing, fun personal stories, and investments.

Scheck it out https://marketer.substack.com/  #marketingtwitter #growthhacking