When the other day my cell phone ran out of juice in the middle of an important call, I experienced a flash of a childhood memory. Power would occasionally go out in our communist Czechoslovakia apartment and I’d read my Jules Verne novels by candlelight. In winter, the central heating distribution station would break down sometimes or the hours of operation got cut, and I’d go to bed right after dinner just to keep warm. One summer water was rationed for months so it flowed only a few hours a day. Facts of life, these were, but one puzzle remained: no matter what the failure, the phone always worked.
My railway electrician dad would try to explain the workings of the public switched telephone network and rotary phones and pulse dialing. The only fact that stuck with me was that the phone system was completely and deliberately independent of other systems. So as I was scrambling to recharge the cell phone, the recollection triggered the inevitable question: If all else fails in your marketing, what’s the one system that will continue to work no matter what?
As with the good old rotary phone and the system it embodied, the answer must be this: the one marketing system that must not fail is communication with your community. Word of mouth is your telephone network, people are your rotary phones.
Your website won’t be found, your brochure will be recycled, your ad will be ignored, your email will be spammed, your product will break, but people will always talk. Your customers will talk to their friends about their experience with your company. Your clients will talk to other organizations to make referrals. Your vendors will talk to other vendors about the way you do business. Your Main Street neighbors will talk to other neighbors about your storefront.
Andy Sernovitz has got it right in his evangelism of word-of-mouth marketing: everyone is already talking about you so you might as well participate and help the conversation grow. What is more powerful and cost-effective than having people do your marketing for you? Word-of-mouth marketing may just be the most sustainable marketing there is.
I called the person back and we finished our conversation. I wonder if she later talked about the snafu with anyone.
