Talkable brands do not rely on expensive traditional advertising to drive sales. Instead, they tap into the inexpensive conversational power of customers as their primary advertising vehicle. These brands enjoy the benefits of using word of mouth marketing to not only increase awareness, but also drive sales.
Starbucks Coffee is a talkable brand. Whole Foods Market is also a talkable brand. It wasn’t by accident these two brands grew from a local business to a regional brand to global icons. Both brands made deliberate decisions to bake word of mouth marketing into how they did business not just one day, but every day.
As a marketing manager with Starbucks in their formative growth years and later, as a marketing director with Whole Foods, I was fortunate to witness and participate in the various methods these brands use to get customers talking.
Getting customers talking isn’t as difficult as you may think. The process begins by making decisions to be obvious, remarkable, and conversational.
Talkable brands like Starbucks and Whole Foods are obvious in what they stand for. Starbucks stands for bolder, more flavorful coffee. Whole Foods stands for natural and organic groceries. By deliberately deciding to stand for something, these two companies are known for their unique point of view.
Whole Foods Market does not sell products with artificial ingredients. The company is obvious in its stance against artificial ingredients. On its website, Whole Foods posts a long list of unacceptable ingredients it doesn’t allow products they sell. Walk up and down the soft drink aisle at Whole Foods and you will not see brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or Dr. Pepper. Each of those best-selling sodas is made with artificial ingredients. Instead of seeing popular soda brands, you will see unfamiliar brands like Izze, Maine Root, and Blue Sky on the shelves at Whole Foods.
By being obvious in what it stands for, Whole Foods Market appears more original. And that’s the lesson other brands can learn—the more obvious you are, the more original you appear.
Popular marketer and author Seth Godin says, “You’re either remarkable or invisible. Make your choice.” Talkable brands decide to be remarkable by earning opinions from customers.
Starbucks deliberately earns opinions from customers. Think about your first visit to Starbucks and you’ll remember being confused with their odd names for drink sizes and the weird language Starbucks baristas used to call out your drink order. You know what I’m talking about—a “tall” is really a small, and a “venti” is an extra large. Don’t think for a second you haven’t learned how to order your favorite drink in perfect Starbucks dialect. You have. And by having customers learn to say, “grande non-fat extra hot, two-pump vanilla, one-pump hazelnut, no-foam latte,” it’s yet another way Starbucks is a remarkable and talkable brand.
The unique Starbucks language is polarizing. Some people love it, while others hate it. Starbucks knows its polarizing ways makes the whole process of buying a common cup of coffee uncommon. So uncommon it sparks conversations with customers.
Talkable brands join conversations wherever customers are talking. Customers, as we know, are a talkative bunch. Keller Fay Group, a marketing research firm, estimates the typical American takes part in 125 conversations per week with friends, family, and co-workers that discuss products and services. Of those weekly conversations, specific brands are mentioned over 60 times.
Today, these brand-related conversations are amplified trough social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. Both Starbucks and Whole Foods actively participate in the online conversations customers are having about them. (Starbucks has over 23-million fans on Facebook. Whole Foods has about 2-million followers on Twitter.)
Starbucks and Whole Foods are not using Facebook and Twitter as a broadcast channel to talk about new promotions and new products. Instead, they are using social media websites primarily as a listening channel to provide better customer service.
For example, Whole Foods actively responds to the many comments and questions people have about the company on Twitter. Nine out of every ten tweets from Whole Foods on Twitter is a company response to something someone tweeted. Whole Foods has a deliberate social media strategy that involves listening and responding more than talking.
Your business can start becoming a more talkable brand by deciding to be unique, then deciding to be remarkable every day, and by deciding to be conversational using social media.
John Moore is a Marketing Strategist at Brand Autopsy Marketing Practice and a Consultant for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.
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