A Secret, a Cause, or a Carrot
Marketing enters the word-of-mouth arena when there’s something worth talking about. The precursors to word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) are brand marketing and advertising, both necessary steps to package and proclaim a message or a product. However, when marketing ends there, we get what we call a raincloud: it rains for just a sec, and if you happen to be walking underneath, you might get wet.
What if, instead, we created a groundswell: little waves upon little waves creating a large and undeniable swell of attention or action.
WOMM requires an extra bit of scrappy strategy and intentionality. There must be what we call a secret, a cause, or a carrot—or better yet, all three—to get people talking. With the right creative implementation, marketing can move from a raincloud to a groundswell, a message to a movement.
Below are the three pillars of a WOMM campaign along with practical examples to bring each to life:
A Secret
Phrases like “I just heard” or “My friend told me” or “Someone just said…” are all indicators that you know something others don’t. When used in grassroots marketing (or, like, high school), secrets make messages infinitely more shareable.
Strategically creating a secret activation of some type—be it a coupon code, giveaway, event, or an insider privilege—turns a marketing message from something you hear to something you share.
(In rare occasions, something can be just so.dang.good or interesting that it feels like you have a secret gift; you want others to experience it too. The Instant Pot. Tiger King. “I’m not a cat.” Your experience becomes the secret, and you just can’t keep it to yourself.)
Example: For Refuge Coffee Co., we created Shop Refuge: a simple yet wacky clothing sale where folks could get new and gently used clothing for just $2 per item. Business suits, leather boots, prom dresses, and designer brands were offered alongside baby onesies and t-shirts, all thoughtfully displayed at the iconic coffee shop. The annual sale has become the place where folks finding themselves in all different economic situations plan to get their clothes—and it’s always the highest sales day of the year at the coffee shop.
Or, consider the audio social app Clubhouse. Clubhouse began as invite-only, prompting (1) users to reach out to their friends with their limited number of invites and (2) the invite-less to try to find someone with extras laying around. The ability to both experience and then share Clubhouse became a coveted secret that we all wanted to know.
A Cause
There’s a pervasive feeling that with all that’s going on in the world, our solo efforts won’t make a difference. Where do we even start?
Presenting an ambitious goal and the formula for how your contribution can make a difference invites us into meaningful participation—and even encourages us to recruit others into the equation. I mean, we’ve got to reach this goal!! Here’s the math:
Your contribution + All these other people making their single contributions = Ambitious goal, accomplished together
Even more powerful is when the goal cannot be reached without you (like Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing framework).
Example: Shop Refuge was a do-good cause on top of cause on top of cause… Money (and awareness!) was raised for the non-profit job training arm of the coffee shop while also providing folks in the neighborhood a dignified way to shop great clothes at great prices. Clothing that was not purchased at the end of the sale was donated to a partner charity. We also set and proclaimed ambitious goals. Could you help us beat sales from the year before? Could we raise enough to beat our sales record AND give an extra thousand bucks to a neighboring non-profit?
Here’s another fun example: This retired teacher erased $50 million in medical debt thanks to her grassroots Instagram fundraiser. She chose an interesting yet resonating cause and supported that with personal stories and a clearly defined financial return: every $100 raised forgives $10,000 in medical debt. She boasted that if we all worked together, we could create the largest giveaway in history - surpassing even Oprah’s “You get a car!” stunt. We were given an opportunity to make a difference more than we could ever imagine making on our own, and we were all in.
A Carrot
An interesting next step compels folks to further action. These hints, cliffhangers, and clickbaits are all just carrots used to tempt someone to keep moving in your direction.
Example: We partnered with local boutiques and influencers to give previews of treasures that would be added to the Shop Refuge sale—all still offered for $2. Brand new boutique dresses and gently used clothes from rappers and comedians were teased on social media, along with other high-value donated items like designer jeans or fancy shoes (again, all $2). We used the buried treasure prompt as the carrot to pull people into the sale.
Of course one of the most epic carrots comes from our girl T Swift, who cleared her Instagram, posted cryptic snake videos days later, and finally shared her album name and release date. For a week, she dangled the carrot, and we chased it juuuust like she intended.