If your son or daughter (or anyone for that matter) asked you this question I hope you would have a better answer than “we advertise, they see our advertising, then they come and buy from us”.

If you can’t think of a simple reason why your existing customers would tell other people about your products or service then you probably need to rethink your strategy. People don’t talk about good products at a reasonable price, they talk about outstanding products, unbelievably cheap products, unbelievably expensive products, products that do something unique or unusual, service that is orders of magnitude apart from anything else they have experienced, or products that have amazing stories behind them.

Your products and services should be an integral part of your marketing strategy, not an input into it.

Think about the stories you want your customers to be telling other people about your products and services, and then design them to make that happen.

Great photo of a stork in flight from Bruce Tuten on Flickr.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Customers or Fans?
2. Doing something worth talking about: The KFC Double Down