Julianna Barbee, Director, NMSBDC at NNM College
Creating excitement — or “buzz” in marketing lingo — about products or services is a matter of survival in a competitive market — especially when most consumers are spending only on essentials until the economy shows signs of recovery and stability.
Buzz describes the positive word-of-mouth marketing or hype among consumers that often precedes the release of a much-anticipated product. Real-time, portable communications technology facilitates the building of buzz by allowing rapid exchanges of information among large numbers of people.
Even though buzz can spread like a contagion, it needs a point of origin and a carefully crafted plan for dissemination. Creating buzz requires time, energy and innovation.
Social networks
Buying or using a service is part of a social process. Entrepreneurs who understand that customers belong to networks or market niches can efficiently use these links to spread the word about their products or services.
Creating buzz turns a message into action and action into profit — but only as long as the business lives up to its hype. There has to be a benefit and value to the customer in order for the buzz to keep building and stay positive.
Even businesses that have been around for years can lose customers to competitors who offer something new or treat customers better. The most successful businesses invest time thinking of distinctive ways to keep customers and attract new ones. Knowing customers’ needs and fulfilling them are the best ways a business can get customers to start discussing a business or product.
Building buzz
Sales trainers say the first seven seconds are critical in any 60-second pitch of a product or service; the theory is that after seven seconds, an audience’s attention wanders if it hasn’t been captured. Planning is required to come up with the right words for a simple statement that connects with the business’s mission and motivates people to buy — and talk about — the product. One idea at a time is the most a target market will remember.
Brainstorming sessions are a way to encourage creativity and can generate a surprising number of ideas. Imagining a new product or service is a challenge, but it makes a business stand out among its peers.
All employees should be trained for a business’s marketing campaign so they can help promote the business or product during their working hours — and even at social gatherings and business meetings. Buzz isn’t built unless everyone feels excited about the product or service being offered.
To evaluate the success of a buzz campaign, a business can use one of the many metric tools and services on the market that help measure how far and wide a message has spread.
Learn more about the New Mexico Small Business Development Centers.
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