Peer-to-peer marketing, have you tried it yet?

In A. Ries and J. Trout’s book “Positioning: The Battle of Your Mind”, they talk about the unbearable noise customers have to deal with nowadays. The authors argue that the marketing and advertisement world is over communicated; making it even more difficult for our message to get to the target audience.

To stand out from the crowd and get their message across, businesses are implementing different approaches to the way they position and advertise their products.

In 2008, The New Your Times declared that nothing sells like celebrity and in 2014 celebrities were present in 20% of American ads.  Nevertheless, we live in fast paced changing times, therefore what worked in marketing a decade ago, is not necessarily as effective today. In 2012, only 9% adverts contained celebrities’ presence. Celebrity endorsements don’t have the same impact as they previously did, therefore businesses are forced to look for new ways of communicating with their customers.

Throughout the years, approaches to advertising constantly change and different approaches are more effective than others.

Interestingly, word of mouth recommendations is a very simple and easy to implement method that has been used in marketing and sales for a long time, yet is not valued enough. After seeing a great movie, using a good cosmetic product or visiting an amazing new place, we are more likely to share their opinion about a product or a service with family and friends. In fact, we are unknowingly “selling” the product or service to people in our circle without having any material benefits from it.

Many businesses are in a position to sell their products this way, especially if they ooze quality. WFDSA reports the MLM and Direct Sale sales volume generated in 2015 by its member countries as $184 billion and the number of individual direct sellers as 103 million.

Peer to peer (P2P) marketing is another way of using mouth to mouth recommendation. Also known as word-of-mouth, referral marketing, viral marketing, ambassador marketing, influencer marketing etc., this method encourages customers to engage with other potential customers by advocating a product or service to friends, family or associates.

GottaBe! has helped many clients over the year with peer-to-peer marketing including some of the well-known brands  We do this by organising marketing campaigns for our clients making sure each is bespoke to their needs; everything is original material. We provide the outgoing Brand Ambassadors that love getting out and about and promoting our clients’ products and services.

Story written by Daniel Kur, Account Support Executive