PR 101

The Cole household needed a plumber last week.  The sewer lateral from our house to our village’s sewer lines was clogged. This happens to be a job that I cannot do myself. It calls for a specialized tool that I would use about once every 20 years. So I needed outside help.

Blogger’s note: One of the keys to a successful home repair is knowing your limitations.

Because I do most of my own home repair I did not have the name of reliable plumber. So how did I find someone who I knew was skilled and trustworthy? Google? An online directory? Online reviews?

Nope, Nyet, Nein.

I called some friends who I knew had recently had plumbing work done on their houses. I asked them what company they’d used and what their experience was. After a few phone calls, I settled on which company I was going to use and called them up.

What I availed myself of was the most basic, and probably oldest, form of marketing – word-of-mouth. I have a feeling when Oog wanted to trade for a snazzy fur for Mrs. Oog, he asked around the cave to find out who had the best pelts.

Remember, social media is just word-of-mouth writ large. Instead of talking to a few of your friends, you can now broadcast your opinions all over the Internet. Others can read them and make a decision.

That brings me to another point about word-of-mouth; the issue of trust. I called people who like me who know something about plumbing. I knew their opinions were of a value because they could evaluate the quality of work.

There’s one of the problem with social media – it is often hard to decide who to trust. There have been several instances of individuals creating false identities to tout their own companies or products. Obviously they are not providing an objective opinion.

So the key to is identify those people who are objective and honest. It is the same thing as talking to your friends about a store or a company. You soon learn who knows what they are talking about and can be trusted. Read enough on-line reviews and you’ll know who to believe.

Which brings to why marketers should care about this.

I grew up in a very small town in the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York State. My father was one of a small group of community leaders. Anyone wanting to do something in our village would usually run it by this group. These were the men – in the was early ‘60s, so they were all men – who could convince the rest of the community to go along with a project.

Those groups still exist. They have just moved on line. They are called influencers or early adopters now, but their role is the same as those men who sat around our kitchen table drinking coffee. Convince these people that your product is something worth buying and have your race is run. They will tell others who will tell still others, etc.

One advantage that these people provide is they are often looking for new things. You just have to dangle the bait for them to bite. It is how I found a good plumber.