Word of mouth can do wonders for your business, particularly in the power industry. We’ve heard it all before – happy customers are what generates referrals. After all, what’s stronger social proof than someone raving about the company that helped solve all their problems?

But is word of mouth enough to generate the right leads and create sales? No.

There are many advantages to word of mouth marketing. People place more trust in recommendations from people they know as opposed to a random company. In addition, word of mouth is free and needs no upkeep on your end. You don’t have to strategize or do anything different than normal as long as what you are normally doing is helping to create positive word of mouth referrals.

Sounds great, right? However, there’s also a weakness associated with relying solely on word of mouth that you need to consider before you give up on creating additional marketing strategies. Word of mouth is hard to control – which means you can’t promote particular items, sales, or even target a type of customer.

So if you are still relying solely on word of mouth to generate leads and sales for your business, you could be giving your business the short end of the stick without even realizing it. With the amount of time that needs to be invested to generate one lead, you simply can’t be sure that word of mouth is going to consistently find people in the right stage of the buyer’s journey.

How do you address the marketing gaps that word of mouth is not filling? Two words: inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing can increase your lead generation and sales. It also allows you to create a lead generation strategy that builds a relationship with potential clients – instead of simply hoping they call. So, don’t fret! With inbound marketing, you can balance out the short-comings of word of mouth to create a strategy that works best for your company’s sales and lead generation. In our next post we will discuss the benefits on inbound marketing and how your company can begin to tackle it!