mornin’ merrymakers 📣🤝🔥🎯💬

there's a secret to retail growth that big tech companies don't want you to know.

specifically meta, google, tiktok, and basically any marketing platform fighting for your ad dollars.

these companies have built billion-dollar empires convincing you that the path to your next customer runs straight through their ad platforms. they've made it seem like the only way to grow is to keep spending with them.

they're really good at it.

their entire business model depends on making you believe you need them to reach customers. it's kinda like dating apps being designed more to keep you swiping than to help you find true love and delete the app.

they’re distracting you from the most powerful (and free!) growth channel that's been around since the first merchant set up shop in the town square:

word of mouth.

there's a reason so many brands ask on surveys: "how did you hear about us?"

i like to call it hydhau, pronounced howdy how.

brands obsess over this question because they're trying to quantify their customer acquisition channels and figure out which marketing actually works.

during my years at both apple and warby parker, i was shocked to learn that the overwhelming majority of customers came from friend, family, & coworker recommendations.

this is word of mouth aka wom.

it was often double or triple the next highest category on the survey.

and i know what you’re thinking:

“of course that’s true for iconic brands. they’re already famous. that won't work for me."

but what got these brands to iconic status in the first place was that they focused on word of mouth more than any other channel.

they didn't become recommendable because they were big.
they became big because they were recommendable & remarkable.

think about it in your own life. when you need to find a doctor, a workout class, or a restaurant, who do you trust most?

i bet it's the last one.

according to nielsen, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family over any other form of advertising.

plus, people are 4x more likely to buy when referred by a friend.

word of mouth is also the most cost-effective. no ad spend required. no agency retainer. no complicated attribution models.

just customers who love you enough to tell their friends.

so now let's talk about HOW you actually grow word of mouth with 3 specific strategies.

people don't talk about "good."

they talk about "wait…that was amazing."

in many categories, the bar for retail service is embarrassingly low, which means small improvements create outsized word-of-mouth impact.

how to do it: