Talk Triggers: The Complete Guide to Creating Customers with Word of Mouth

by Jay Baer

“WHAT IF THEY DON’T LIKE IT?”

Test and Measure Your Talk Triggers

Things that take time to grow inherently invite skeptics. We’re so used to quick results—particularly in marketing—that it feels almost unnatural to intentionally slow down.

not unlike making Thanksgiving dinner using ingredients you plant...

talk triggers invite skeptics. After all, if word of mouth was so obvious and equally easy to observe, this book wouldn’t have much purpose.

By definition, word of mouth takes time to flower because it relies on one customer telling one other potential customer (or a few) about you.

Word of mouth, however, is more persuasive and effective at the individual level because real, trusted people make recommendations to other real people.

While the real-life-experience nature of word of mouth is what makes it work, ironically, the corresponding lack of immediacy is what many potential practitioners find frustrating. You do need to allow talk triggers time to work.

change the conversation. Make it about the method, not the timeline.

Test versus Measure: Two Mind-sets

two distinct mind-sets that we’ll explore in this chapter.

first is the testing mind-set: How do you know your idea is good enough to sustain its own word of mouth? One way you’ll know it’s working sounds a lot like the answer to a question posed in a corny 1980s rom-co...

For optimal performance, a talk trigger should be present in at least 25 percent of the conversations.

Your initial test of a talk trigger idea may not mature to a 25 percent threshold in the limited space of time you allowed to kick its tires. When this happens we advocate for a smaller percentage that suggests the potential for growth and success. In the short term, 10 percent of customer conversation is a good place to begin.

If you cannot encourage 10 percent of your test audience to begin talking about your trigger voluntarily, it is clearly not the right mechanism to incite conversation. Perhaps it’s not novel enough, or hasn’t been perceived as unique by your customers. You’ll need to retool and try again.

As a sprint test during a limited period of time, you should be seeing evidence of your trigger in at least 10 percent of conversations. As an endurance test, over time and once made permanent, a talk trigger should be present in 25 percent of your customer conversations.

Test Talk Triggers

how you can get others in the company excited about what you’ve built.

How to Scale a Talk Trigger

What good is a talk trigger if nobody talks about it? Remember that talk triggers are not marketing. Thus, the ideas you might use to support a new marketing campaign—those elements of paid, owned, and earned media (POEM)—should not be your first stop on the launch train for word of mouth.

Instead, we recommend a different framework that we call SEE. It stands for stakeholders, employees, and enterprise.

The core element of a talk trigger is the story it creates.

Remember, this is how talk triggers are different from USPs (unique selling propositions). Talk triggers are about stories. USPs are about bullet points.

the reality is that even if your customers LOVE your talk trigger, it will never work unless everyone in your organization—large and small—is equally smitten.

You have to BE different to convince customers that you are worthy of conversation. And being different requires every person and every department to align around the talk trigger.

It’s like jazz. The musicians have the freedom to do their own thing, but always within the framework of the overall initiative.

STAKEHOLDERS

EMPLOYEES

ENTERPRISE

let’s look at how you build unstoppable internal momentum for your talk trigger and expand its reach.

Expand Your Talk Trigger

It’s pretty rare that you identify a talk trigger, roll it out, and find that it works at full speed from day one.

All the knowledge you’ve gained about the talk triggers process so far has remained within the confines of your Triangle of Awesome. It’s time to do some show-and-tell with your colleagues, sharing your talk triggers experience and its impact on your business. This is where you help your peers escape the operational funk and begin to think creatively about the business again.

Build a Coalition

Find an Executive Champion

Gain Internal Momentum

When customers, employees, and other stakeholders are excited, everyone feels excited.

As your talk trigger grows its internal fan base, be sure to share early wins. When something amazing happens—a new growth threshold is met or a sales target is blown out of the water—celebrate it and remind everyone that the customer is the reason why. It feels great to be different!

Effective talk triggers create great brand experiences, and these small internal celebrations can reinforce how meaningful a talk trigger is ...

Because they survive beyond campaigns and stunts, talk triggers are durable and lead to an excellent ongoing narrative for your organization. It’s a sort of endurance marketing.

Next we’ll look at amplifying your talk trigger.

Amplify Your Talk Trigger

How do you get customers talking about your talk trigger?

There are things you can do to spark conversation and generate momentum, but remember that a talk trigger by definition is a strategic operational differentiator. It’s not a customer referral program or an influencer campaign.

as Jonah Berger wrote in Contagious, “People don’t seem to like walking advertisements.” Talk triggers work because they’re subtle and tangible. They’re not designed as quid pro quo referral devices, delivered in exchange for the email addresses of friends and family.

They’re genuine experiences, not advertising. This is the precise reason that a word-of-mouth impression drives five times more sales than advertising. But word of mouth and advertising are not mutually exclusive,

Each assists th...

Set the Stage for Simplicity

What are the messages and stories that consumers are willing to share? They’re easy to understand and interpret.

Your talk trigger message has to be crisp, concise, and simple. There cannot be exceptions, caveats, or circumstances.