I recently saw an article from last summer that discussed a Verizon survey of small business owners. This survey indicated that 85% of a small business’ new customers come from word of mouth marketing. This coincided with a survey the author had done in 2005 that showed the number was nearly identical (83% in that survey).
This also jives with my (highly unscientific) polling of small business owners over the past 2 years – word of mouth is by far the #1 source of new business. In 10 years, the top method to attract new customers hasn’t changed, but the way to attract them certainly has. So, as I’ve stated in past posts, I’m always at a loss when these same businesses don’t have a strategy for doing word of mouth online…
