Everyone talks about how word of mouth is the best form of marketing that there is.

It’s about having a product or service so good that people talk about it (for free!) and bring their friends.

The thing about word of mouth marketing is that its an outdated term. People talk about it like its a medium in and of itself, when in actuality its a natural byproduct of successful marketing.

It would be like a business saying that their number “form of business” is profit; it may be true but its not really a helpful action item. No profit is actually derived from creating value. And just like profit, word of mouth is a byproduct of marketing.

So when people talking about word of mouth marketing, they are really talking about a product or service that is worth talking about, yet they never actually do anything about it. You make something worth talking about it by being something that people actually care about.

Not everyone hears things that you do. We think sounds or voices are something that anyone with the ability to hear can hear but it turns out, people only hear what they want to hear.

If we don’t want to think about something, we block it out. We avoid it. We change the story in our mind to something we desire.

Then a marketing voice is not something we hear, it’s something we create in our head.

People have a filter in their mind. As soon as a message hits their brain, it starts to bend to the different stories and paradigms of the receiver.

All the “noise” out there is just people filtering what they want to hear. Peoples filters are getting stronger but it doesn’t mean that they don’t want to listen to nothing. Filtering out noise is what creates focus on the things that matter to that customer.

As marketers we, seek to understand what they filter out and what they choose to receive, only then do we have a chance to change them.