How word of mouth works

“Word of mouth” is when clients who appreciate the artist begin to recommend him.

The first customer contacted me via word of mouth literally within a few months of starting freelancing. He called on the phone with the words: “Hello, Egor, you were recommended to me as a person who can help design a website...”. At that moment, I was so excited about this new potential order that I even forgot to ask who exactly recommended me.

After some time, another potential client approached me in the same way. And then again and again. And soon the flow of such requests became a familiar part of my freelance life. I was happy, proud of myself and was sure that word of mouth worked on its own, without my participation. All you have to do is do the job well.

At that time, when someone asked where I got so many clients, I answered: “Mainly from word of mouth, they constantly come to me.”

As time passed, I started teaching: I wrote articles, filmed training videos, consulted, conducted webinars and courses. A lot more people found out about me. And clients began to come based on recommendations from people I didn’t even know personally. They got to know me through my training materials, decided that I was a good specialist, and remembered me when it came to designing interfaces.

It turned out to be “word of mouth squared”. From the series “I haven’t personally worked with him, but having become acquainted with his works, I concluded that he is a good specialist, and I can tell others about him.” At that time, in response to the question “Who recommended me to you?” I heard unfamiliar names and honestly admitted that I was not familiar with these people. This did not interfere with new transactions.

Often I myself had to recommend other specialists. I especially remember the team of layout designers who made a small project for me that showed recent events on a map near the user. I liked the result, they completed the work on time, so within a few months after the end of cooperation, I recommended them a couple of times to my clients who asked for good layout designers.

Then there was a pause of six months when no one was interested in the layout services, and after that it was too difficult for me to look for their contacts, and I somehow forgot about them. The history of correspondence in the messenger was buried in the list of new dialogues. And email messages could only be found by searching or flipping through dozens of pages. Therefore, when later I was again asked to recommend good layout designers, it was easier for me to refuse than to delve into the archives.

And then it dawned on me: perhaps, if I myself do not remind my former clients about myself, then it becomes difficult for them to look for my contacts. So over time they forget about me!

This was confirmed when in 2017 I took on my own project and took a long break from freelance orders. The flow of clients based on recommendations bubbled up for another six months and then dried up. For me it was unexpected, surprising and unpleasant. I was sure that word of mouth worked on its own, but now I have experienced in practice that this is not the case.

In 2021, I walked with Alexander Prokofiev, owner of KudaGo. We met when, many years before, I was designing an advertiser’s account interface for them. I asked Alexander why he had not turned to me for services in recent years, because there were probably some new interesting projects. To which I received a simple and honest answer: “Yes, I just forgot that you are doing this. But yes, there were projects, and if I had remembered about you, I would definitely have contacted you.” For me, this was the final confirmation that word of mouth needs to be supported. As a result, I formulated several rules that help me actively use it to this day.

Remind yourself. In order for clients to recommend a freelancer more often, he needs to constantly be in their information field. You can regularly ask how things are going and how the project in which he took part is developing. Or share links to useful publications. Or brag about some professional achievements. You can even just congratulate them on the main holidays, that will be enough. The main thing is that the freelancer’s contact is at their fingertips and they remember how it can be useful.

When there are so many clients that asking “how are you doing” takes too much time, you can set up automatic mailings. You can also create a separate closed community on some popular social network, where you can invite them with honor and then share useful information with everyone at once.

When reminding yourself, it is important not to cross the line after which every message from the performer will be perceived as spam, because this will have the opposite effect: getting blacklisted. For some services, weekly reminders are suitable (for example, an invitation to attend a new theater production or a class with a fitness trainer), while for some it is better to announce them no more than once a year (dentist visit, maintenance, general cleaning of the area).

Actively ask for recommendations. It is quite difficult to say to a client: “If you liked my work, then please tell your friends and colleagues about me.” This becomes easier the longer a freelancer sits without orders.

When I myself act as a client, and former performers approach me with a request to help find customers, I always treat them with understanding and respond whenever possible. They are annoying only in one case: when the freelancer has done his job poorly before. Therefore, it is better to make sure in advance that the client liked everything before turning to him for recommendations.

Maintain a customer database. Here I am a shoemaker without boots. I know exactly how important it is to have a sign with the names and contacts of clients, as well as notes on the projects I did for them, but I still haven’t started one to this day. I don't have a good explanation for why this is the case. After all, I spent a lot of effort and resources to attract each client, but I am so calm about the fact that they disappear in the archives.

At first there were so few customers that there was no need for a database; all contacts were already at hand. When there were more than a hundred of them, I reminded about myself only to the last ten to fifteen, and only when there were significantly fewer orders. This was enough to correct the situation, and I again postponed creating the base.

I created a spreadsheet in Excel for my first client base in 2020, but not for freelancing, but for my other small business. It is stored online and on my local computer.

Let's summarize. To make word of mouth work, you need to remind former clients about yourself, directly ask for recommendations and keep a list of such clients so that you can quickly find the necessary contacts or arrange a mailing list at any time. And the sooner you start doing this, the faster the number of incoming orders will grow, which means the cost of services will increase.