Reading reviews online or asking your friends and family their opinion of a brand before you buy is common. While social media allows people to access more online reviews, there’s nothing like hearing reviews on something from a friend or family member. This type of ‘advice’ is commonly referred to as word of mouth marketing.
Word of mouth marketing is considered to be one of the most influential types of marketing strategies due to its impact on people’s decision making. Venmo, a money sharing app, has become increasingly popular through word of mouth marketing making peer-to-peer payments seamless. No more “I’ll pay you later” when you can pay your friend straight from your phone.
How Venmo Sticks
Venmo was founded in 2009, by Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail. The name comes from a Latin verb, vendere, which means “to sell,” and “mo” for mobile. This makes “Venmo” easy for people to use it as a verb when referring to it.
Coming up with a user-friendly word is key to a successful word of mouth marketing strategy. It makes the delivery of the content easy to understand, and most importantly, stick in the person’s mind. This will, in turn, lead them to follow through, purchase, or download an application.
Creating New Users
So, how does Venmo get most of their users through word of mouth marketing? Have you ever gone out to eat with a friend or peer and the restaurant is ‘cash only,’ and you only have a credit card or debit card? Instead of trying to find an ATM, your friend says, “Just Venmo me!” This informal introduction makes downloading a mobile money sharing app seem like a no brainer.
92% of people believe brand recommendations from friends over advertisements, and word of mouth generates two times more sales than paid ads. Word of mouth marketing strategies such as Venmo’s implements strong encouragement and adaptation to try a new service.
Ease of Use, Convenience, Interface
No more awkward IOUs, Venmo allows people to use their credit card, debit card, or bank account to make payments to their peers. People can make a payment to a friend by scanning their Venmo code, looking up their username, or by their phone number. Next, they enter a description for their payment and press pay. Within seconds, their friend is notified that they paid them. People also can make payment requests and add a description of why they are requesting money. This user-friendly money sharing app makes paying and payment requests quick and straightforward.
People are more likely to download this app due to a recommendation from a friend. However, if it was difficult to use they would be less likely to continue using it and the common success word of mouth has would become less effective. This shows that while word of mouth is a successful strategy, it can have less sticking power if the service is complicated.
A Form of Social Network
Venmo, money sharing app, acts as a social network. You can see not only what you pay your friends and what they pay you, but also when your friends that you are following pay each other in your feed if they have their posts viewable in their settings. Most people are using emojis along with simple words to describe why they are paying someone. You can like payments by users and even comment on their payments. Venmo turned how people manage and move their money into an experience people can share.
Word of mouth strategies such as these allow two-way communication and make personal banking and moving money fun between friends. Learn how companies in the finance industry use the Synthesio Social Intelligence Suite for leading social insights.
