Word-of-Mouth Marketing Strategy: Complete Guide (2026)

A word-of-mouth marketing strategy is when people hear about a brand, product, or service through someone other than the brand itself. 

It’s considered credible because the person recommending it has nothing to gain by lying. This is important as modern consumers don’t trust company messaging. 

Edelman’s 2026 Trust Barometer calls this an “insular trust” mindset: consumers are often quicker to believe people already inside their circle than unfamiliar institutions or voices outside it.

This means you can’t buy your way to word of mouth. You can buy reach, run ads, publish on schedule, but you can’t make a customer vouch for you. Authenticity matters, and thoughtful word-of-mouth campaigns can be impactful.

Ahead, learn how to create an effective word-of-mouth marketing strategy, its benefits, and successful examples from real brands. 

What is a word-of-mouth marketing strategy?

A word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) strategy, also called WOM marketing, is the practice of encouraging or facilitating customer recommendations and discussions about a brand to other people. The plan often includes encouraging customers, creators, and partners to recommend you through conversations, reviews, referrals, social posts, and community channels.

An effective WOM strategy considers:

• Who’s making the recommendation. Former and current customers, friends, family, expert reviewers, creators, employees, and community members can all influence how people hear about a brand.
• Why someone would trust the source. A recommendation carries more weight when it comes from someone the audience already knows, follows, or considers credible.
• What type of experience prompts someone to share. A variety of factors, including product quality, customer service, delivery, packaging, price, and usefulness, can influence customers’ decisions to recommend a brand.
• How easy it is to share. Referral links, review requests, post-purchase prompts, social sharing tools, and customer stories give customers a clear and simple next step.
• How the brand measures the impact. Referral traffic, review volume, social mentions, conversion rate, repeat purchases, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) can indicate whether positive word-of-mouth is impacting growth.

Eugene Yao, for instance, posted a brunch photo on Instagram; a friend saw it and walked straight into the café Eugene had posted from.

The moment when a recommendation shifts someone from a screen to a real purchase is the promise of word-of-mouth marketing. Eugene noticed, however, that the reach stopped there. 

“I knew word of mouth works,” he says, “and I knew that every business in every industry could use it too.” 

He built eVouch to solve it.

“eVouch combines the trust inherent in word of mouth with the scale of social media. It has great synergy with ecommerce,” he says.

Within four months, 400 brands were using it.

Tip: While word-of-mouth marketing is when customers talk about your brand to other people without a paid incentive, referral marketing is a brand program that rewards recommendations through discounts or bonuses. 

Referral marketing is also different from affiliate marketing. While both use third parties, referrals come from customers where affiliates are usually professional partners earning commissions or other incentives. 

What are the benefits of word-of-mouth marketing for retailers?

While paid ads can create short-term brand reach fairly quickly, positive word of mouth can keep working after the first sale through reviews, referrals, social posts, and customer recommendations.

A November 2025 survey of Shopify store owners* found that 53% of established merchants relied on word-of-mouth as their most common year-one growth strategy, outpacing social media (35%) and paid advertising. 

Among merchants earning over $1 million, paid advertising became the most effective channel (31%), but word-of-mouth remained the foundation that got them there.

In fact, 89% of US consumers trust recommendations from friends and family. But trust does not guarantee reach. Only 38% of consumers discover new brands through word of mouth, which means retailers still need to make those recommendations easier to share and find. 

Here are the four key ways word-of-mouth marketing can support retail growth:

Drives repeat purchases

Recent research on SMB marketing strategies shows a strong correlation between positive WOM and increased customer loyalty, trust, and repeat purchases. Each repeat purchase then extends customer lifetime value—the total revenue a customer generates over their entire relationship with a brand. 

Builds brand affinity through social proof

Social proof, also referred to as “herd mentality,” is the psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect correct behavior. So when a friend recommends a product, you see someone you trust has validated the brand.

A word-of-mouth marketing strategy is one way to create that proof. 

According to Power Digital’s 2026 State of Social Media Trends Report, 62% of consumers say positive comments and reviews are their “#1 trust driver.” Report data indicates YouTube has surged 9.7% year-over-year as the go-to validation layer, with long-form reviews and unboxing videos shaping final purchase decisions.

Turns customer interest into social reach

You can also reach more people on social media with word of mouth. Other shoppers are likely to notice a brand when they see a customer review, an unboxing video, a tagged post, a mention from a creator, or a recommendation from a community member.

For example, when Glossier launched Boy Brow Arch, they placed scannable posters across New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Fans who found the billboards could shop the product early, exclusively through the Shop app. 

Once the campaign launched, shoppers shared posters all over social media, and press outlets spread the news as fans worldwide tried to hunt down the drop.

Glossier anticipated more than 100 million impressions from the strategy, according to LSN Global. 

Reaches shoppers across age groups

You can reach shoppers with word of mouth even if their discovery habits don’t fit neatly into one channel. For example, older consumers are still more likely than younger consumers to have cable: 57% of baby boomers had a cable subscription in 2022, compared with less than one-third of Gen Z. 

But that doesn’t mean older shoppers are offline.

YouGov found that baby boomers make up nearly one in five adult TikTok users in the US, and 52% of baby boomers on TikTok spend more than an hour a day on social media. Among this group, 48% use social media to research products and brands, while online search, review sites, and brand websites remain even more common research sources.

But across all age groups, 38.3% of Americans discover new brands through word of mouth.

How to build a word-of-mouth marketing strategy in 8 steps

1. Create something buzzworthy

Paola Cecchi-Dimeglio, founder and CEO of People Culture Data Consulting Group, a behavioral-science consulting firm, writes in Forbes: “Sometimes, the best way to get people talking is to give them something to talk about.”

The first step in word-of-mouth promotion is to create a moment worth sharing. Jonah Berger’s research on social transmission in Contagious identifies six factors that drive what people talk about:

• Social currency. People share what makes them look good. Offer experiences worth bragging about, like free products, “try before you buy” programs, or live workshops.
• Triggers. Create specific “talk triggers”—cues that remind people to share. Display branded hashtags in-store, add QR codes on receipts linking to review pages.
• Emotion. People share things they care about. Go above and beyond to offer an experience competing stores don’t.
• Public. The easier something is to see, the more likely people will imitate it. Make your word-of-mouth moments visible by hosting public events, creating photo-worthy experiences, and making sure recommendations are visible across social and in-store so others notice and want to participate.
• Practical value. People share useful information. Create FAQs, buying guides, or educational content your audience needs.
• Stories. Share your brand story or customer stories; it helps people envision your products and encourages them to share in their networks.

Weezer, for example, partnered with the Shop app to build a shoppable arcade game called Sweater Saga, celebrating the 30th anniversary of their Blue Album. The players unlocked exclusive merchandise based on their scores, then scanned a QR code to launch the Shop app on their phones, letting them claim their rewards and check out with one tap.

2. Provide exceptional customer service and experiences

If your customers don’t love what they receive, they won’t take the time to tell anyone about it. 

A November 2025 survey of Shopify store owners* found that among those with five or more employees, customer experience was the most commonly cited competitive advantage. The service your team delivers is often what separates word-of-mouth-worthy brands from forgettable ones.

Create customer experiences that give people a specific reason to share, whether they shop in-store or online:

• Design visible moments that customers can easily capture or talk about, such as statement displays or photo-friendly backdrops that naturally encourage user-generated content (UGC).
• Train sales associates to ask discovery questions, explain value propositions, and make relevant recommendations without pressuring the customer.
• Use the store environment to make products easier to understand and remember, including window displays, visual merchandising, product signage, and clear wayfinding.

The luxury fashion retailer Diane von Furstenberg creates a custom experience using unified data inside Shopify POS. Every customer gets a unique profile that store associates, known as personal stylists, consult to personalize the in-store experience.

“One of our favorite Shopify POS features is adding notes to a customer’s profile to store information like their favorite colors, ideal size, or a product they’re excited about from our new collection,” says DVF assistant store manager Joanna Puccio. 

“Those qualitative insights really help us really make them feel like we’re their personal stylist the next time they shop with us.”

Similar to customer relationship management systems (CRMs), clienteling software like this goes further, with opportunities to support associates’ efforts to personalize and provide better customer experiences. 

3. Tap into existing brand advocates

A happy customer who already buys from you is often a good place to start. You can then use creator partnerships to scale that behavior.

Here, UGC functions as social proof when it comes from real customers or creators with credible audience relationships.

Deloitte’s research on the creator economy found that 42% of high-ROI brands allocate their social media budgets to creator partnerships; nearly twice as much as low-ROI brands. 

As for finding and choosing influencers, HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing Report found that 32.4% of marketers saw the most success with micro-influencers, delivering higher engagement and lower costs than larger accounts.

Eran Elfassy, founder of Mackage, notes the difference between forced large celebrity endorsements and genuine partnerships: “I think authenticity is really what’s important because today a lot of brands pay people to wear stuff, but it looks like it’s paid for. Go with smaller influencers or smaller celebrities at the beginning, but somebody that really fosters your style and it’s authentic.”

Your best micro-influencers are probably already buying from you. Mine your Shopify customer data first:

• Export customers with three or more purchases or top 10% lifetime value. Use Shopify Analytics to segment customers by lifetime value and purchase frequency, surfacing your most loyal buyers.
• Set up UTM tracking through Shopify’s discount code shareable links. When you link a discount code to a campaign, it automatically adds UTM identifiers, helping you identify customers already driving referral traffic organically.
• Reach out with personalized offers. This could include exclusive early access to new collections, commission-based partnerships through Shopify Collabs or affiliate apps, or gifting programs that give them something worth sharing.
• Monitor product tags across social platforms to find people talking about you without prompting. For example, social listening tools like Mention pick up conversations shoppers have without tagging your brand.

When you’ve exhausted customer discovery, expand with platform-native searches like niche hashtags on Instagram, sound searches on TikTok, and product reviews on YouTube.

4. Give customers and experts a role

When customers have a visible role in your brand, they have more specific reasons to talk about it. That role could be giving product feedback, submitting content, joining a livestream, answering community questions, testing a new product, or showing how they use an existing one.

For example, GoPro, instead of relying only on brand-created product content, encourages customers to share action-packed videos shot with GoPro. The hashtag #GoProAmbassador has over 11,200 tagged posts on Instagram as a result.

That kind of user-generated content gives new customers proof of what the product can do in real conditions. It also gives existing customers a reason to participate beyond the purchase itself.

You can apply the same principle at a smaller scale by creating structured feedback loops:

• Use Shopify Forms to collect product feedback, waitlist interest, quiz responses, or customer preferences. Customize forms with text, images, discounts, and triggers to gather the data you need to build more relevant customer segments.
• Use Shop product reviews to collect post-purchase feedback from verified buyers. Reviews appear on product pages with a “Verified by Shop” badge, giving future shoppers customer-led proof and building trust.
• Use Shopify Collabs to invite creators, customers, or niche experts into affiliate, gifting, discount-code, or commission-based programs. This formalizes the relationship and gives advocates a direct stake in spreading the word.

5. Build community through events

Neurobiologist James McGaugh researched how emotional reactions stick to our memories. The hormones that regulate our brains are closely tied to the parts of our brains that create memories. That’s part of why brand experiences are rich material for word-of-mouth marketing.

Take Lively, for instance. Founder Michelle Cordeiro Grant launched the lingerie business as an online store, but later branched into retail with pop-up shops as a way to build stronger relationships with customers.

“We felt it was our responsibility to bring people together physically to demonstrate what the word ‘community’ means … which is human interactions, support, networking, and unlocking that like-mindedness among a group of humans,” Michelle says.

The idea proved so successful that Lively later launched their own retail locations. 

Similarly, Sonsie Skin CEO Kailey Bradt chose to prioritize those who invest in the brand over pure customer acquisition. 

“The first might come back if they like what they bought,” she says, “The second becomes part of your story, and tells that story for you.” 

To turn buyers into brand evangelists, Sonsie created a persona, “Garden Girl.” When announcing their Shopify pop-up, they gave models gardening tools and let them improvise. They created an identity people admired, with comments saying, “I want to be a garden girl,” and “How do I join the club?”

People responded to the authenticity of the improvisation and the announcement became memorable and shareable. The word-of-mouth organically grew a community.

6. Become a local thought leader

When you host workshops, classes, or community events, you earn word of mouth not from advertising but from being seen as the expert.

In fact, 60% say quality thought leadership makes them more willing to pay a premium. At the local level, this translates to becoming the authority in your category. 

Outdoor Voices, for example, positions themself as a fitness authority by hosting yoga and strength training classes directly in their stores. They’ve also built a content creation studio within their retail space, including photo backdrops and studio setups that encourage customers to create and share their own content. The store then becomes a destination for the fitness community.

Similarly, Carlisle Pet Foods offers free dog washes and hosts local food drives, and Deep Roots Market offers free communal booking space for local groups. 

“Things that are community-forward have yielded higher conversions,” says Sarah Pyo, co-founder of Carlisle Pet Foods.

7. Collect online reviews

Reviews help customers feel they can trust a business. According to BrightLocal’s recent report, 94% of US consumers are open to leaving a review, but just seven in 10 left one within the past 12 months. 

The majority of them did so because they were asked. A couple of best practices to manage online customer reviews: 

• Respond to every review, personally and quickly. BrightLocal also found that 89% of consumers expect businesses to respond to reviews, and 80% are more likely to use a business that responds to all of them. Keep responses specific; generic or templated replies make 50% of consumers less likely to choose a business.
• For negative reviews, respond publicly first. Acknowledge the concern, apologize if warranted, and invite them to resolve it offline. This signals to future customers you care enough to fix problems while refraining from litigating in a public forum to protect your brand reputation. 
• Keep reviews recent. Recent reviews help shoppers judge whether the business still delivers the experience described. Build review requests into the post-purchase journey so reviews continue coming in; 63% of consumers would lose trust in a business after seeing mostly negative written reviews, which makes volume and recency important.
• Use review apps when you need more display options. Product review apps in the Shopify App Store can help you collect, sync, and display reviews across your online store and Shop app.
• Turn review patterns into FAQs. Look for repeated comments about sizing, shipping, packaging, product care, customer service, or returns. Then use those patterns to update product pages, Shopify Inbox instant answers, and Shopify Knowledge Base FAQs, which help inform customer self-service and AI shopping agent responses.

8. Measure your word-of-mouth marketing success

A customer might hear about a product from a friend, read reviews, search the brand, and then buy days later. Today, the customer journey is non-linear, so you need to measure the signals around word-of-mouth recommendations, trust, and repeat purchases.

You can track these word-of-mouth metrics as a start:

• Referral rate. The percentage of existing customers who refer new customers to your business. Shopify can help you track referral activity through UTM parameters, referrer data, discount-code performance, and Shopify Collabs affiliate links or codes. For a true customer referral rate, use a dedicated referral program or app.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS). Ask customers one question on a 0–10 scale: "How likely would you be to recommend this company to a friend or colleague?"
• Customer lifetime value (CLV). Calculate the total revenue a customer generates over their relationship with your business. Shopify customer reports can help you track inputs such as average order count, average order totals, and expected purchase value.
• Social media mentions and brand sentiment. Monitor how often your brand is mentioned across social platforms and whether sentiment is positive or negative. This usually requires a social listening tool, but you can compare those mentions with referral traffic and UTM-tagged sessions in Shopify.
• Amplification rate. Amplification rate is calculated by dividing the number of post shares by your total followers.
• Review volume and recency. Track not just the total number of reviews but how frequently new ones arrive. Shop product reviews let customers who bought through Shop or your online store leave reviews in the Shop app, and you can manage and reply to reviews from the Shopify admin.

Examples of word-of-mouth marketing campaigns

1. Casper

Casper is a direct-to-consumer (DTC) company praised for their incredible short-term growth. The brand sold $20 million in their first 10 months through word of mouth and a minimal advertising budget. 

Casper has a solid social media strategy that includes sleep-related articles, fast response times, and gifting events. Alongside high-quality products, those elements work together to create the willingness for customers to share its products organically.

In an interview with Market Watch, cofounder Philip Krim said that getting customers to engage with Casper was a crucial part of the startup’s strategy from the beginning. That’s because it didn’t have the advertising budget to compete against the mattress giants.

2. Sozy

Sozy is a clothing brand on a mission to empower women with soft and cozy clothing. They also aim to make a difference in the world, with 10% of profits supporting survivors of sexual violence. 

Word of mouth is one of their most effective marketing channels. “It is the only thing that shows what you are building has true value,” says Sozy’s founder, Lanai Moliterno. The brand encourages people to naturally spread the word through its ambassador program.

“We offer ambassadors a gift card to join. Once they do, they are usually our best marketers.”

Sozy’s ambassadors also help provide feedback about new products. They share thoughts on designs, what items they share most, and how their audiences respond to posts. In turn, this helps Sozy create better products for their customers, which helps get the word out naturally and drives more sales. 

3. Gymshark

In 2013, Gymshark partnered with fitness YouTuber Lex Griffin, who had 50,000 subscribers at the time, for the brand’s first influencer collaboration. The founder, Ben Francis, sent free apparel to fitness YouTubers he admired, a low-cost move that sparked organic endorsements from influencers who liked the product.

“We sent clothing to a person who had YouTube subscribers long before the term influencer had been coined and long before anybody had said the words influencer marketing before,” says Ben. 

Gymshark invested in multiyear partnerships rather than transactional campaigns. The top creators received signature collections with creative input and revenue share. The brand formalized this into the Gymshark Athletes program, an invite-only ambassador roster that today includes more than 100 creators, including mixed martial artist Francis Ngannou and boxer Katie Taylor. 

*Based on a 2025 survey of 500 Shopify merchants conducted in English across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States. Respondents were established merchants with two or more years on the platform. Results reflect the experiences of this specific sample and may not be representative of all merchants.