Whether you are trying to drive awareness, purchases, or affinity, it always helps to have word-of-mouth (WOM) support from your existing customers.

To secure WOM support from your fans—especially millennials—you need two things:

1. A fan base on social media

2. A campaign that will be launched in the future

Launching the strategy is simple. First, you need to reach out to your fans and ask if they want their photo/video to be featured in your next campaign.

Your stated “ask” may be for photos and videos, but the unspoken ask is “Think about our product.”

When you reach out to your fans, be clear about what you are promoting. Here are some example posts:

• Have the perfect summertime video? Send it to us! We are launching a campaign for our new, refreshing soda that makes you feel cooler on a hot day. Your video could be featured in our campaign.
• Have a photo of being caught in the rain? We’d love to use it in an ad campaign for our new real-time rain alerts on iPhone and Android. Comment below with your photos!
• Our new leather seats are so fabulously comfortable, that you’ll never want to leave your car. Send us your #LoveMyLexus photos for a chance to be featured in our upcoming campaign.

By asking your fans to help you promote something specific, they’ll become more engaged with your product. They will be actively and consciously thinking about what makes your product great when they think about what photo/video they could send to you.

This strategy will resonate especially well with Millennials, who are interested in participating in your marketing.  

As you may have learned from Millennials with Kids, written by Jeff Fromm and Marissa Vidler, Millennials want to co-create your marketing, and they want a reason to share it with their network.

After your fans start to send you photos (give it a few days), you need to select a “winner.” Reach out to your winner, work out any legal permissions you need to use their photo, and then integrate the photo/video into your campaign.

Perhaps most importantly, you need to tag the winner when you post the final campaign ad onto your fan page.

Most likely, the winner will encourage his/her friends and family to check out your ad, giving you free WOM marketing.

Happy, engaged fans. Campaign success.

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