Jesus' Model For Creating Advocates Via Word of Mouth

Word of Mouth has been around longer than you realize

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Normally, the 3rd Thursday of the month is where I run a Marketing and Music post. Quite honestly, I don’t have an example that I feel is worthy of the concept or your attention this month. So I wanted to try a different topic that I have been interested in discussing for a while.

How, When and Why Jesus Used Word of Mouth to Spread His Message

As you know, I love the study of how brands can better connect with their customers to form advocates for their message and brand. It’s main reason why I wrote Think Like a Rock Star, to give companies a framework for building better connections with their most passionate customers. This group is often overlooked, and if a company is smart enough to reach out to their loyal customers, those customers will happily sing their praises and market for them.

Most companies are hesitant, some are even terrified, of connecting directly with their customers. Which is so frustrating to me, because customers will talk about your company whether you engage with them or not. However, when you do engage with your customers, the tone of the conversation around and about your brand changes.

The conversation becomes amplified. The volume increases, and typically the tone of that conversation becomes more positive. Remember last week’s Graco example. In 2007, Graco decided to launch a blog. In one year, the sentiment of the online conversation about Graco went from 68% positive toward the brand, to 81% positive toward Graco. All because Graco added a simple social media tool that let them more effectively connect with customers.

This is not a new concept. Over 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ used simple word of mouth marketing to spread the news of His upside-down kingdom, and convert Jews and Gentiles to Christianity.

Let’s take a closer look at how He did it. There are two main areas I want to focus on, who He connected with, and how He connected with them.

First, look at the people that Jesus chose for his earliest disciples and followers. Sinners, the poor, the misfits. The people that society had effectively abandoned. He sought these people out, while all but ignoring the religious leaders of the areas He visited. When the Pharisees questioned why He ate with sinners, Jesus remarked that the doctor seeks out the sick, not the healthy:

³¹ Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Jesus made an effort to spend the majority of His time connecting with people who had an interest in hearing His message. The religious leaders either viewed Jesus and His teachings as unnecessary, or worse a threat. They weren’t receptive to His message, so He focused on the people who were.

Consider Jesus and His meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well:

Think about this from the perspective of wanting to create advocates for your message. If you give hope to someone who feels hopeless, how would they react? They would obviously be overjoyed, and want to share what you had done for them, with the world. They would be far more appreciative of the gift you had given them, and as a result they would be far more committed to telling others about you.

This is why Jesus picked the sick and sinners to meet. To talk to, to heal.

To save. Because He wants us to stand up, and go running into the world so that we can share the Good News with everyone.

Jesus connected with the people who wanted to learn more, and in the process of teaching them, He made a positive impact on their lives. And they wanted to tell others, but…

Timing is Everything

As Jesus taught His disciples, He would often tell them, especially early on, not to tell others what Jesus has told them and done for them. At first, this seems counter intuitive. Why would Jesus not want His most passionate followers to spread the word of Him?

There were a few reasons, and many of them were rooted in the political and religious conflict that would result from widespread knowledge of the Messiah.

But part of the reason why Jesus wanted His followers to wait to advocate on His behalf was simply because Jesus didn’t feel they were ready to properly teach others about Christianity yet. In fact, if you read the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), you see that Jesus’ earliest disciples were…how can I put this kindly? A bit ‘inexperienced’ in their knowledge of Jesus and His teachings. Yet when you read later works of the New Testament from Peter, John and others, you can see that His disciples had completely matured in their understanding of Jesus and their roles as Christians.

Note the end of the video above: When the disciples return to the well, they ask Jesus if He wants some of the food they bought. Jesus says He has food to eat that they do not know about. To which Andrew replies “Who got you food?” It’s amusing, but it also helps demonstrate how Jesus’ closest followers still didn’t realize truly who Jesus was or what His coming meant for the world. At least not yet.

This is another vital point that many companies miss in connecting with customers: The value of training them.

When Jesus first performed His miracles, such as raising a girl from the dead or the transfiguration on the mount, they often came with an explicit instruction to His disciples to ‘Tell no one’ what happened here.

Yet when Jesus is resurrected, and before He returns to Heaven, He gives His disciples The Great Commission. They were told to go forth and make disciples of all nations.

Jesus’ instruction went from ‘tell no one’ to ‘tell everyone’.

What happened in the meantime? Training. Instruction. Teaching.

I once worked with a Fortune 100 tech company on a customer event. We brought in about a dozen customers and spent all day with them collecting feedback, discussing business processes. The day was about helping the company better understand its customers and helping those customers better understand why the company makes the decisions it makes.

As moderator of the event, I worked with the company to plan the flow and structure. We decided to close our time by asking the customers what we (the company) needed to work on, moving forward so we could have a better customer relationship. I could see the very nervous faces of the managers in the room as they anxiously awaited the answers from the customers.

The first customer leaned forward with a frown on her face and said ‘You guys have GOT to give us better tools to help promote you!’ She told about a new laptop she had bought, and how she loved it, but the company was doing nothing to help her amplify her ability to spread positive word of mouth about its products.

‘You want us to help you market for us?’

‘Of course!’

“Okay…ok! We can do that!”

Your biggest supporters WANT to be trained. They want you to connect with them and give them instruction on how they can better help YOU connect with more people.

Smart companies understand this. They build in ways to give access to training, and they understand that their most loyal customers will view this as a PERK. Because it is. Anything that gives your most loyal customers more access to your company and its decision-makers, is a perk.

Your customers are your best salespeople. They are your most passionate advocates. You want to entrust your message to the people who have the greatest incentive for spreading it.

Why does Jesus want Christians to go forth and share the gospel? Because He knows that we are a living example of what God can do in the life of a believer. We are a living testimony.

Your most loyal customers have a passion for your company and its story. Do everything you can to empower them to share both with everyone.

Thank you for reading, I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Mack

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Backstage Pass teaches you how to better connect with your customers, readers, clients, or donors. The lessons shared here draw on my experience over the last 20 years building customer engagement strategies for companies like Adobe, Dell, Club Med, Ingersoll-Rand, and countless others. I give you real-world research, examples and tactics that show you how to create customer engagement efforts that drive real business growth.