Growth & Strategy
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
OK, so here's something that's going to sound crazy: I've never built a "viral" campaign that actually went viral. And you know what? That's probably the best thing that ever happened to my clients' businesses.
The main issue I got when working with e-commerce clients was this obsession with virality. Everyone wanted their product to "go viral" - to spread like wildfire through social networks and generate millions of views overnight. But here's what I discovered after years of testing: genuine product sharing happens in completely different ways than most marketers think.
Working with everything from fashion stores to handmade goods, I noticed a pattern. The products that customers actually shared with friends weren't the ones designed to be "shareable." They were the ones that solved real problems or created genuine moments of delight. And the sharing? It happened in private conversations, not public posts.
This shift in understanding changed everything about how I approach word-of-mouth marketing for e-commerce businesses. Instead of chasing viral moments, I started building systems that encourage authentic recommendations. The results were way more sustainable than any viral campaign could ever be.
Here's what you'll learn from my experiments:
Why viral marketing strategies fail for most e-commerce stores
The real psychology behind how people share products with friends
My framework for building sustainable word-of-mouth systems
How to design referral programs that actually work
The difference between creating shareable content and shareable experiences
Industry Reality
What every marketer thinks they know about viral sharing
Let's talk about what the marketing industry keeps pushing as "best practices" for getting people to share products with friends. You've probably heard most of these before:
The Viral Content Playbook: Create shocking, emotional, or controversial content that people feel compelled to share publicly. The idea is that if you can trigger strong emotions, people will hit that share button and spread your message exponentially.
The Influencer Strategy: Partner with social media influencers who have large followings. They post about your product, their audience sees it, and supposedly some percentage will share it further down the line.
The Contest and Giveaway Approach: Run campaigns where people have to share your content or tag friends to enter. This artificially inflates your reach and supposedly creates word-of-mouth momentum.
The "Make it Easy to Share" Philosophy: Add share buttons everywhere, create pre-written social media posts, and remove as much friction as possible from the sharing process.
The FOMO Strategy: Create urgency and scarcity to make people feel like they need to tell their friends about this amazing deal before it's gone.
Now, I'm not saying these tactics are completely useless. They can generate attention and even sales. But here's where the conventional wisdom falls short: it confuses visibility with genuine recommendation. Just because someone shares your content doesn't mean they're actually endorsing your product to their friends.
Most of these strategies focus on public sharing - posts, stories, viral content. But the reality is that the most valuable product recommendations happen in private conversations. When someone genuinely loves a product, they don't usually make a public announcement about it. They text their best friend, mention it in a group chat, or bring it up during coffee.
The industry's obsession with measurable, trackable sharing has led us away from understanding how authentic word-of-mouth actually works. And that's where the real opportunity lies.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
This revelation came from working with a fashion e-commerce client who was spending thousands on influencer partnerships and viral marketing campaigns. They had decent traffic spikes whenever an influencer posted, but the long-term customer value was terrible. People would buy once and never come back.
The turning point came when I started digging deeper into their customer data. Instead of just looking at acquisition channels, I began analyzing the behavior patterns of their highest-value customers - the ones who made multiple purchases and had the highest lifetime value.
What I discovered was fascinating: these valuable customers weren't coming from viral campaigns or influencer posts. They were coming through what Google Analytics labeled as "direct traffic" - but when I dug deeper, I found something else entirely.
I started reaching out to these customers directly, asking them a simple question: "How did you first hear about us?" The answers were eye-opening. Most of them said things like:
"My friend Sarah told me about this dress she bought here"
"My sister recommended this brand in our family group chat"
"A coworker was wearing something cute and told me where she got it"
None of these recommendations happened through public social media posts. They were all private, personal conversations. But here's the kicker: the original customers who made these recommendations had never shared anything publicly about the brand.
This completely flipped my understanding. The most valuable word-of-mouth was happening invisibly. There were no share buttons clicked, no viral posts created, no trackable metrics. Just one person genuinely loving a product and naturally mentioning it to someone they cared about.
I realized we were optimizing for the wrong thing entirely. Instead of trying to get people to share publicly, we needed to focus on creating experiences so good that people would naturally want to tell their close friends about them.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Based on this insight, I completely restructured how we approached word-of-mouth marketing. Instead of chasing viral moments, I built what I call the "Private Recommendation Engine" - a system designed to encourage authentic, private sharing between friends.
Step 1: Focus on the Experience, Not the Content
The first shift was moving away from creating "shareable content" and instead focusing on creating shareable experiences. This meant:
Obsessing over product quality and customer service
Creating unexpected moments of delight in the unboxing experience
Solving real problems in ways that felt almost magical to customers
Making the entire purchase journey feel premium and thoughtful
Step 2: The "Story-Worthy Moment" Strategy
Instead of asking "how can we get people to share this?" I started asking "what would make someone excited to tell their friend about this?" This led to small but powerful changes:
Including handwritten thank-you notes with orders
Adding unexpected free samples or small gifts
Creating packaging that felt like receiving a gift from a friend
Following up with genuinely helpful styling tips or usage guides
Step 3: The "Natural Conversation Starter" Framework
The most effective sharing happens when products naturally become conversation starters. I identified three key triggers:
Compliment Catalyst: Products that consistently get compliments in real life
Problem Solver: Items that solve a common frustration people talk about
Discovery Delight: Unique finds that make people feel like they've discovered something special
Step 4: Systematic Referral Nurturing
Rather than aggressive referral programs with discounts and incentives, I built subtle systems to nurture natural sharing:
Email sequences that included "share with a friend" suggestions at natural moments
Customer stories highlighting how products were discovered through friends
Gentle reminders about gift-giving occasions and friend recommendations
Creating "friend-sized" product bundles and gift options
Step 5: Measuring What Actually Matters
I stopped tracking viral metrics and started measuring retention signals:
Customer lifetime value and repeat purchase rates
Net Promoter Score and customer satisfaction surveys
Direct traffic growth over time (often indicates word-of-mouth)
Customer service interactions and feedback themes
The key insight was that sustainable growth comes from creating customers who are so satisfied they naturally become advocates. Not through manipulation or incentives, but through genuine value delivery.
Experience Quality
Creating moments worth talking about
Conversation Triggers
Products that naturally spark discussions
Retention Focus
Measuring satisfaction over viral metrics
System Building
Frameworks for sustainable word-of-mouth
The results of shifting from viral tactics to authentic sharing were remarkable. With the fashion e-commerce client, we saw some interesting changes over six months:
Customer lifetime value increased significantly. Instead of one-time buyers from viral campaigns, we were building a base of repeat customers who genuinely loved the brand. The direct traffic grew consistently month over month, which typically indicates strong word-of-mouth growth.
More importantly, the quality of customer feedback improved dramatically. Instead of complaints about products not matching viral content expectations, we started receiving messages from customers thanking us for the experience and mentioning they'd recommended us to friends.
The compound effect was the real winner. While viral campaigns give you traffic spikes that quickly fade, authentic word-of-mouth builds momentum over time. Each satisfied customer becomes a potential source of new customers, creating a sustainable growth engine that doesn't depend on constant content creation or ad spend.
What really validated this approach was tracking customer acquisition costs. The cost of acquiring customers through authentic word-of-mouth was essentially zero, while the viral campaigns were expensive and delivered lower-quality customers. The math was pretty clear about which strategy was more sustainable.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons I learned from years of testing viral tactics versus authentic sharing strategies:
Private conversations beat public posts. The most valuable recommendations happen in private messages, not viral content. Focus on creating experiences people want to share privately.
Quality trumps virality every time. One customer who genuinely loves your product is worth more than a thousand viral views from people who don't care.
Word-of-mouth is invisible but measurable. You can't track private conversations, but you can measure their effects through direct traffic, customer lifetime value, and retention metrics.
Authentic sharing takes time to build. Viral campaigns promise instant results, but sustainable word-of-mouth growth requires patience and consistent value delivery.
The best referral program is a great product. No incentive or discount can replace the power of genuine satisfaction and delight.
Focus on story-worthy moments. Ask yourself: "What would make someone excited to tell their friend about this?" Then optimize for those moments.
Retention is the real viral metric. If customers aren't coming back, they're probably not recommending you to friends either.
The biggest shift is understanding that sustainable growth comes from creating advocates, not content. When you focus on delivering exceptional value, the sharing happens naturally.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies looking to encourage authentic product sharing:
Focus on user success and "aha moments" that people naturally want to share
Build features that become conversation starters in professional networks
Create case studies and success stories that users can easily reference
Develop onboarding experiences that get users to value quickly
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores wanting to boost friend-to-friend recommendations:
Invest in packaging and unboxing experiences that create story-worthy moments
Focus on products that solve common problems people discuss with friends
Create gift-giving opportunities and friend-sharing options
Measure customer satisfaction and lifetime value over viral metrics