Word of Mouth Statistics And Facts (2025)
Updated · Apr 09, 2025
WHAT WE HAVE ON THIS PAGE
- Introduction
- Editor’ Choice1
- Key Facts
- Word of Mouth Strategies
- Word of Mouth Sources
- Word-of-Mouth Consumer Behavior
- Word of Mouth Demographics
- Word-of-Mouth Methods of Acquiring New Customers
- Word of Mouth Influences the Buying Decision
- Impact of Online Reviews and Social Media
- Growth of Referral Programs
- Word of Mouth and Small Businesses
- Conclusion
Introduction
Word of Mouth Statistics: WOM, or word-of-mouth advertising, is one of the oldest forms of marketing introduced in the history of humanity. It is defined as customers talking to each other regarding their experience or consumption of a given product or service. Such word of mouth is more likely to be accepted as it is based on experience and is hence more likely to be effective than the traditional advertising method.
In the year 2024, that is not the case, as word-of-mouth statistics marketing is still very much alive and reaching its peak at the age and time when most people enjoy making their views known through the internet in social networks, Reviews, and discussion boards. Here are some interesting facts and figures regarding word-of-mouth marketing in 2025.
Editor’ Choice1
- Word of mouth (WOM) can be extolled as well as censured, even though the majority (21%) grow distant from the brands even without clients’ experience because of negative WOM.
- When it comes to sharing favourite products with other family members or friends, 23% of people do it daily, while 78% of them share their favourite journeys at least once a week.
- Moreover, if 88% of consumers endorse a certain brand, they will find it more trustworthy if the recommendation comes from familiar people.
- The first five techniques for recommending a business—word of mouth—rank first in the order, followed by applications such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and so on.
- According to word of mouth statistics, 61% of them have resorted to such means praising some local business to someone else.
- On any given week, people engage in spontaneous conversations about brands approximately 90 times, with 70% of the population believing in online reviews posted by fellow consumers.
- On social networks, 58% of the people share positive views and seek their friends’ and families’ opinions about the brands.
- A strong connection with consumers of the brand, in turn, increases word of mouth by about threefold compared to a brand with less emotional attachment.
- In addition, 43% of social media users bought a product that they shared or liked on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. Almost half (49%) of the people consider influencer endorsements when making purchases.
- As indicated by the word-of-mouth statistics, over 50% of the purchases stimulated by sharing via social media take place in the first seven days from the moment of exposure and 80% in the first twenty-one days.
- For 85% of users visiting a website, visual UGC is more effective than standard brand images or videos.
- As many as 83% of Americans are open to making recommendations about products and services, with 55% making such recommendations at least once a month and 30% doing so weekly.
- In addition, 41% of Americans would rather rely on their friends and family for recommendations than social ones, while 66% would rather read an online review from a stranger than one from their ex.
- For instance, 61% of consumers are likely to turn to search engines to check product reviews before making a purchase.
- In comparison, only 50% are likely to join referral programs when they offer incentives or recognition from society.
- Word-of-mouth statistics indicate that 71% of people recommend a service after having a great experience.
- 65% of businesses use word of mouth to recruit for the vacancies available in the organisation.
- In America, 38% of food consumers buy brands suggested by friends, which fuels 84% of marketing executives’ beliefs that WOM is the most potent tool in marketing.
- Only 1 in 25 consumers who had experienced negative feelings toward a brand go ahead and inform people about it.
- Interestingly, marketing experts say that every consumer discusses brands, even without active marketing practices, approximately 90 times per week. 26% of all customers tend to finish certain relationships with brands after receiving negative recommendations from friends or family members.
- Word-of-mouth statistics reveal that customers who are informed of a brand through word of mouth are said to be 200% more likely to spend than the average consumer.
- Exceedingly, those who enjoyed the experience only marketed the firm to around three individuals.
- Meanwhile, 70% of marketers will increase the amount allocated for word-of-mouth marketing.
- For 73% of consumers, content generated by other users enhances the perceived value of the brand, while products that have gained more than 50 reviews tend to have better sales turnover than those that have no reviews at all.
Key Facts
- According to a word of mouth statistics in 2023, Internet users in the USA attributed about 36% of the brand discovery to word of mouth communication, making it the most used brand discovery tool.
- Recommendations from relatives and friends were found most useful, as 92% of the respondents shunned all other forms of marketing. Bear in mind that this was a period rife with advertisements, yet referrals from close acquaintances still reigned supreme.
- 74% of people claim that WOM is one significant factor that influences their purchasing behaviour. It does not matter when a customer is buying a new phone, looking for a restaurant, or arranging a holiday—his or her decisions will depend on other people’s opinions.
- 50% of consumers for whom a friend had suggested a particular brand estimated their chances of choosing it over other brands. This proves that word-of-mouth can influence the image and loyalty of certain brands.
- In this regard, advertising through social networks and mobile applications was slightly lower—approximately 32% and 21%, respectively.
- In 2024, over 50% of respondents, who were U.S. experience management (XM) professionals, intended to emphasize the monitoring and enhancement of customer experience parameters, namely NPS.
- At the end of 2023 in the United States, the retailers’ media marketing forecast was carried out, where marketers were asked about the possible impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI); the third most popular finding concerned the ability to provide more detailed insights and recommendations, 42% of respondents declared that.
- A 2024 word-of-mouth statistics study found that in the United States, most respondents claimed their family and friends as the most reliable sources of product recommendations, almost 90% of them.
- Expert reviewers were cited by three-quarters of the respondents in the order of reliability after friends and family.
- Thus, this shows the primary issue with the voice of woman marketing: even with the most sophisticated technology, every channel in which the brand is marketed can only reach a consumer so much if their most trusted sources do not approve of the product.
- In another study conducted in 2023, a ranking of the top channels through which social media users in the U.S. discover brands was surveyed, and it turned out that the extremes of TV, in-store experiences, and influencer marketing were in the first three positions.
- Word of mouth was mentioned by 13% of those surveyed, placing it just after influencers but higher than related interactions with friends and family’s social networking sites.
- Interestingly, Mexican Americans in the upper echelon depended more on WOM in discovering new products, an observation that substantiates the claim that social platforms and technologies can evolve, but positive WOM will always remain a brand’s biggest weapon.
Word of Mouth Strategies
(Reference: enterpriseappstoday.com)
- Word of mouth statistics show that marketing (WOM) is the least practised strategy among businesses, which is why 92% of companies use it to market their products or services. This indicates that such businesses understand the importance of personal recommendations and peer trust in a brand’s growth.
- Few companies are even likely to want to advertise their services, as WOM marketing involves re-advertising by satisfying clients to their friends, relatives, and people around them, which most likely results in brand loyalty and trust in the particular brand.
- Moreover, 70% of brands use consumer insights, such as reviews, testimonials, and social media, to promote their attitudes toward a company. Thus, users and the content generated by them slant the advertised brand toward those consumers as well and attract their trust.
- 62% of enterprises continue to turn to paid advertising means, such as digital, print, television, etc, to enhance their market awareness. Although it allows companies to target larger markets, such advertising may need to build or upsurge the level of trust associated with the product as up-selling, social networks, and reviews do. However, they are very rarely used singularly without the support of other tactics to increase the reach of the brand and bring in new customers.
Word of Mouth Sources
(Reference: enterpriseappstoday.com)
- Influencer marketing is a very strong factor in FOMMs, making up 34% of the total.
- Other important mobile advertising includes the development of a mobile-friendly website design, which accounts for 33%, and experiential marketing, which accounts for 29%.
- Furthermore, short-form video content and virtual events each contribute almost equally significant contributions, 31%, to the developed FOMM techniques.
Word-of-Mouth Consumer Behavior
- Most customers, precisely 59%, will choose the word-of-mouth option to provide their feedback.
- word-of-mouth statistics study found that such consumers are 200% more likely to spend in a way surpassing the average customer who has no word-of-mouth influence.
- Half of the population will turn to word-of-mouth sources before purchasing something.
- In addition, the average shopper has to read 10 review comments from other buyers before making a buying decision.
- For example, 26% of people only patronise certain brands if their friends or family have had good experiences with them.
- This is although they do not realise they do, and the figure stands at about 90 times in a week On average.
- Moreover, 23% of them communicate about their favourite brands with their relatives on a day-to-day basis.
Word of Mouth Demographics
- To generate awareness among millennials, a brand should utilise placements 38% more often than usual, specifically accommodating the busting of brands via friends and family recommendations.
- Gen Z only discovers 12% of new brands through non-linear fashion advertised by other people in a very fashionable way.
- The veteran senior age group takes an age of 18% to speak about the advertising of brands.
- Baby Boomers, in particular, use word-of-mouth marketing strategies and greatly appreciate the importance of such strategies.
- Social media plays a major role in women’s lives; 83% of them check out the networks before buying anything.
Word-of-Mouth Methods of Acquiring New Customers
(Reference: enterpriseappstoday.com)
- According to word-of-mouth statistics, word-of-mouth is the preferred method among all the methods employed by brands to gain new clients, accounting for 64%.
- Social media marketing takes a distant second at 18%, while website marketing stands at 10%.
- Other approaches include but are not limited to email marketing (4%), coupons (2%), and discounts offered through the net (2%).
Word of Mouth Influences the Buying Decision
(Reference: savemycent.com)
- As per Word of Mouth statistics, when it comes to the impact of word of mouth, the number one product/service category is dining, with 37.6%.
- Next in line are electronic devices, with 33.1%, and groceries, with 32.2 %.
- Some of the other categories that are affected by word-of-mouth are, but not limited to, clothing (27.5%), renovations (25.7%), automobiles (22.8%), drugs (20.3%), banking and insurance services (18.8%), and the use of mobile telecommunications (17.7%).
Impact of Online Reviews and Social Media
- When deciding to buy a product or service, 90% of individuals read review ratings, and as many as 88% of them regard such reviews as personal recommendations. This indicates that digital word of mouth, such as online reviews, has a powerful impact on individuals’ buying behaviour.
- Another factor that greatly contributes to word of mouth is Social Networking. 54% of social media users say that they interact with the brands via suggestions made by friends or followers.
- 33% of consumers claim that such social media recommendations, whether from celebrities or ordinary people who have bought the products, also influence their purchase decisions.
- Word of Mouth statistics show that a positive post and even a tweet can grow a brand recognition by 25% and increase sales by as much as 12% because, after all, people tend to promote brands they like and have used before.
Growth of Referral Programs
- The growing importance of word-of-mouth marketing has led to the establishment of referral programs in 84% of businesses.
- Such programs, in most cases, encourage existing customers to bring in new customers by providing them with discounts or rewards.
- Thus, it can lead to an improvement in new customer acquisition without incurring a lot of cash outflow.
- On average, referral programs earned 3 to 5 times more sales than the cost of paid advertising. This can be attributed to the way people tend to trust these referrals. The consumer has a certain level of trust in the brand as it has been recommended by someone they know and trust.
- Acquiring a new customer through a referral is 50% cheaper than getting one through advertising.
- At the same time, customers who come into the business via reference appear to have a 16% higher lifetime value than those obtained through the other channels.
Word of Mouth and Small Businesses
- Word-of-mouth marketing is particularly helpful to small businesses. According to a survey conducted among small businesses, 82% of them employ word-of-mouth marketing to all new customers.
- This is especially true for local businesses, where the power of a personal recommendation can either make or break a business.
- 71% of small businesses have reported seeing an increase in sales as a result of positive brand recognition, and 64% have cut down on advertisements owing to the word-of-mouth effects of customers.
- For small enterprises that have little money for marketing, savings from advertising costs in the form of word of mouth can reach $10,000 in a year while still bringing in customers.
Conclusion
The power of word-of-mouth statistics for referring your products to others free of charge still survives and thrives in 2024. While such information is paramount in shaping the decisions of most consumers, those who are committed to providing the best service, protecting their image, and selling the best products tend to outperform the competition. Again, whether in real-life discussions or on various virtual trees, people’s talk wins over new customers keeps, and develops businesses.
The appreciation and control of advertising that people induce to people can be obscured by the use of referral programs, which anyone in business can exploit.
Sources
FAQ.
Word of mouth is defined as when a client conveys her or his feelings and attitudes towards a product to another person. Its significance will be high in 2024 since a particular advertisement will be considered more miserable.
One of the standout features of customers who are inclined to word of mouth is that they will spend more than the average customer by 200%, which depicts the weight of personal recommendations in making purchases.
The main sources of WOM marketing reach include friends’ and relatives’ recommendations, social networks, blogs, and actress advertising. Almost 58% of all respondents in 2024 presented positive feedback regarding the service on social networks, while 49% said they remember the endorsements of influencers when making purchases, which shows the effectiveness of these channels in the WOM strategies.
Demographic differences and the WOM marketing alliance were observed. Millennials account for 38% of tools-introduction-orientation by elements of word-of-mouth advertising for brands; on the contrary, generation Z accounts for just 12% of elements of word-of-mouth advertising for brands.
Considering customers’ views of products and services offered by various businesses through WOM, 90% of people will first read the review’s rating before purchasing a product or service.
Saisuman is a professional content writer specializing in health, law, and space-related articles. Her experience includes designing featured articles for websites and newsletters, as well as conducting detailed research for medical professionals and researchers. Passionate about languages since childhood, Saisuman can read, write, and speak in five different languages. Her love for languages and reading inspired her to pursue a career in writing. Saisuman holds a Master's in Business Administration with a focus on Human Resources and has worked in a Human Resources firm for a year. She was previously associated with a French international company. In addition to writing, Saisuman enjoys traveling and singing classical songs in her leisure time.
