Part 1: What is Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Word-of-Mouth Marketing intrigues me. Since this blog has gotten a little popular, I have companies contacting me and offering me free stuff and, if I choose to, perhaps blog about my experience with their products or service. What is interesting to me is that, in the grand scheme of things, I’m really a nobody. But, for some reason, marketers find this blog an interesting-enough venue to pitch products through.
A company that has really formalized and quantified the word-of-mouth experience is a company called BzzAgent. Cool company — I interviewed them a year ago and they’re doing some really interesting things in the marketing world.
Because of my interest in Word-of-Mouth Marketing, I decided to learn more about by checking out the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). Great site, with a lot of informative material (the data below is from that site). One of the folks leading the Word-of-Mouth Marketing space is a consultancy called The Keller Fay Group. One of the VP’s in that consultancy will be interviewed on Shmula in the next few weeks — be sure to check it out.
An Example of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Recently, Wiley Publishers contacted me and offered to send me several books to review and, if I choose, blog about them. Free books? Sure! I talked about one of those books in this post: Toyota and Word-of-Mouth Marketing. Wiley Publishers was engaging in a Word-of-Mouth Marketing campaign by contacting influential bloggers and offering them free stuff. They didn’t ask for anything in return, but sincerity and honesty, if I decide to talk about the books they send me. That’s fair.
The WOMMA site has a nice section defining Word-of-Mouth Marketing. In the next several post, I’ll be taking my material from that site. Below is the Part 1.
What is Word of Mouth Marketing?
- Word of mouth: The act of consumers providing information to other consumers.
- Word of mouth marketing: Giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place.
- It is the art and science of building active, mutually beneficial consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-marketer communications.
Word of mouth is a pre-existing phenomenon that marketers are only now learning how to harness, amplify, and improve. Word of mouth marketing isn’t about creating word of mouth — it’s learning how to make it work within a marketing objective.
That said, word of mouth can be encouraged and facilitated. Companies can work hard to make people happier, they can listen to consumers, they can make it easier for them to tell their friends, and they can make certain that influential individuals know about the good qualities of a product or service.
Word of mouth marketing empowers people to share their experiences. It’s harnessing the voice of the customer for the good of the brand. And it’s acknowledging that the unsatisfied customer is equally powerful.
Word of mouth can’t be faked or invented. Attempting to fake word of mouth is unethical and creates a backlash, damages the brand, and tarnishes the corporate reputation. Legitimate word of mouth marketing acknowledges consumers’ intelligence — it never attempts to fool them. Ethical marketers reject all tactics related to manipulation, deception, infiltration, or dishonesty.
All word of mouth marketing techniques are based on the concepts of customer satisfaction, two-way dialog, and transparent communications. The basic elements are:
- Educating people about your products and services
- Identifying people most likely to share their opinions
- Providing tools that make it easier to share information
- Studying how, where, and when opinions are being shared
- Listening and responding to supporters, detractors, and neutrals
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