Word of Mouth has been around since Adam was a boy!
Natural or Organic WOM happens all the time. It is the process of people telling others about their experiences with products or services, good or bad.
Amplified WOM occurs when marketers launch campaigns designed to encourage or accelerate WOM in existing or new communities. Practices that amplify word of mouth activity include:1
- Creating communities
- Developing tools that enable people to share their opinions
- Motivating advocates and evangelists to actively promote a product
- Giving advocates information that they can share
- Using advertising or publicity designed to create buzz or start a conversation
- Identifying and reaching out to influential individuals and communities
- Researching and tracking conversations
WOM recommendation is one of the strongest drivers of product sales. Structured WOM campaigns are the way forward for marketers to engage consumers and create Customer Evangelists for their brands.
Research shows that if a consumer has a good experience with a product they will go on to tell an average of 5-8 friends about it.2
A study commissioned by UK Royal Mail in 2001 asked consumers which of a range of information sources would make them ‘more comfortable’ with a product or service for a company. At the top of the list (71%) was a friend’s recommendation, which eclipsed even their own past experience (63%) and dwarfed advertising (15%). MediaLab’s updating of this study in 2004 suggests that – if anything – word of mouth is now even more significant (76%) whilst advertising, together with other ‘controllable’ marketing channels, remains largely unchanged. 3
1 WOMMA - http:/www.womma.org/wom101.htm
2 Tarp Customer Loyalty Research
3 Report by David Fletcher, Head of Mediaedge:cia UK’s MediaLab
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