Word of Mouth: The Positive Ripple
A recent article by Rick Ferguson highlights the rising trend among businesses to leverage word of mouth marketing campaigns to grow their business. As an example, Ferguson notes that 82% of the fastest growing private companies use word of mouth techniques. By tapping into the innate human desire to appear in-the-know, word of mouth marketing methods leverage communication and recommendations between customers to grow awareness of the business.
A great deal of success with these methods requires, obviously, that the customers hold a favorable view of the company. Positive recommendations of a business can ripple through a social network of customers, driving sales from new customers as they receive good news about a company directly from a trusted source. However, as Ferguson points out, determining just how many sales are the result of word of marketing can be elusive. As an example, it can be difficult to measure how many recommendations occur and how many people directly act on the recommendation by purchasing a good.
But the direct acquisition of market share is only part the benefit of word of mouth marketing techniques. While some recipients of the recommendation will buy a good, others will forward the recommendation to their friends. This process spreads the positive recommendation like a ripple through a social network and builds a positive brand association. This positive association can be leveraged to build an emotionally loyal clientele with continued marketing tactics.
So while identifying the specific return on investment with word of mouth marketing tactics can be elusive, these types of tactics, in conjunction with traditional marketing methods, can do wonders to spread awareness of a company or offering and build a trusted relationship with future customers. It is, as Ferguson points out, worth noting that word of mouth methods do yield sales, so much so that many argue it is the most efficient form of market share acquisition. After all, no matter how objective we try to be, information from a trusted source is inherently gaurded as being valuable.
Comments
-
Recent Posts
- The behavior behind online content sharing
- Word-of-Mouth: It’s All About Emotions
- Impossible to Ignore: Online ads prime the consumer subconcious for brand favoritism
- Enhancing your Business Blog with Customer Comments: Trends
- What is Your Content’s Reproductive Rate?
- The Balancing Act of Direct Email Contact Frequency
- Some Important Sharing Statistics
- Better Sales through a Customer Email Lead List
- Email Based Referrals - They Still Matter
- Word of Mouth: The Positive Ripple
- Determining Consumer Preference (Part II)
- Loyalty programs: The bottom line
- Determining Consumer Preference (Part I)
- Patience is a Virtue
- Scenario Planning The Business GPS
- Maximizing Collective Attention: The Digg Study
- The Bass Model & Forecasting Product Adoption (Part II)
- The Bass Model & Forecasting Product Adoption (Part I)
- The Catch-22 of Launching an Innovative Product
- Social News Primer
- Growing Customer Loyalty
- More Than A Better Mousetrap
- The Basics and Benefits of Online Word of Mouth Marketing
- Cashing in on a Rising Meme
- Direct Marketing: You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto
Subscribe
