Summary
Word of mouth marketing is a tool that can be used by consultants to promote sales exponentially. What it is about is to identify who are the main mouth-to-mouth diffusers and to stimulate, through different mechanisms, the spread of our clients' successful experiences.
1. Introduction: Everyone seeks word of mouth
Ask any marketing scholar and they will say the same thing: "The best marketing strategy is to provoke word of mouth." Honestly, 100% agree. They will also be heard saying, "But marketing can do nothing to generate it." With equal sincerity, 100% disagree. Traditional marketing has a series of internal and strategic tools that allow you to design the first part of a global plan. It also promotes its product through communication and distribution mechanisms that promote sales action in the right places. The objective of all this is to generate sales, without a doubt. However, many are unaware that parallel to this traditional mechanism, there are also a number of elements that can be used to promote word of mouth and are much more powerful and direct than traditional ones.
How can it be possible that we influence personal communication mechanisms? In the first place, not all are personal, there may also be simultaneous collective mechanisms that irrevocably invite us to speak of a certain product. As an example, how do you think that most internet portals have achieved the visibility they have? Have you ever seen Google advertising? Never. Although I can assure you that Google used one of the most effective word of mouth marketing plans ever made. There are other examples that come from the offline world: How do you think the bowling alleys in the Old Town spread their activities? How do you know who "plays"? The answer is simple, opinion leaders are used in specific places that spread the news like wildfire.
Word of mouth is between us and we can manage it, in future installments I will show how this mechanism will be one more from advertising, promotions, direct marketing and others.
2. Defeat the advertising noise
The Advertising Agencies squeeze their brains trying that the creativity manages to defeat the advertising noise. What do we call it that? The daily and almost continuous bombardment that we receive consumers through pieces on TV, radio, newspapers, brochures, tastings, direct marketing, gifts, among others. The task is not easy and somehow becomes impossible. The Agencies seek to defeat noise through more advertising material, which clearly contributes to increasing it and generating the opposite effect to that desired. Then advertising creativity must stop focusing on generating pieces using the same means and seek new communication mechanisms that manage to break down the barrier of indifference. The more you seek to capture the attention of consumers through so few means,more the armor that consumers are putting in front of so much bombardment will harden.
In this context, new tools emerge, such as promotions and direct marketing. The idea is to ignore the noise and go directly to the meeting with the consumer. But ultimately the criterion is similar: more of the same contributes to weakening the environment and, therefore, all the strategies that are generated through them.
But word of mouth marketing is something new, rather, very old and present in all times. Word of mouth is a mechanism with high levels of effectiveness. Do you know what percentage of attention you pay to your friends or acquaintances? Difficult to measure, although surely the figure is close to 100%. With the same certainty we can say that the percentage of capture of advertising stimuli hardly reaches a figure like the previous one.
So why not run campaigns that are focused on word of mouth that, if that were not enough, are much cheaper and are much more effective than traditional ones. The answer is simple: it is something new and little known. But as we will demonstrate in this work, word of mouth can be designed, studied, structured and monitored. I invite you to walk this path and remember, from now on you can tell your friends about it.
3. The speed of information
The previous week we made reference to word of mouth marketing and the ability of a company to generate it. There we commented, in other words, that it is possible that when people have an experience with our company, they can comment it to their environment with relative frequency. In addition, there are certain people who feel extremely important to assert themselves as providers of information. Those people are the ones we have to identify. A central element of a word-of-mouth marketing plan is that the speed of information reaches unthinkable proportions. In effect, when one comments something to a person, both become disseminating agents of the initial information and so on in geometric progression.Speed implies that we have a significant competitive advantage over our rivals: we will reach the final consumer before him. Another really remarkable aspect of this modality is that the message reaches the correct person in an appropriate way.
Who knows more how to tell you things than your best friend? So the message is personalized at the highest level of perfection. There are many examples of word of mouth marketing and I would like to quote a few. Sponsorship programs that aim to generate new clients are very widespread. The mechanism is simple, a client is rewarded for introducing another to the company.
It is known, in advance, that the new client meets the recruitment criteria devised by the company. In these cases, it is always convenient to reward the presenting client and the presented client. Both will feel stimulated to repeat the experience. Another widely used example is the use of experts. In many areas (medicines, for example) experts are decisive when generating interest, there is a respect in advance that allows consumers to free themselves from the prejudice that "they are selling something".
4. Word of mouth starts with a good swelling
The first step that a word of mouth marketing campaign must take is to identify our fans. What are the satisfied customers who are willing to be our sales agents? Can we identify them ?. Surely yes. Check the databases that are in your possession and try to group your customers into categories. If you don't have one (I highly recommend having one), try to remember or ask your employees who are the company's key customers. Then ask them what they identify as being regular buyers. Ask them to recommend the product or service to their friends, give them something in return. And the friend too. Make your loyal customer a part of your company, find out about the aspects that would change in the company.
Do not put a notebook so that they write down the suggestions, go straight to the point, ask. The client will be so surprised that this act will surely become a chat input with his closest friends. Identifying our fans is only the first step, then we must verify which of our fans would potentially be a great disseminator of our proposals.
Do we have clients who are experts in any area? Can we identify opinion leaders? Experts and opinion leaders love their role as “guides” to action. After identifying them, I planted their ideas and they will be happy to be your sales agents completely free of charge. A word-of-mouth marketing plan requires that the company can attract potential information distributors, requires the company to study what are the appropriate channels of communication between its customers and, above all, requires a methodical study and subsequent implementation of the plan. Any company can agree to make a plan of this type and remember that word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool known, do not leave it aside.
5. An independent source of information
Word of mouth is already making people talk. And it is not a simple play on words. Companies are slowly becoming convinced that this very powerful tool can be carefully executed. Nothing will be left to chance anymore.
Even the most sophisticated advertising campaign must contain "somewhere in your communication", a word of mouth marketing plan. The effects are truly surprising, and that classic idea of aiming at the remembrance of this or that advertising piece is "no more" Here the results are verified directly at the cash register of whoever applies it. But as we mentioned above, nothing can be left to chance.
Throughout the planning process, special importance should be given to independent sources of information. Who are they?. Simple. The idea is that it is very “evident” that the company is promoting a certain product because it derives direct benefits from doing so. And this consumers know. Unless the company has such prestige that it allows it to make recommendations as if it were an independent agent, in most cases it is very difficult for it to remove its clothing of subjectivity. Then you have to make the company provide the information, so that later the consumer “listens” to the confirmation through experts.
Experts or opinion leaders are found in almost every market. These agents will be in charge of confirming the company's assertions. And it is not just another advertising mechanism where people are paid to spread the benefits of the product. Not!. The expert must have tried the product, it must have verified its effectiveness and, of its own free will, it must make its favorable position known. And there is nothing magical about this, the experts are eager to make their opinions known and demonstrate once again that the nickname of "expert" has its justification. Have no doubts, word-of-mouth marketing is already making people talk.
6. The importance of a good product
Word of mouth favors the dissemination of the negative aspects of our product. And this is good ?. Of course yes. No one would stop buying something upon learning that it has some negative aspects. Obviously, we highlight the concept of “some negative aspects”.
While traditional advertising emphasizes the positive, word of mouth "humanizes" the product while also highlighting the negative. And this is not bad, on the contrary, it is very healthy that a product can be fallible like any human being. In this case we are taking one more step and that is to ensure that the product is perceived as part of our lives.
Each positive experience is commented to 3 people
No person linked to marketing can deny having heard this kind of biblical sentence. Indeed, there are dozens of studies around the world that seem to conclude that this is the blessed number. A satisfied customer tells her experience, on average, to 3 people. We are talking about an experience that is out of the ordinary, since a mere satisfactory experience does not generate the disseminating effect.
The experience has to far exceed expectations. Promise less than you have to give and that effect will be naturally. If the experience is largely satisfactory, it is probably not 3 but 5 people who will hear the news and they will, in turn, tell 1 more person. We are talking about 10 people learning about the successful experience of a single customer.
Each negative experience is commented to 10 people
And here is the greatest potential source of word of mouth. "Channeling anger" will surely enhance word of mouth better than a simple "positive experience". If you manage to solve the problem and also provide an extra for the inconvenience caused, these people will find out about the good and will surely tell at least 1 other person.
Then there will be 20 people who will know your speed and efficiency to solve problems. Remember: solving problems and offering an “extra gift” will always be remembered (and commented on) more than providing the expected service.
Furthermore, some colleagues maintain a curious paradox: it ends up being more beneficial for the company that errors arise and that they can be solved than if the company solves everything efficiently from the beginning. Think about it.
7. Word of mouth and segmentation
Word of mouth produces the perfect segmentation: one on one. When one person tells another about something, they know:
- Who is the person? What are their tastes and preferences? How is their family made up? What is their life story? What topics are they interested in and what are not.
And if it was not enough:
- You have a relationship with these people, share moments and communicate, you have a trust that would be unmatched by any other advertising tool!
Then you become the most powerful marketing tool known to mankind. It's that simple, that difficult to achieve. Let's go ahead.
8. Give people a good story to tell
People require, as a fundamental input, topics that can be commented on their social networks. How many of the people who attend a cinema do so through direct advertising? Word of mouth marketing, as conceived by agencies today, is a kind of indirect advertising that cannot be controlled by the Agency itself.
Our approach to this discipline is radically different: any company can initiate a proactive word-of-mouth marketing campaign, just by understanding what are the propagation mechanisms that naturally occur in each item.
Generating a story is usually a very important tool to generate the disseminating effect. The story must be true (this is key), but in turn it must have the right content that can be told. If a law firm has a team destined to find the most talented students in the country, regardless of their origin, it will undoubtedly generate a very positive effect on the public, worthy of being part of a word of mouth story.
The issues that Urban Zone puts on the table are discussed at least during the rest of the week after the program is broadcast. Many times, complaints are made after a massive word of mouth multiplier effect. Many more people "find out" about the content of the program than actually watch it. And this is the key element that explains the growth that the audience had in the early days. The
transgression of its drivers and the approach to taboo subjects become key success factors in this type of undertaking.
In a conversation between peers, the level of attention is surely close to 100%, a fact that can hardly be found in other advertising areas.
9. Consumers make brands in their image and likeness
One of the most desired goals by marketers and entrepreneurs is to achieve a good and sustainable brand image. Ultimately, all efforts converge on that goal. A positive brand image generates an effect that is maintained over time and encourages word of mouth.
A strong brand is made by people, recommending and consuming, I repeat, recommending and consuming. While traditional advertising efforts do their job, their goal is to maintain a successful position, while the goal of "getting there" was undoubtedly generated by word of mouth.
When a brand is on everyone's lips, the company can begin to claim victory, although then what is relevant becomes maintenance. Once the objective is achieved, the brand acquires a life of its own, as a human being, to which the public gives it a well-defined personality. We all remember the phrase "God made man in his image and likeness", well, in these cases we can conclude that "Consumers make brands in his image and likeness". And they make them part of their lives, and part of the lives of the groups to which they belong. And after giving life and personality to a brand, word of mouth will be able to do its much-needed task on its own.
10. Investigate by word of mouth
Starting a word of mouth marketing strategy is not throwing darts at a board. It doesn't even look like that. Word of mouth marketing is a mechanism that has sociological and psychological roots, where interpersonal communication mechanisms make “reinforcements” that promote purchasing action. And this is a big difference with other communicational tactics, word of mouth comes directly when the decisive phase is reached in the purchase decision process. What better situation than to have a direct impact at the moment that consumer action is taking place? Most important of all, this is the culmination of the process, which begins with rigorous word-of-mouth research.
In each market there are different types of clients and non-clients that are in different life cycles. Some like to always be first in everything and are recognized in their environment as true innovators or trend leaders.
They are eager to always take the risk of being the ones to test new products. After them, the first adopters appear. They make up more people than innovators, although they are still few compared to the total market. They run risks, albeit measuredly.
They prefer others to try certain products first and then yes, "they go on an adventure". They do not seek perfection, but to have novelties.
The ability to attract these consumer segments is the cornerstone for successful word-of-mouth marketing. In case of identifying “innovators” or “first adopters”, a chain reaction will be generated sooner or later that will surprise the most optimistic and lovers of traditional marketing. This is the first phase of the investigation process, identifying the "communicators". In the next installment we will comment on the content of the message.
11. Investigate word of mouth II
And word of mouth continues to make people talk, and in this case there is nothing planned. Word of mouth marketing seeks to give consistency to a fact proven over and over again in the history of humanity: the main source of consumption is produced by word of mouth. The week before we talked about the "disseminating agents" of the information. We identify the experts as the main responsible for generating a chain reaction. Then we find two very interesting market segments that the company should not stop studying.
But what do they say by word of mouth? How to know which are the magic words that generate the action of consumption? And also to know what are the main defense mechanisms that an individual uses that prevent the spread of word of mouth. There is no other way to know this than to conduct market research. We can have the best goodwill and an enormous capacity to know why my clients buy from me and why those who are not. Well. But we hardly know what the exact words were that were present in the act of recommendation. For this, the research provides us with a powerful tool called discussion groups (or Focus Groups) where it is a question of revealing what are the main characteristics of communication between peers.The investigation will definitely bring us closer to the realization of a plan made with criteria.
We already know who are the main players by word of mouth, now we know what are the communication channels used, we just need to know what the specific mechanisms or tactics will be to implement the plan. The idea is to combine word of mouth with traditional techniques, since in this way the process will be multiple and the capacity of word of mouth will be truly explosive. Tell your colleagues or friends what you know about word of mouth marketing, you will see how your learning is enhanced.
12. Is word of mouth marketing for everyone?
We have been learning about some of the essential characteristics of word of mouth, although we have not yet discussed its limitations. In previous installments we placed this tool as an integral part of what we generically call Communication. Share the same task as advertising, sales promotion, RR: PP, direct marketing, among others. Each of them has different objectives and in many cases they feed on each other. Word of mouth marketing fulfills that function, that of helping other mechanisms to be more efficient. However, word of mouth has some limitations that need to be pointed out to understand the full potential of the tool.
There is no doubt that there are products that do not generate comments by themselves. As an example, it is difficult for a candy to generate a disseminating effect. We can also add that if it is the candy that the Star Wars eat, the effect can be very different. But let's go to examples that do not admit contrast. A nail or screw comes in handy for this case. Can you imagine a person commenting on the benefits of a nail ?. Hard to believe. This is where the action of the tool is limited. The product (or service) must be innovative or contain something that is, that invites to be commented.
It can also be a product whose technological complexity or high cost merits a sound recommendation. Perhaps it is a product similar to many, but this is where the service must do its work: generate a story worth telling. Finally, one more element of the limitations that can be found. The product must be for public consumption, that is, it must be "seen and known" by the members of a certain group. It should generate the opportunity to be commented. Surely it is more feasible to carry out a word of mouth campaign with an outer garment than with a brand of stockings. An effective campaign must consider these aspects.
13. Tailored to the internet
Word of mouth marketing seems designed to fit the internet. Dozens of successful online ventures have been developed with a careful word of mouth marketing strategy. The most paradigmatic case is perhaps that of Hotmail. The famous email based its strategy on the fact that it could be used from any computer. What is current today, in 1997 was not so common. So the idea was to put at the bottom of each outgoing email a phrase of the style: Have you tried Hotmail yet ?. Initially, those who received an email with this text were immediately motivated to try this new modality.
Needless to say, the growth was truly exponential, since we must bear in mind that each user can have an average of 25 contacts and each of these also become disseminating agents of the proposal. In the internet world this is often called viral marketing. As you can see, the effect is very similar to that of a virus that takes on a life of its own and spreads aimlessly. But not all cases are as successful as Hotmail's.
You can also develop a successful strategy with a little ingenuity. As an example, participating in forums where certain topics of interest are handled can be a very good tool for disseminating certain ideas. Another idea may be to implement a Newsletter and to stimulate users to recommend it to other users. The key to the internet is to offer free resources, that is an important hook to generate new contacts. And if these gifts are directly linked to the products that you offer, much better. But first of all remember the following: to generate the recommendation the user must be truly convinced that what you offer is truly useful. Trust is not earned overnight, it must be created slowly through the right stimuli.
14. A word of mouth whiskey
Recently one of our clients told us that he wanted to start a word of mouth marketing campaign to replace an expensive campaign that he had been running. We immediately warned you that all communication mechanisms are fed back, and what you had to do is constantly evaluate the effectiveness of the investment. We also design a campaign for you. Our client had imported a brand of whiskey and was willing to try this new advertising tool. Well, we started the campaign.
We defined why people might want your product, we investigated who were the most enthusiastic consumers of the product. To do this, we visited some of the best-known distributors who said they personally recommended this whiskey. We immediately held three discussion groups: one with enthusiastic distributors, one with core customers, and others with consumers of other brands. We identified as relevant issues that the main reason for diffusion was driven by an intense flavor, adequate price and attractive packaging. Those were the three main attributes gleaned from the investigations.
The motivations that "invited" to start word of mouth started from the initial concept that a whiskey is something sacred and the palate "does not support anything." People who took the suggestions into account were eager to try, they were not faithful to any particular brand. Opinion leaders felt really important to be recommending something new, which did not have the strength that other brands have. From the research we identified the social networks that predominate in each segment investigated. The client was pleasantly surprised by the scientific nature of the research. From there, we design the tactics to apply specifically in the word of mouth campaign. The mechanisms implemented will be part of next week's installment.
15. A word of mouth whiskey II
Last week we discussed the initial phase of the work we did with a whiskey importing client. This phase consisted of identifying the main causes that were implicit in the consumption of whiskey, the degree of consumer involvement and the definition of the main segments involved in word of mouth. There we detected 3 groups to investigate, we analyzed the data and we proposed what could be the main mechanisms of propagation of the idea. Skepticism reigned at first, although the rigor with which we dealt with was clearing doubts.
We proposed to create a group of product enthusiasts, recruited from distributors and main end consumers. They were in charge of organizing a presentation where they explained about the benefits of the product. The guests were selected by the "enthusiastic" consumers themselves.
Then a planting campaign began and different contacts were made in bars in the Old City. We asked (and initially gratified) one of the consumers to talk about the benefits of the product in a talk specifically organized with those in charge of the bowling alleys.
There, each was given a bottle and given the opportunity to participate in the Whiskey Club. The acceptance rate was overwhelming. Likewise, we insisted on the benefit that more bowling alleys participated in the project. In other words: we welcome the spread of the idea. There we decided to end the first phase and evaluate the results. Results?. In less than a month the company had doubled sales in Ciudad Vieja and also among home consumers. The result was as expected, the dissemination of the idea was generated by the attributes of the product itself and guided by an effective word of mouth marketing plan. As you can see, nothing can be left to chance anymore.
16. Conclusion
A communication campaign must necessarily contain a space dedicated to word of mouth marketing. The reasons are simple. In the first place, word of mouth appears just before the purchase action is generated and, in this way, becomes the final push that encourages consumers to get a certain product. Second, word of mouth becomes a fantastic booster for traditional communication tools. And finally, word of mouth may have the most convenient cost-benefit ratio in the entire advertising market. Anyway, I hope that the sum of these simple reasons will finally convince you. But in addition to this, this tool shows us its potential by demonstrating its scientific nature.Sociologists and psychologists have worked for years trying to uncover what are the mechanisms that are implicit in the action of consumption. Allow me to sin of pride and I am going to give you the desired answer. Everything matters when defining the purchase action, as we say “nothing can be left to chance anymore”.
Among the steps that cannot be missed in a Marketing Plan we find, first of all, the definition of objectives. Questions like Why do they want my product? they become the cornerstone for the initiation of the investigation. It is also necessary to identify in this phase the degree of involvement that the consumer has in the act of purchase.
A second step is to carefully evaluate which communication tools have already been used. Many of them may have encouraged word of mouth before. Let's evaluate their results then.
A third step is to define the strategy. The market must be properly segmented according to the roles played by the different agents in the decision-making process. We define an example of this in this work when we refer to the type of adopters our product has (innovators, first adopters, first majority, second majority, laggards).
The fourth phase is research and here the objectives are:
- Identify the main groups involved. Identify the decision-making process of each group. Identify the mechanisms of dissemination within and between groups. Identify the words with which they communicate (wording).
The fifth phase is the implementation stage: what to do ?. There we identified around thirty very effective and novel mechanisms to stimulate word of mouth.
Step five is to complete a timeline for the Plan. The main phases must be distinguished and what is expected of each of them. Remember that each phase must be constantly monitored to apply corrective measures. We are working on social processes and it is impossible to measure everything from the beginning. For this reason, word of mouth marketing detaches itself from other tools, since it allows, among other things, for its low investment, that it can be modified on the fly.
