Word of mouth referral

Looking for new ways to grow your customer base? Don’t forget about wowing the customers you already have, to generate word-of-mouth marketing.  Think of the last time you recommended your favorite restaurant, clothing item, or other product to a friend. You probably shared because you loved your experience. The same goes for your company – when customers are wowed by your business, they naturally want to spread the good word.

This excitement to share is what drives word-of-mouth marketing (also called WOM marketing, WOMM, or word-of-mouth advertising). And this sharing leads to new customers, because the people who hear your customers’ word of mouth highly trust the word of their peers. So, word-of-mouth marketing could be your secret weapon for growth – especially because it often happens for free.

Athough word-of-mouth marketing depends on your customers and fans, it’s not out of your control. There are many ways to further your word-of-mouth marketing strategy. Below, we cover everything about the power of word of mouth, from what sets word of mouth apart from all other types of marketing to how you can harness word-of-mouth marketing to scale your own business.

What prompts word-of-mouth marketing?

Usually, word of mouth is prompted by an above-and-beyond positive experience someone has had with your brand. Think about the last time you ate an amazing dinner out, or tried a cool new product that easily solved one of your problems. You probably couldn’t help but share this standout experience with your friends.

Why is word-of-mouth marketing so important?

Word-of-mouth marketing stands out because of its high level of trust.

Why do people trust word of mouth?

Usually, word-of-mouth recommendations come from friends, family members, and others within someone’s close circles. When someone sees a friend or family member raving about a particular brand, they’re much more likely to buy. That’s because peer recommendations are seen as especially valuable.

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Word-of-mouth marketing benefits

According to a Nielsen report, 92% of people trust word of mouth referrals from those they know, more than they trust all other forms of advertising.

Word-of-mouth marketing means your customers and other fans are essentially doing the marketing for you, at little to no cost to your business! They are promoting straight to their network, usually in person or on social media. This makes word of mouth not only cost-effective, but highly valuable.

Plus, thanks to social media, what someone shares can reach millions in mere seconds. And word of mouth doesn’t just stop after one interaction – one person will tell another, and another, and so on. With every share, repost, or retweet, word-of-mouth marketing carries the potential for exponential growth.

All this happens at a very low cost to your business – often, for free.

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Word of mouth statistics: How effective is word-of-mouth marketing?

These word-of-mouth marketing statistics further prove how successful word-of-mouth marketing can be:

• 83% of Americans say that word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know make them more likely to purchase a given product or service.
• According to Nielsen, consumers are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend, so word of mouth produces high conversion rates.
• When it comes to products they have purchased, 74% of people identified word of mouth as a key factor in their purchase decision.
• Marketers rate the quality of leads brought in by word of mouth as a 4.28 out of 5.

Check out more word-of-mouth marketing statistics in the infographic below.

What are the types of word-of-mouth marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing (word-of-mouth advertising) can be divided into two main types or categories: amplified word of mouth and organic word of mouth.

Amplified word-of-mouth marketing is directly encouraged by your business via a marketing campaign. Within the campaign, businesses will usually use some sort of reward to motivate this word of mouth. Amplified word of mouth strategies are also easy to track, since they are tied to a campaign.

Examples of amplified word of mouth include:

• Referral programs
• Affiliate programs
• Brand ambassador programs
• Influencer marketing campaigns
• Other customer endorsements you encourage with rewards
• Other campaigns and contests to encourage social media sharing

In contrast, organic word-of-mouth marketing occurs when someone recommends your brand naturally and without direct prompting from your business.

It is much harder to motivate and track. But this type of word of mouth isn’t fully out of your control. It is usually triggered by an event experienced by the customer. Whether that’s amazing customer service or a free gift with purchase, triggers set your brand apart from the competition and keep you top of mind. Plus, they make for great talking points and organic word of mouth.

We’ll dive into common ways to trigger word-of-mouth marketing in the next section.

Examples of organic word of mouth include:

• Spontaneous social media sharing (user-generated content)
• Reviews and comments from satisfied customers
• Natural sharing of a product through any type of conversation
• “Dark social” sharing in DMs and private emails, that doesn’t have a tracking tag

6 word-of-mouth marketing strategies for any campaign (+WOMM examples)

With the right word-of-mouth marketing campaign, you can successfully create a steady stream of referrals and repeatable word of mouth for your brand.

Fortunately, there are plenty word-of-mouth channels at your disposal: referral programs, influencer programs, brand ambassador programs, affiliate marketing, and many more. Whichever channel you choose, however, it’s important to develop an overall WOMM strategy to encourage organic sharing.

Here are a few proven WOMM strategies to help get you started, along with some word-of-mouth marketing examples that show the strategies in action.

1. Create triggers for word of mouth

Triggers are little cues that remind your audience about your brand, even without any actual advertising.

Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger gives this example: What immediately comes to mind when someone says peanut butter? Was it jelly? In this case, peanut butter acts almost like an advertisement for jelly.

This is the type of association you want to create for your brand. One famous example is a KFC campaign that ran in Japan in the 1970s. Translated to “Kentucky is Christmas,” it promoted a party barrel of fried chicken as Christmas dinner. The campaign was so successful that until today, many families in Japan order Kentucky Fried Chicken when the holiday season rolls around.

Create your own triggers by finding something your audience sees or does on a regular basis. By associating your brand with these, you increase the likelihood of people remembering and talking about you.

2. Appeal to your audience

Like all marketing strategies, word of mouth works best when it puts its audience first. Think of what digital marketing content would appeal best to your audience – would it be an interactive contest, a behind-the-scenes video, or something else? By continuing to give your audience what it wants, you’re able to add to your social currency and generate word of mouth.

Social currency is all about reputation. People share what they think will make them look good in front of others, because every share puts their reputation on the line. They’ll only “spend” their social currency on your brand, and spread the word about you, if they think it will give their reputation a boost. So, make sure you’ve created something your audience loves, and will think it’s cool to share with others.

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3. Provide value to customers

The brands worth talking about are ones that provide value. Whether that means solving a problem with your product or delivering an unparalleled customer experience, a customer that sees value in your brand will both stick with you and share your brand with others.

Providing value is also one of the best ways to gain a customer’s good will. If you can offer value – and in a way that stands out – you may just earn a positive customer review, promote brand loyalty, and maximize your word of mouth.

4. Tap into emotion

Emotional attachments are one of the biggest drivers of word-of-mouth marketing. If people feel strongly about a brand or product, they are not likely to drop it, even if a more logical option comes along.

People respond more to emotions, as well. Whether it’s something happy, sad, funny, or otherwise, they instinctively want to share it with others.

If you can create experiences that result in positive emotions, your word of mouth efforts can go a long way. For instance, think of how Always fought against stereotypes and empowered young women with its #LikeAGirl ads.

And if your brand has a unique personality, this can also stir up emotions. Use your personality for emotional appeal, in a way that stands out from the crowd, and customers won’t be able to stop talking. This works especially well if you’re appealing to humor. Think back to Wendy’s – they went viral thanks to their signature snarky, humorous tweets.

5. Tell your story

Creating a compelling story goes hand in hand with giving audiences what they want, offering value and appealing to emotions. If customers love the “why” behind what you do – your mission and values – and that “why” is packaged in a story that’s moving and easy to tell, customers will share your story with others.

One example is 4Ocean’s story: they pull plastic from the ocean daily to help marine life, and then recycle much of that plastic into bracelets and other products.

6. Create exclusivity

Making people feel like they know secrets or insider information is another recipe for generating sharing. Think of how Starbucks “secret menu” drinks have gone viral on social media, and how In-N-Out Burger got people talking both online and offline with their own “secret menu” items (which were key in driving the brand’s overall success).

Secrets don’t just work for food brands, though. If you share new and exciting products with your most loyal customers first, or create a sale that people can only access with a code you emailed, people will want their friends to get in on the action, too. They’ll tell their friends quickly, meaning more buzz, and more sales, for you.

How do online reviews affect word-of-mouth advertising?

As we’ve outlined above, you can build word-of-mouth advertising in many ways. But one of the best ways is by getting positive customer reviews. A majority 90% of people read reviews before deciding whether or not to visit a business, and 72% will only push through with a purchase after reading positive reviews.

Plus, good reviews help build your brand’s social proof and boost your online reputation – both terrific ways to gain exposure and get even more people talking about you.

Customer reviews also allow you to expand into other channels and platforms. Say, a happy customer writes a review about you on Yelp. That review can then be searched and shared across other channels, as well. You can share some of the best reviews on your own social media accounts, or even post them as testimonials on your own website.

Here’s a step-by-step example of how reviews can play a role in word-of-mouth advertising:

• Winter season is about to start, and Ken and Val are talking about chimney sweeping services.
• Val tells Ken that she needs to hire someone to come to her house some time in the next few weeks.
• Ken shares that he’s also been searching for someone and found a few chimney services with good reviews online (thanks to previous word of mouth). He mentions a few that looked especially promising.
• Val takes a look at a few of the services, and ends up picking one that did an amazing job.
• Val starts telling all her friends, including Ken, and even posts a picture of her cozy fireplace with a newly cleaned chimney (further generating word of mouth!).

How to build word-of-mouth marketing on social media?

Stop collecting and start connecting. This is a key guideline for any strong word-of-mouth marketing strategy these days.

Sure, you can have millions of social media followers. But to effectively use social media platforms to drive word-of-mouth marketing, you have to be active and engaging.

This means providing valuable information, responding to comments and questions, and encouraging and sharing some of your audience’s user-generated content (UGC).

The more connected you are to your followers, the more likely they will become true fans and supporters. And what do true fans usually do? Share your brand with others and increase word of mouth in new markets you may not have been able to reach otherwise.

Social proof and social media: Get others to show, not just tell

People decide what to do based on what they see other people doing. If they hear someone talking about how good your product is, this word of mouth will make them more likely to try the product. But when they see someone using your product in their everyday life, this social proof gives word-of-mouth a bigger boost. And social media shares of your product mean many people see how your product is used, all at once.

Ambassadors’ and influencers’ posts using your product, affiliates’ product reviews on social networks, and UGC images and videos from any customer show off your product and further inspire people to try it for themselves.

How is WOMM different from referral marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing is all about getting people talking about your brand or business. It looks for the best ways to promote sharing, often through general consumer interest or unique content. WOMM is all about spreading brand awareness to your audience. Depending on the types you choose to focus on, though, you may have difficulty tracking and controlling it.

Referral marketing is a segment of word-of-mouth marketing. It’s common for word of mouth to occur naturally in the process of referring others. But at its core, referral marketing is a proactive way to gain new customers, focused on key targets and specific results.

Referrals occur when someone who uses or knows your brand recommends it to others in their network, usually friends, family members, or colleagues. Since they are sharing your brand with others, they are generating word of mouth. But this recommendation is direct and purposeful, not just casually mentioned.

Combining word of mouth and referral marketing

Most types of marketing use word of mouth in one way or another. Referral marketing is no different. In fact, word of mouth helps companies get new customers all the time – which is the main aim of referral marketing.

Instead of doing a mass shout-out, however, referral marketing allows you to get more personal.

Referral marketing is all about motivating individual customers to share a product or service with others they know, by offering incentives whenever these recommendations bring in first-time customers. In time, this type of marketing works to build customer loyalty and establish long-term relationships, both among existing and newly referred customers.

Referral marketing also allows you to monitor your conversions, engagement, and other metrics.

With a formal referral program, businesses can incentivize customer sharing and organize their entire referral process. The right referral software can also generate automatic referral links and track each step of the process, so you know exactly where referrals are coming from.

Using referral marketing with other word of mouth strategies maximizes brand awareness and increases the odds of  creating a viral sharing effect. By integrating diverse types of word-of-mouth marketing into your overall marketing strategy, you increase the odds of achieving success.

To learn more about referral marketing, check out our referral marketing guide or learn essential referral program tips.

Other related word-of-mouth marketing terms

As a major business strategy, WOMM can be seen alongside many other marketing concepts. Here are a few common ones you may come across:

• Buzz marketing: This involves getting key ambassadors or influencers to spread the conversation about your brand. It’s focused on building viral growth around certain products or campaigns, usually using attention-grabbing techniques (i.e., videos, memes) and generating online buzz.
• Viral marketing: This type of marketing relies on one’s existing network to spread information from person to person in a rapid manner. This often occurs online or using social media, with content so compelling that people can’t help but send it with others.
• Blog marketing: When used for word of mouth, blog marketing involves blog posts that an influencer or brand ambassador creates. With a few strategic ads or sponsored posts, bloggers create content that quickly travels to their followers, who in turn, share it with their friends. By recruiting the right bloggers, a business can generate fair amount of word of mouth through their content marketing.
• Social media marketing:  Thanks to hashtags and rapid shares, the content created on social media has a way of reaching people outside of the original group following. And as we’ve seen, shared content has a higher value when it comes from someone people know and trust.

Wrapping up

Don’t sleep on word-of-mouth marketing, because recommendations and referrals are powerful. People trust the word of their family and friends. This makes them more likely to purchase from you when their peers recommend your products.

The best way to use this to your advantage is to leverage multiple types of word-of-mouth marketing, including by encouraging user-generated content, asking for reviews, and starting a referral program.

No matter which marketing tactics you use to generate buzz, it’s key to apply the fundamental word-of-mouth strategies: creating sharing triggers, appealing to your fan base, offering value, and stirring up an emotional response.

Ready to generate word of mouth in a way that’s easy to measure? Check out our complete guide to starting a referral program. 

The saying goes that when you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. But when your clients love what you do, you’ll find yourself in a position to unlock the most powerful form of marketing that exists: the word-of-mouth referral.

Word-of-mouth referrals can be difficult to generate, capture and quantify, so perhaps it’s not surprising that most business owners aren’t focused on building up their word-of-mouth revenue streams.

But client referrals are a tremendously powerful source of leads and potential revenue. My partner and I built a successful digital agency exclusively through word-of-mouth referrals for years. And whether you manage a retailer or a service-based business, there are a number of compelling reasons that you should be leveraging referrals to grow your business as well.

Related: 3 Simple Steps to Grow Your Business Through Referrals

People overwhelmingly trust word-of-mouth referrals

According to Nielson, 83% of people trust word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family while 92% of consumers trust word-of-mouth referrals more than all other forms of advertising.

Plus, data from Survey Monkey shows that consumers are five times more likely to make a big purchase on the basis of a trusted word-of-mouth recommendation than a paid ad.

They’re free

John Wannamaker once famously said, «Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.» We’ve all been there. That’s why part of the beauty of word-of-mouth referrals is that you won’t spend a dime on them.

They net better customers and clients

In my experience, new clients that come from referrals advance through the sales process faster, have more forgiving negotiations and lean towards greater loyalty because you come recommended. On average, your referred customers will also spend twice as much as your non-referred customers, making them an incredibly desirable source of business from an LTV standpoint.

They reveal the value-add levers that are most important to your customers

Over the years, I’ve learned that more than knowledge, more than a privilege, more than even money, people tend to protect their relationships. When clients are willing to talk about your service and refer you to someone new, that means you’re really doing a great job of serving them.

And whenever you are referred, it’s a great opportunity to reflect on what your clients love so much about working with you. Is it your turnaround time? Your collaborative process? The network of relationships you bring to the engagement?

If you can identify the reasons you’ve been recommended, you can reinvest in those aspects of your practice and improve your service offerings for all of your clients. Improving your service offerings will in turn help you earn more referrals, which will grow your business and produce more opportunities to impress and improve.

Related: Want More Referrals? Here Are The Best Ways to Earn Them

Ultimately, that virtuous cycle is the reason you should treat customer referrals as your number one metric of success. Unlike your conversion rate, your YOY revenue or any other quantitative KPI, referrals give you a qualitative view of what you’re doing extremely well right now and help you chart what you should do next to compound your success.

Four surefire tips to build more business through referrals

By now you get it — referrals are more effective than ads, totally free, yield more valuable clients and provide you with actionable data that will help you improve your entire organization. But how do you get them?

If you’re in direct-to-consumer retail, establish an online-referral program and remarket it to your bottom-of-funnel audience with email, SMS, ads, website modals and a top-nav link. You can build your own referral program from scratch or enlist a technology partner that specializes in online-loyalty programs, like Stamped.io, Yotpo or ReferralCandy.

Related: 4 Steps to Maximizing Customer Referrals

If you offer a B2B service like digital marketing, earning referrals from existing clients will require time and finesse, but there are a number of things you can do to maximize your odds of netting more. Check out these four surefire tactics that will help you pull in more referral business:

1. Adopt a human-first business philosophy. Business is essentially a humanist enterprise. Transactions are a function of trust, but trust can never be maintained over the long term if you treat people transactionally.

To be worthy of referral, you must understand that your success is fundamentally intertwined with your clients’ success. That means being an honest communicator, taking maximum ownership when things go wrong and, above all, creating a work environment that fosters team success so that you can deliver that «wow» moment when it counts.

For some great insight into the business-boosting effects of treating your teammates as essential stakeholders, I recommend Setting The Table by restaurateur Danny Meyer.

2. Over-serve your clients. Want to know how CAA came to represent so much of Hollywood’s top talent? By making «above and beyond» part of their everyday practice. Their philosophy is that whenever they bring on a new client, that client is represented by the whole agency.

And CAA makes a habit of sweetening their services with outside-the-box value adds, like supporting the causes that their clients care about. Working with a client’s favorite charitable org isn’t a typical business activity. It’s an activity that makes CAA feel like more than a business.

Take a page from CAA and adopt a holistic, generous approach to working with clients: Allow your team to over-serve them when necessary. Bring the full range of your interdisciplinary resources to bear on client issues. Anticipate and address their needs before they ask.

By being a true partner to your clients on all levels, you cultivate the kind of appreciation that turns into word-of-mouth referrals down the road.

3. Turn wins into action with an NPS Survey. No matter how great your work is, most people won’t formalize their feedback without a nudge. The New Promoter Score or NPS metric can provide both quantitative and qualitative data to help you understand whether you are successfully serving your customers and how likely they are to refer you.

There are two kinds of NPS: the transactional NPS, which asks your customers how likely they are to recommend your product or service to a peer, and the relational NPS, which asks your customers how satisfied they are overall with your product or service.

If you run an online retailer, you can implement a transactional NPS in a strategic place, like your post-purchase page or email flow. If you run a service business with a roster of long-term clients, administer a quarterly relational NPS survey to keep a beat on the health of your client relationships.

Because the NPS consists of a single question, you’ll net more participation than you would with a more time-intensive feedback request. Plus, taking steps to improve your NPS score will help you keep your clients happier and cause them to reflect on your value. And all of that will come into play the next time they’re asked to recommend a business in your niche.

4. Don’t solicit, elicit. Generally speaking, it’s not a wise practice to ask for referrals directly. NPS feedback? Yes. Testimonials? Sure — as long as the client is happy. But asking a current client to broker a new relationship on your behalf smacks of desperation, and you’ll quickly alienate your customers by treating them as stepping stones to new prospects.

Still, the reality is that most of your clients are tightly networked with other people from their industries who will need the services that you offer down the road. And when they develop that need, they’ll ask a trusted friend for a recommendation. So how can you make sure that the next time that happens, your name is the one that gets dropped?

The answer is to look for acts of generosity that bring high value to your clients’ lives. These simple acts will help keep your business top of mind when someone asks for a recommendation. There are all kinds of generous acts and low-investment favors, but some of my favorites are: brokering a useful introduction, reaching out with useful insights or offering free beta access to a new business unit or service.

Over-serve your clients by demonstrating that you are thinking of new ways to add value to their business above and beyond your scope of work. Keep in mind that the key to this approach is to perform favors without expecting a quid pro quo. They’re about building cumulative goodwill and trust, not about cashing in. No, you won’t find accurate attribution statistics for this form of business building. And you probably won’t see immediate results the way you’d expect with a PPC campaign.

But if you’re serious about growing a business that can distinguish itself among a sea of competitors, turn customers into evangelists and net the kinds of clients you want to work with, you’ll align those goals with your day-to-day by treating client referrals as an essential metric of organizational health.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

«WOMM» redirects here. For the American radio station, see WOMM-LP.

Word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM, WOM marketing, also called word of mouth advertising) differs from naturally occurring word of mouth, in that it is actively influenced or encouraged by organizations (e.g. ‘seeding’ a message in a networks rewarding regular consumers to engage in WOM, employing WOM ‘agents’). While it is difficult to truly control WOM, research^[1] has shown that there are three generic avenues to ‘manage’ WOM for the purpose of WOMM:

• build a strong WOM foundation (e.g. sufficient levels of satisfaction, trust and commitment),
• indirect WOMM management which implies that managers only have a moderate amount of control (e.g. controversial advertising, teaser campaigns, customer membership clubs),
• direct WOMM management, which has higher levels of control (e.g. paid WOM ‘agents’, «friend get friend» schemes).

The success of word-of-mouth marketing depends largely on the nature of the rewards that are used. Research has shown that when the wrong incentives are used to motivate consumers or agents to spread positive word-of-mouth about products or brands, the campaigns can backfire on the organization.^[2] Proconsumer WOM has been suggested as a counterweight to commercially motivated word of mouth.^[3]

History[edit]

George Silverman, a psychologist, pioneered word-of-mouth marketing when he created what he called «teleconferenced peer influence groups» in order to engage physicians in dialogue about new pharmaceutical products. Silverman noticed an interesting phenomenon while conducting focus groups with physicians in the early 1970s. «One or two physicians who were having good experiences with a drug would sway an entire group of skeptics. They would even sway a dissatisfied group of ex-prescribers who had had negative experiences!»^[4]

With the emergence of Web 2.0, many web startups like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, and Digg have used buzz marketing by merging it with the social networks that they have developed.^{[citation needed][clarification needed]} With the increasing use of the Internet as a research and communications platform, word of mouth has become a more powerful and useful resource for consumers and marketers. It has become possible because, with the advent of the Internet, the process of communication has been simplified due to the disappearance of such communication barriers as distance, linguistic and others. People have become more willing to share their opinions, create thematic communities, which ultimately influenced the WOM.

In October 2005, the advertising watchdog group Commercial Alert petitioned the United States FTC to issue guidelines requiring paid word-of-mouth marketers to disclose their relationship and related compensation with the company whose product they are marketing.^[5] The United States FTC stated that it would investigate situations in which the relationship between the word-of-mouth marketer of a product and the seller is not revealed and could influence the endorsement. The FTC stated that it would pursue violators on a case-by-case basis. Consequences for violators may include cease-and-desist orders, fines or civil penalties.^[6]

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association, a US American trade group that represents hundreds of companies, has adopted an ethics code stating that manufacturers should not pay cash to consumers in return for recommendations or endorsements.^[7]

Research firm PQ Media estimated that in 2008, companies spent $1.54 billion on word-of-mouth marketing. While spending on traditional advertising channels was slowing, spending on word-of-mouth marketing grew 14.2 percent in 2008, 30 percent of that for food and drink brands.^[8]

Word of mouth marketing today is both online and through face-to-face interaction. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science has shown that to achieve growth, brands must create word of mouth beyond core fan groups—meaning marketers should not focus solely on communities such as Facebook.^{[citation needed]} According to Deloitte, further research has shown that ‘most advocacy takes place offline’—instead it happens in person. According to the Journal of Advertising Research, 75% of all consumer conversations about brands happen face-to-face, 15% happen over the phone and just 10% online. On the other hand, some see social media interaction as being inextricably tied to word of mouth marketing.^[9] In 2003, Fred Reichheld implemented the strategy of word-of-mouth marketing by introducing Net Promoter Score, which analyzes the number of Promoters a brand has, who recommend the brand to other people they know through such marketing tactic.

Factors[edit]

According to academic research^[10] and Jonah Berger’s bestselling book Contagious: Why Things Catch On,^[11] there are six key factors that drive what people talk about and share.^[12] They are organized in an acronym called STEPPS, which stands for:

• Social currency — The better something makes people look, the more likely they will be to share it.^[13]
• Triggers — Things that are top of mind (i.e., accessible) are more likely to be tip of tongue.^[14]
• Emotion — When we care, we share. High arousal emotions increase sharing.^[13]
• Public — The easier something is to see, the more likely people are to imitate it.^[14]
• Practical value — People share useful information to help others.
• Stories — Trojan horse stories carry messages and ideas along for the ride.

Another key psychological driver of word-of-mouth is interest.^[15] As Sernovitz suggests, “nobody talks about boring companies, boring products, or boring ads,”.^[16]

Concepts/models[edit]

Three models[edit]

When further research went into developing the concept word-of-mouth marketing, many models behind the word of mouth strategy also developed. These models include the organic inter consumer influence model, the linear marketer influence model and the network coproduction model.

When dealing with the initial and simplest form of word of mouth Marketing it is related to the model of the organic inter-consumer influence model.^[17] This means that organizations having no direct input of what is being said about the particular product, it is just one consumer talking to another about product reviews and or customer service experience. The main motivation behind this model is for others to warn and inform potential consumers of a product out of their best interest not for personal gain.^[17] This model is referred to being organic because it occurs naturally, meaning it is not planned by the firm and occurs when the consumer wants to share their experience with a certain brand or product.

As research started to progress, marketers found the importance of «influential consumers».^[17] So the linear marketer influence model was adopted. The linear marketer influence model introduces the idea of influential customers creating conversations with potential customers and consumers about how a certain product can be beneficial for them to purchase. This model allows organizations to make sure that credible influential sources are spreading the word/ message of the organization and presenting the value proposition of the organization successfully and accurately to the target consumer.^[17] This can be done through «targeted advertisements and promotions through credible sources that review the product».^[17] Marketers found this model to be an effective model of word-of-mouth marketing and it decreased the chances of negative opinions and attitudes from being spread about a particular product of the organization.

The Network Coproduction Model: This saw marketers introduce «one to one seeding and communication programs».^[17] This model encourages conversations between customers about the certain product through releasing information on a particular product.^[18] This word-of-mouth model is more focused on online activities, using blogs and online communities as sources in communicating the message of the product. The network coproduction model gives marketers the opportunity to control and manage word of mouth activity online.^[17]

• Seeding is one example of how Marketers use the network coproduction model of word-of-mouth marketing. With seeding marketers can use various techniques and approaches these approaches can be indirect like engineering WOM conversations and direct approaches^[18][19]
• The engineering approach consists of marketers constructing conversations, so there is more buzz created and the number of conversations based on an organizations product increases.^[18]
• A direct approach to seeding is targeting special selected consumers and allowing them to sample products that an organization has. This allows these selected customers to present their feelings towards these products through online communities or blogs.^[18]
• Seeding campaigns can offer marketers the ability to reach a new set of consumers. It is most effective when the product is at the beginning stage of its product life style and helps to set the reputation of the brand and product into motion.^[18][19]

Buzz[edit]

Marketing buzz or simply «buzz» is a term used in word-of-mouth marketing—the interaction of consumers and users of a product or service serve to amplify the original marketing message.^[20] Some describe buzz as a form of hype among consumers,^[21] a vague but positive association, excitement, or anticipation about a product or service. Positive «buzz» is often a goal of viral marketing, public relations, and of advertising on Web 2.0 media. The term refers both to the execution of the marketing technique, and the resulting goodwill that is created. Examples of products with strong marketing buzz upon introduction were Harry Potter, the Volkswagen New Beetle, Pokémon, Beanie Babies, and the Blair Witch Project.^[21]

Viral effects[edit]

Viral marketing and viral advertising are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of virus or computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.^[22] Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages. The goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to identify individuals with high social networking potential (SNP) – and have a high probability of being taken by another competitor—and create viral messages that appeal to this segment of the population. The term «viral marketing» has also been used pejoratively to refer to stealth marketing campaigns—the unscrupulous use of astroturfing on-line combined with undermarket advertising in shopping centers to create the impression of spontaneous word-of-mouth enthusiasm.^[23]

Analyzing WOM[edit]

Consumers may promote brands by word-of-mouth due to social, functional, and emotional factors.^[24]
Research has identified thirteen brand characteristics that stimulate WOM, namely:^[25]

1. Age of the brand in the marketplace: A long history of a brand or product can create an emotional relationship between the consumer and itself. This can stimulate WOM if the brand is known to be reliable or effective evident by the existence of its place in a market, this can be effective for companies for communicating their strength to other competitors.
2. Type of good: Depending on the type of product, experiences customers have with a product may mean that WOM can be used to suggest brands and products to others when in different forms of situations. An example of this could be a household or garden object.
3. Complexity: WOM is used in this instance to help explain the use of a product or its effectiveness to whether of not it will serve its purpose or need.
4. Knowledge about a brand: Similar to complexity, WOM can be used to describe the effectiveness of a brand, the history behind it and what the main purpose of the product is. WOM is also used to identify a company’s future whether it be positive or negative.
5. Differentiation: An experience with different products within a market can mean that WOM can offer solutions to others and explain which products and brands could be more effective than others when looking at similar products serving the same need. Previous consumers can help describe strengths and weaknesses of products and help make the correct decision.
6. Relevance of a brand to a broad audience
7. Quality: esteem given to a brand
8. Premium: WOM regarding premiums can refer^[26] too different packaging of a brands products e.g. during Easter or over Christmas. Different and exciting packaging and deals can stimulate a huge source of WOM communication and can lead to brands becoming extremely popular over short periods of time. An example of this would be supermarket ‘bulk buy’ deals over the Christmas holiday period.
9. Visibility
10. Excitement: WOM can be used to promote up and coming products which results in huge amounts of excitement. An example of this could be new technology being released to the public and advances in medical technology and vehicles. These examples are best used to demonstrate excitement as a result of word of mouth marketing.
11. Satisfaction
12. Perceived risk: WOM can be used to warn other potential buyers that a product is not what it claims to be. An example of this may be online buying as a result of marketing strategies from phony companies who focus on producing fake goods that look and seem like the legitimate product. An example of this would be fake iPhones and clothing (most significantly shoes and sports wear).
13. Involvement

This research also found that while social and functional drivers are the most important for promotion via WOM online, the emotional driver predominates offline.

Advantages and disadvantages[edit]

Word of mouth marketing can be very effective in the communication of the advertising campaign as it can offer a solution to «penetrating consumers guards» to get them talking about a particular product.^{[citation needed]}

Many marketers find this type of marketing strategy advantageous to the entire advertising campaign of a certain product. One positive aspect of this marketing strategy is that sources of this word-of-mouth advertising are mostly personal. This means that they are not subject to persuasion from the organization for personal gains or subject to being biased.^{[citation needed]} This has a positive effect on the advertising campaign as it shows what consumers honestly think about a product and the motivation to try the particular product or services increases, due to the consumer being recommended by a trusted reliable source.

However, there are some disadvantages and criticisms with word-of-mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth marketing is subject to a lot of clutter. Unlike traditional word of mouth, electronic WOM is able to include not only positive reviews but also negative reviews made by former, actual and potential customers online in a timely manner.^[27] As a result, word-of-mouth marketing may sometimes not be beneficial in changing or influencing consumer’s attitudes and perception especially from an organic source as negative conversations may be held about the brand.^{[citation needed]} This is due to the organic source not finding the product beneficial and therefore has a negative perception of the product, which is then shared. Although positive word-of-mouth positively influences purchase intention while negative word-of-mouth decreases customer purchase intention, the effect is asymmetric. Compared with positive word-of-mouth, negative word-of-mouth has a larger effect on purchase intentions.^[28]

One more criticism about this marketing strategy is that people tend to be offput and feel deceived when they find out that a person who influenced their attitude about a product has been working towards or benefiting from doing that.^[29] This ultimately has the potential to make consumers change their attitude, which can have a negative impact on the firm’s product reputation. This may be the case as consumers feel that it wasn’t in the source’s interest to tell what their full perceptions were of the brand.^[29] Similarly, engineered word of mouth by internet-campaigns companies can be seen as artificial and sometime based on information considered private.^[19]

See also[edit]

• Social media marketing
• Two-step flow of communication
• Evangelism marketing
• Viral marketing
• Marketing buzz
• Guerrilla marketing
• User-generated content
• Online Brand Defense — A type of consumer behavior that has been considered creating significant impact on Word-of-mouth

References[edit]