From the marketing trenches...: A Word on Word Of Mouth Marketing

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Tail_1

I'm likely in the minority here, but I'm not buying Word of Mouth marketing (WOM) as the next big marketing idea. In fact, I don't even buy WOM as a marketing "tool".

I've read the articles, the books and, recently, viewed the videos from WOM Marketing Association's (WOMMA) Orlando conference. And I'm even more convinced that WOM marketing is the outcome of a well thought-out and executed marketing strategy...with one key ingredient: the product or service marketed is worth talking about.

Too many of these WOM articles and proponents imply WOM about a product or service can be "created", manipulated, and even bought. Given the amount of information available to all of us as consumers, and the cynicism directed towards marketing and advertising in general these days, I think it is just the opposite. You CAN'T create, manipulate or even buy-off people genuinely telling others how great your product is (i.e. WOM).

In one of the WOMMA podcasts, prominent customer relationship consultant Don Peppers, stated that WOM marketing is made up of these three things: employee empowerment, employee ownership, and excellence in service.

Agree, these are necessary components of a successful company and a memorable customer experience. Add in a product/service worth talking about and you have a formula for your customers going out and telling people how great you are (i.e.WOM):

Product/service worth talking about + Memorable Experience = WOM

Great marketing is built on two foundations: 1. A great product and 2. Employees who live the brand. WOM is the result of great marketing.

A great analogy for WOM marketing is the tried and true "tail wagging the dog"...When do dogs wag their tails? When you pet them, talk nicely to them, play with them (experience) and when you feed them something unexpected, like a steak bone (great product). Skipping these inputs and going straight for the tail will not yield the results you want.

So it is with WOM. Take care to develop the product, deliver a memorable experience and watch the tails start wagging.

Comments

Damn your good, a very perceptual article.

And guess what I agree. I am a consultant working in the trenches every day helping my clients with their customer experience management and customer service issues. One thing I really work on is developing the WOM experience. However, I have not followed the mainstream hype in this development. I watched the pod cast and like you have read more than I can remember and much I really don't want to remember.

What I have found is that 90% of what I have read is old school marketing techniques, the tried and tired, packaged with a new wrap calling it something different and everybody taking a pat on the back for this new and wonderful concept that they don’t understand.

Word of mouth marketing has been around since the first business in the first millennium opened its doors for business and wowed the first clients with a great idea. I really wish people (professionals?) would get original when stealing a concept, especially such an old one.

Word of mouth marketing is not dependent on employee buy in, participation or ownership and someone please, please define for me the phrase “excellence in service”. The ambiguity of this statement grates on my nerves. The “excellence of service” phrase is a tired cliché thrown around by marketing people to say something about nothing so that they can feel important about something they don’t understand. Word of mouth advertising is something that they by their performance and rhetoric have shown their ineptness for creating change.

The Customer advocate comes through the development and implementation of customer experience management that actually finds out about the customer first. It helps to define their need as they see it and then implements a program to fill that need. Now that would be a great first step to WOM.

Thanks for the article

Posted by: tim | January 31, 2006 at 07:45 PM

Don't give up on word-of-mouth marketing, man. Yeah, it's kind of the fad right now, and yeah, people will try to exploit it... But it's still really good stuff when done right and for the right reasons. Remember this? (See below.)

http://thebrandbuilder.blogspot.com/2005/11/nurturing-wom-ecosystems.html

Posted by: olivier blanchard | February 09, 2006 at 02:36 PM

Or this one, even:

http://thebrandbuilder.blogspot.com/2006/01/free-wom-seminar-with-every-visit.html

Posted by: olivier blanchard | February 09, 2006 at 02:40 PM

Yep. Just because a few hacks are trying to turn WOM into a cash cow doesn't mean it isn't incredibly powerful. Thanks for posting this.

Posted by: olivier blanchard | March 08, 2006 at 12:55 AM