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13) Does Participation in an Agent-Based Word of Mouth Marketing Program Cause or Predict Future Elevated Product Usage? A Case Study from Higher One's B-4 Program
A-Blog-a-Day Countdown to WOMMA's Word of Mouth Marketing Research Symposium in Washington, D.C., Dec. 11, 2006.
From WOMMA's soon-to-be-released book, Measuring Word of Mouth Volume 2:
Does Participation in an Agent-Based Word of Mouth Marketing Program Cause or Predict Future Elevated Product Usage? A Case Study from Higher One's B-4 Program
Sean Glass, Nicolas Carlona, and Chris LaConte from Higher One researched the effects of consumer participation in a word of mouth marketing program where participants were invited to:
* Receive a product before others in their social networks
* Spread the word
* Report back to the marketing company about the product-related word of mouth episodes
The researchers set out to assess the ROI of this kind of word of mouth program by investigating whether being introduced to a product or service through participation in the "B-4" campaign led to higher usage of the product, which in this case, was a financial checking account and debit card for university students. Results indicated a positive correlation between participation in the B-4 word of mouth marketing program and product usage, both when the customer was introduced to the product through the WOM program as well as when the customer participated in the program as an existing customer.
Want to know more? Come see this paper presented at WOMMA's Research Symposium in Washington, D.C., Dec. 11, 2006.