The WOMMA Word
Types of Word of Mouth Marketing
Word of mouth marketing encompasses dozens of marketing techniques that are geared toward encouraging and helping people to talk to each other about products and services.
Common types of word of mouth marketing are listed below. This is not a complete list -- we're publishing it as a means to begin a dialog toward standardization, and we welcome your comments. (Not everyone agrees that each of these should be part of word of mouth marketing, and many marketers use different terms to describe them.)
- Buzz Marketing: Using high-profile entertainment or news to get people to talk about your brand.
- Viral Marketing: Creating entertaining or informative messages that are designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion, often electronically or by email.
- Community Marketing: Forming or supporting niche communities that are likely to share interests about the brand (such as user groups, fan clubs, and discussion forums); providing tools, content, and information to support those communities.
- Grassroots Marketing: Organizing and motivating volunteers to engage in personal or local outreach.
- Evangelist Marketing: Cultivating evangelists, advocates, or volunteers who are encouraged to take a leadership role in actively spreading the word on your behalf.
- Product Seeding: Placing the right product into the right hands at the right time, providing information or samples to influential individuals.
- Influencer Marketing: Identifying key communities and opinion leaders who are likely to talk about products and have the ability to influence the opinions of others.
- Cause Marketing: Supporting social causes to earn respect and support from people who feel strongly about the cause.
- Conversation Creation: Interesting or fun advertising, emails, catch phrases, entertainment, or promotions designed to start word of mouth activity.
- Brand Blogging: Creating blogs and participating in the blogosphere, in the spirit of open, transparent communications; sharing information of value that the blog community may talk about.
- Referral Programs: Creating tools that enable satisfied customers to refer their friends.
