Word of Mouth Basic Training -- Word of Mouth Marketing Association -- WOMMA

Posted on 07/25/06 | 5 Comments | Link

Read 2005 Measuring Word of Mouth presentation (PDF download)

How-To: Joining the Conversation

5 Tips from Informative's Greg Clemenson

"A brand is defined not by what we tell the customer but by what customers tell each other," says Greg Clemenson, CTO of Informative. "But that doesn't mean brands are helplessly adrift, unable to control or even influence the currents of consumer empowerment."

Here, Greg shares his tips on joining and staying involved in the consumer conversation.

Tip #1. Have a valid place in the conversation
Consumers talk about brands every day. While it may not be the first place they look, eventually consumers visit a brand or manufacturer's web site to find information about a product. Be sure to offer information that answers questions.

Tip #2. Use your voice and have an opinion
Think about "voice." How does your voice tie in with your conventional advertising? What are you doing and saying on the website? Are you reflecting your brand's personality across your entire communications strategy? Listen to what people are saying about you, and have an opinion.

Tip #3. Be relevant
Understand what's important to consumers as they talk about your product. Then be relevant when responding to their needs.

For example, one of Informative's customers, Royal Mail, is rolling out an electronically available stamp aimed at small businesses. Initially, they thought that businesses would choose it as a faster, more convenient way of getting postage. But the most important aspect of the product to real people turned out to be the fact that it made them look professional. That changed Royal Mail's whole marketing message.

Tip #4. Be responsible
You can have all kinds of modes of communication with people, but they'll only appreciate it if you're up front about who you are. Be responsible about your identity.

Tip #5. Remember that it's a social phenomenon
Companies that feel they have to isolate participants in market research to keep them from talking with each other ("unaided awareness") are forgetting that WOM is a social phenomenon. Always keep in mind that when people make a decision about something, it very seldom happens in isolation.

More about Greg:

Posted on 07/25/06 | 1 Comments | Link

How-To: Putting Secret Insights into Practice

5 Tips and a Story from The Buzz Factor's Mark Hughes

Mark Hughes, host of the nationally syndicated talk radio show "The Buzz Factor" and CEO of Buzzmarketing (and author of a book by the same name), has a "secret" insight into how WOM spreads. "People want great stories to tell," he says, "And you can provide them those stories if you imagine the conversation." Here are Mark's five tips on creating a great story.

Tip #1. Don't just think about consumers
The store managers in the above story have an obvious impact on the employees. When the employees hear the fun story the manager shares, they, too will be motivated to spread the word.

Tip #2. Create a story
The more of a tale the manager has to tell, the more likely he is to tell it to others.

Tip #3. Be hilarious, taboo, unusual, outrageous
All of these attributes help fuel word of mouth.

Tip #4. Remember, they want to be the center of interest
Anyone sharing a story shares it for a reason: generally, it's to be the center of interest for a few moments. Any detail in your story that will help them maintain that focus is a good thing.

Tip #5. "Imagine the conversation"
If you can imagine a conversation taking place with your brand as the framework, you can create successful word of mouth.

A Story
Of course, Mark had a story to tell about where he put these tips into action.

"In the course of a couple days with a client, I discovered there was a national manager's meeting for the largest hardware store retailer in the U.S.. Now this retailer has our client's product in every single one of its stores.

"Every year, this retail chain has a national managers meeting, and 100 closely invited vendors are allowed special access to the store managers. A trade show of known, trusted vendors, where interaction takes place with the single-most important person with the ability to move product in that hardware store.

"But my client was planning to treat it like any other trade show."

Mark asked if he could coordinate a campaign where one of the buzz marketing components revolved around the national store managers meeting. The client said, "Sure. Would it have impact?"

Mark taught his client to "imagine a conversation": The store manager returns from the national managers' meeting. Employees ask him about it. He talks about the corporate line (point of purchase, merchandising), then searches for something with more water cooler cache, and says, "And then there was this..."

That's where the client comes in, says Mark. "If youâ€™ve created a ready-made, spoon-fed buzz story so remarkable, so hilarious ... this conversation [between the store manager and his employees] could be your story, which weaves your brand along with it."

More about Mark:

Posted on 07/25/06 | 1 Comments | Link

Buzz Factor web site

Read 2005 WOM vs. Ads presentation (PDF download)

How-To: Creating Advocate Communities

5 Tips from Brains on Fire's Geno Church

Certain initiatives just don't lend themselves to being ad campaigns, says Geno Church, Word of Mouth Inspirational Officer for Brains on Fire. For example, when the company launched an anti-smoking campaign in South Carolina, an ad campaign just wouldn't cut it. It needed to be movement, and it had to be run by the youth, he says.

Here, Geno shares his five tips on creating advocate communities:

Tip #1. Look for the obsessed and passionate
The campaign would be "driven" by kids, so Geno wanted to find teenagers that were passionate about something; they did not necessarily have to be "influencers." He traveled through communities looking for teens who were actively involved: raising awareness about teen pregnancy, cleaning up neighborhoods, etc.

Tip #2. Train thoroughly
After locating his advocates, he gathered them for a two-and-a-half day training summit on spreading the word about Rage Against the Haze (the name of the anti-smoking campaign).

Tip #3. Give them ownership
The teens were invited to name the group of advocates for the movement. Because they learned that not only emails and jokes can be viral, but that people can be viral, too, they called themselves the Viral-mentalists. The original group of 92 Viral-mentalists grew to over 1600, and when the state took away funding, enough buzz had been generated that private groups came forward to fund it.

Tip #4. Not every program is alike
Now working on a campaign for Fiskars (the orange scissors people), Geno is looking for advocates of scrapbooking to build a blogging community. While the end-result will be different, similar tactics are being used: he is traveling about, looking for passionate people who create scrapbooks. In this case, however, they will be paid advocates.

Tip #5. Don't over-control it, and don't hide affiliations
The bloggers who are ultimately chosen will be encouraged to blog about whatever makes the most sense to them. They don't have to stick to scrapbooking and scissors as topics.

That's because the scrapbooking world's bloggers tend to focus only about 30 percent of what they write on scrapbooking. The rest is just life.

"We're telling these ladies that we want this to be an authentic connection," says Geno. "They're not sales reps." However, they will be clear that they are paid employees of the Fiskars company.

More about Geno:

Posted on 07/25/06 | 0 Comments | Link

Read Geno's 2005 WOMMA Summit 1 presentation (PDF download)

How-To: Confronting Your Fear of Corporate Blogging

5 Tips from Author and Blogger Debbie Weil

It's understandable that you may be nervous about creating a blog, says Debbie Weil, blogging consultant and author of "The Corporate Blogging Book." In fact, she says, "You should be nervous about it. You're creating a series of public and searchable web pages, a digital trail. You want to be found, but you also want to put yourself in a good light."

Having recently moderated the panel on blogging at WOMMA's WOMBAT 2 conference, Debbie offered her five tips on confronting your fear -- and launching a blog in spite of it:

Tip #1. Think about blogging strategically
Ask yourself these questions: Why does it really make sense for you to add a blog to your marketing communications strategy? What is it that you really want to say? What are your customers really interested in?

Tip #2. Consider starting an event-specific blog
If taking on a project with no end to it feels overwhelming, begin a blog surrounding a certain event. You may find that there's a long-term tie-in, and you can continue the blog. Or, you may find that you've had enough, but now you have some experience under your belt and may not feel as apprehensive.

Tip #3. Get familiar with the convention of blogging
Give it a try. If you don't tell anyone, the blog will stay private and you can practice for as long as you like until you feel comfortable. Show colleagues and ask for their input before making it public.

Tip #4. Don't worry about running out of things to say
It doesn't matter what your widgets are, because you're not going to blog about your widgets. You're going to blog about things related to your widgets.

For example, a blog from an all-natural yogurt company wouldn't be very interesting if it focused solely on yogurt. A blog about organic farming would have a much wider appeal.

Tip #5. Just do it
You've got some experience. The blog is up and running (if only for your own purposes). You've figured out what you're willing to say, and what your customers are interested in that is related to your products and services.

Now, simply keep it up.

More about Debbie:

Posted on 07/25/06 | 0 Comments | Link

Book
Note: If you pre-order Debbie's book from Amazon, email her your receipt to receive a bonus chapter.

How-To: Achieving Clique-Through With Small Groups

5 Tips from Ammo Marketing's Gary Stein

Some messages work best when they are spread through to small, highly connected groups of people. Business-to-business products, deep-techie systems or high-end sports equipment are all examples of this. Because these "cliques" have defined themselves to you in a very specific way, "You need to understand and respect that definition," says Gary Stein, Director of Strategy for Ammo Marketing. He calls this WOM technique clique-through.

Here are Gary's five tips on achieving clique-through:

Tip #1. Tightly define your "clique"
There are critical differences between track runners and trail runners, M&A attorneys and tax attorneys. If your customer has classified him or herself in a specific way, respect that.

Tip #2. Don't fear your features
Every copywriter knows: focus on benefits, not features. However, some groups understand details, and can find their own way to the benefits. Bike racers read "monocoque carbon" and immediately know what that is and why it's cool. A clique that discovers benefits on its own is more likely to talk about it.

Tip #3. The influencer ratio is higher
Traditional thinking is that one in ten is an influencer. But cliques are gatherings of influencers.

Imagine a discussion group focused on high-end cell phones. Each person gathers information, forms opinions, then returns to their community and tells everyone what plan to use. This realization may have an effect on things like budgeting and measuring.

Tip #4. Support the community
Cliques tend to have grassroots; often you'll find that a community has been formed by a small group of model airplane enthusiasts or Civil War historians. As such, they tend to lack resources. You can go far simply by giving these groups meeting rooms or administrative support. Send pizzas to their meetings. Offer to manage their newsletter. Find a way to make it easier for them to simply be.

Tip #5. Clone the tactic
The good thing about the clique-through approach is that it's usually clone-able. That is, maybe you can identify a dozen cliques that are relevant to your product. Figure it out once, then use the same tactics on multiple groups. Suddenly, rather than one big campaign, you have several, all adding up to one mass, high-relevant marketing program.

More about Gary:

Posted on 07/25/06 | 1 Comments | Link

Read a summary of Gary's WOMBAT 2 presentation

How-To: Creating a Web Site that Encourages WOM

5 Tips from Zondervan's Jonathan Petersen

Zondervan's web site is "circular" in nature, with emails feeding traffic to the site, and the site, in turn, feeding email sign-ups. "The whole idea is to motivate people to talk about Zondervan," says Jonathan Petersen, Director of Internet Marketing for the publisher. "We're overtly encouraging people to tell each other about us."

Here are Jonathan's five tips for creating a site that encourages word of mouth:

Tip #1. Begin with consumer needs
A site won't work unless consumer needs are first met. Only then have you earned permission to ask if you can market to them. Zondervan made sure search and browse functionalities worked first so consumers could find what they were after.

Tip #2. Incorporate WOM into your mission
Zondervan's Internet marketing team established a new mission statement to "identify, understand, engage, and motivate the consumer." In other words, the WOM factor is built right into the core mission of the company.

Tip #3. Invite consumers into an experience
The Zondervan includes an "engagement column," which offers visitors ways to become more connected with the authors and the products. For example, the column offers a Bible verse of the day, an Author Tracker, and a Breakfast Club.

Tip #4. Include a value proposition
In order to get people to forward emails to friends, they must get something out of it, and must believe their friends will, too. Zondervan's verse of the day includes an interpretation of the verse through an image. The image, like the verse, changes daily.

Most people expect just the verse, and are "surprised and delighted" with the images. Since the images have been added, the forwards have spiked.

Zondervan also delights customers through feedback response: any time someone writes to the company with site feedback, they are sent a free book.

Tip #5. Create relationships
The Zondervan Breakfast Club is a daily email excerpt from a Zondervan book. The email also includes a few paragraphs penned by a woman who writes a personal note about her life each day. The same book is excerpted every day for a week.

By the end of the week, the reader has gotten to read more than a chapter of the book, and has formed a relationship with the email author.

"It's about those relationships," says Jonathan, "which makes people more likely to talk about it."

More about Jonathan:

Posted on 07/18/06 | 1 Comments | Link

How-To: Launching Blogs to Increase Sales

5 Tips from Ice.com's Pinny Gniwisch

Blogs can be a powerful tool for online companies to form relationships with customers. Pinny Gniwisch, founder and EVP of marketing for online jewelry retailer Ice.com, knew his customers sometimes had questions they couldn't get answered on the site, such as, "My daughter's going to prom. What should she wear with her dress?"

Pinny created a blog called JustAskLeslie.com that would answer customer questions and offer other jewelry advice. Now, with a total of four blogs related to Ice.com, he offers his five tips on making blogs work.

Tip #1. When enthusiasm wanes, hire it out
At first, Pinny's staff was excited about doing the blogs, but after awhile, interest waned. Rather than risk having fewer posts, and posts that were less than stellar, Pinny hired a freelancer to write and manage all of the blogs.

Tip #2. Useful content
The blogs are not sales tools for Ice.com, and they never offer overt sales pitches. Rather, they are fashion blogs that talk about jewelry. If a particular piece of jewelry is mentioned, it is hotlinked to the product page on Ice.com, but the company is not mentioned. However, Ice.com does have a link in a list of links on each blog.

Tip #3. Tagging
Blogs are a good way to get listed organically on search engines. Pinny makes sure that all pertinent words for each post are tagged, which helps the search engines pick up the individual postings and list them in organic results.

Tip #4. When appropriate, conduct PR
By announcing your blog to the appropriate press, it may be possible to generate coverage, which helps spread the word and drive traffic to the blog. Ice.com, because they were one of the first companies to use a blog as a marketing strategy, researched the people who wrote about technology for top publications and sent a short email announcing the blog.

They managed to get coverage in the New York Times, Business Week, and the Washington Post, among other places.

Tip #5. Post often
To keep interest high, Pinny makes sure his blogger posts at least two to three new entries per week, per blog.

Finally, says Pinny, seek out other blogs and ask for mutual links. "That's a win-win situation for everybody," he says.

More about Pinny:

Posted on 07/18/06 | 1 Comments | Link

43 Ideas You can Implement Tomorrow -- the Handout

On the first day of WOMBAT 2, we tried something that (as far as we know) hasn't been done before. We asked 10 word of mouth practitioners and experts to share a WOM idea that could be implemented tomorrow. The only catch? Introduce the idea and present some examples of how to make it work -- in one minute.

Our special thanks to Jim Nail for doing an absolutely masterful job as the moderator. Special thanks also to our contributors, who included:

* Warren Ackerman, Affinitive
* Julian Aldridge, AMMO Marketing
* Perry Allison, Alloy
* Keith Bates, Keith Bates & Associates
* Maxine Friedman, Brandimensions
* Allison Gower, qtags
* Brad Herbst, HypeCouncil
* David McInnis, PRWeb
* Patrick Rooney, Expand Communications
* Betsy Smith, TechSmith

THE HANDOUT

And by popular demand, here is the handout from the panel. Feel free to download and share.

Download the handout (PDF download)

Other experts respond:

Spike Jones

John Moore

Bill Balderaz, Duct Tape Marketing

Digg this

Posted on 07/14/06 | 0 Comments | Link

How-To: Avoiding Being Irrelevant and Irritating

5 Tips from Informative's Ed Sarraille

"There is an amazingly simple and effective way to get customers' ideas and opinions. Ask them," says Ed Sarraille, CEO of Informative. "When you demonstrate that their opinions are heard, it builds affinity between them and your brand."

Here's Ed tips on how to use WOM to avoid becoming irrelevant and irritating.

Tip #1. Realize that customers want to talk to you
Customers want to tell you what they think. It works because it helps you understand them and they feel better about your brand just because you asked (and paid attention).

Tip #2. Get a tool to listen
There are so many conversations in so many places online; you may pull hundreds or thousands of conversations, and trying to read through them manually -- and distill them in a practical way -- is impossible, and you may not know the context in which these conversations occurred.

Find or create a tool that enables you to talk directly to customers. It should be able to target, segment and report back, so you can find actionable insights.

Tip #3. Involve customers in everything
You cannot market if you do not recognize the true position of your product in the minds of consumers. Instead, you end up becoming irrelevant, irritating, and ignorable. Involve your customers and invite them to share some truth.

Facing truth can be tough. Most corporations have taboo topics, sore spots and controversies. Corporations tend to put their heads in the sand, banishing these issues from corporate thought, speech and action. Nonetheless, these issues are very alive in the minds of the consumer, affecting the brand.

Tip #4. Respond to customers
It's not enough to just talk with customers. Take action and be sure to communicate back with your customers to tell them what you did. When consumers believe you listen to them and act on their desires, they notice.

Tip #5. Create a customer community
By now, you see customers as a long-term asset and they feel a part of your team. But customers, markets and companies change. Create a customer community to maintain a perpetual effort to engage customers, delight them, and act on their input.

"Creating a customer community for feedback is creating a long-term strategic asset," Ed says. "And you have an asset that you can go back to time and again to keep your finger on the pulse of the market and customer opinion."

More about Ed:

Posted on 07/11/06 | 2 Comments | Link

How-To: Winning at WOM Internally

5 Tips from Intuit's Kira Wampler

As a senior marketing manager for Intuit, Kira Wampler has a simple job description: focus on word of mouth. "I knew pretty quickly that it was important for me to build internal support," she says. "Even though we're cutting-edge, this whole area of amplified word of mouth is quite new to us."

Here, Kira shares her tips on how she garnered support for word of mouth from the inside out:

Tip #1. Identify mavens, connectors and sales people
Network like crazy. Invite to lunch anyone who has even remotely had anything to do with WOM.

Kira identified a crew she called Intuit WOMmers who ended up being a sort of internal support group for the company's WOM initiatives.

Tip #2. Give them a home
Initial meetings were one-to-one, but of course, WOM is about many-to-many conversations. If your goal is to rapidly expand and gain traction for WOM throughout the company, the word must spread.

Kira organized optional monthly sessions, a WOM wiki, and a WOM distribution list.

Tip #3. Offer relevant and desirable information
People need information in order to spread the word. After learning that the hottest internal WOM topics were measurement, internal support, and best practices, Kira pre-populated a wiki on those topics.

She also built a special "evangelist presentation" and asked WOMmers if they'd be interested in seeing the presentation first so they could provide feedback and feel engaged.

Tip #4. Evangelize like crazy
While Kira started with highly engaged groups, she also wanted to influence the larger Intuit population. She created another presentation that focused on key trends in society that are making WOM critical, plus a series of best practices examples which she customized depending on the audience.

Tip #5. Dive in and participate
Be willing and available to serve as a consultant or as part of the conversation between other teams and within other teams. She helps teams see "low-hanging fruit" that they can begin testing without investing large amounts of money and time.

More about Kira:

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