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Credibility Helps to Spread the Word about a Product
Here's a great story. A father from Baton Rouge, Louisiana named Jack Marucci decides to make a baseball bat for his son. A local college ballplayer hears about the bat and decides he needs one. He uses it and tells a friend. The friend uses it and then tells a pro ballplayer about it. The pro calls, asks for a bat, has some success, and then talks to another pro player. Soon enough, several of the biggest names in major league baseball are calling with orders for more bats. All this with zero advertising.
Positive word of mouth clearly helped get Marucci Bat Company achieve success. What was the key catalyst? Credibility. The college ballplayer used who used the bat was an All-American at LSU. His experiences with the bat were crucial testimonials with other ballplayers. People tend to listen to others they consider credible sources of information, so once that credibility was established, the word began to quickly spread.
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I suspect the "bat story" is repeated very often in lots of companies. And, I suspect this goes largely unnoticed because no one is around to heard and ask questions.
For example, I listen and prod and I find that I get calls because my name was mentioned by a customer to the caller. All from out of the blue.
For example, I worked with Contractors Register and heard many times that I was called because someone's buddy referred them to me.
WOM is hugely powerful and distressingly hard to manage!
Years ago I would hear people claim that such a salesman was "lucky" until it occurred to me that "luck" was inaccurate. Such a salesman was so visible in so many ways that business flowed to him. Luck had absolutely nothing to do with it!
WOM is everything.