Word of Mouth Marketing: More Valuable Than Ever

In these days of tight resources, the quest to do more with less has many of us returning to marketing basics.

You don’t get more basic—or more cost-effective—than word-of-mouth marketing. And today, good old-fashioned word of mouth can be easier and more powerful than ever, thanks to social media and other web 2.0 tools.

To help you get going, there’s a constant parade of great advice and examples to emulate over at the Word of Mouth Marketing Blog.

It’s run by to Gaspedal, a noted word-of-mouth marketing consultancy led by Andy Sernovitz, author and expert in word-of-mouth and its 21st century manifestation in blogs and social media.

OK, full disclosure: We were pleased to see that a Nueske’s tradeshow giveaway we orchestrated got a shout-out recently on the blog.

Nevertheless, gaspedal and its blog have tons of excellent tips for how you can fuse classic approaches and new technology to accelerate your success. So go check it out and put it to use.

Building a Name in Blogging—without Your Own Blog

Having a web presence is critical. And lately, more and more companies are even taking the time to create their own corporate blogs. But starting and maintaining a successful blog is a substantial undertaking requiring a lot of time and commitment. A blog must feature engaging posts on compelling topics—consistently.

If your organization doesn’t have the resources to do justice to your own blog, there’s another way to build an online presence: contributing to other blogs. In Milwaukee, we have BizBlog, a blog updated daily as part of the The Small Business Times. Check out how John Scheibel, our CEO, is increasing Scheibel Halaska’s presence on the web.

Stay True to Your Brand in Everything You Do

In the Internet Age, Keeping Promises Has Never Been More Important

Fifteen years ago, during my education in Total Quality Management, I was taught that satisfied customers generally tell two to four others that they’re satisfied, while dissatisfied customers tell, on average, seven others that they’re dissatisfied.

Fast-forward to the Internet Age. The avenues for an unhappy customer’s message to spread—and spread quickly—are much more plentiful. You’ve got to keep your promises, or you risk word getting around on the World Wide Web.

The record-keeper for our company’s 401(k) Plan might have done well to consider this new reality before they let our employees down. I won’t go into the specifics here, but let’s just say Associates in Excellence didn’t live up to its name.

My antennae begin wiggling whenever I confront a business that uses superlatives in their name—excellence, premier, perfect, etc. Definitions of “excellence” vary person to person. Therefore, in order for Associates in Excellence to be consistently “excellent,” every one of their products, services, transactions and interactions need to meet not only my definition of “excellence,” but everyone else’s, too. Absent that, they will not be “excellent”; they will disappoint.

If you’d like further details on the substandard service we experienced from Associates in, ahem, “Excellence,” I’d be happy to share them with you over email.

Do You Uphold Your Brand?

Take a moment to contemplate what your name stands for. What is YOUR brand promise? Compare that to what your every-day interactions demonstrate. Do they support the promise? At Scheibel Halaska, we believe powerful brands are always built from the inside out. Any inconsistency between what you say and how you act betrays your brand and, ultimately, your success.

Recruitment Site Done Right

I've posted before about my assessment that Accenture represents the very best in brand-based marketing communications in the B2B space.

Further proof comes by way of a recruitment site you'll find here. The site appears to be aimed at recruits in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.

Accenture's site is fun without being goofy. The "Tell a friend" link offers a quick and easy way to leverage the site's obvious viral potential. On the whole, the site is a great example of what so many B2B companies should do but don't: create a standalone, online recruiting environment that provides prospects with an engaging, memorable experience.

Given the ever-increasing importance of recruiting and retaining top people, others would be wise to follow Accenture's lead.

Speaking of viral--kudos to Bob Rosswaag at JWT Specialized Communications in NYC for the tip.

Yikes! I’ve Been WOMM’ed (or Have I)?

Yes, even executives of marketing firms can be the unsuspecting “victims” of novel marketing communication initiatives.

If you Google “word of mouth marketing”, you’ll get almost 1.3 million items selected. I was surprised to find out that there actually is a Word of Mouth Marketing professional trade association that I can join called WOMMA, that there are numerous articles being written about this "powerful" tactic (including the Washington Post), and that I can start practicing it tomorrow after I learn about the “five easy steps” of this practice, thanks to the article posted at marketingprofs.com.

Maybe its me, or the combination of too many years and too little non-gray hair left on my head, but my skeptical-brain alarm always starts beeping whenever I am advised about something that someone claims is so revolutionary that over one million “Google hits” already exist about the concept. It’s probably a little of both.

In situations like these, I like to do a little more research and reflecting.

First, what actually is “word of mouth marketing”? When I went to Wikipedia, I found that on Monday, December 18, 2006, at approximately 3:30 PM CST, the "definition of word of mouth, aka Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM)” is:

the passing of information by verbal means, especially recommendations, but also general information, in an informal, person-to-person manner, rather than by mass media advertising, organized publication, or traditional marketing. Word of mouth is typically considered a spoken communication, although web dialogue, such as blogs, message boards and emails are often now included in the definition.

There is some overlap in meaning between word of mouth and the following: rumour, gossip, innuendo, and hearsay; however the negative connotations of these words are not included in the meaning of word of mouth.

Hmmmm, very interesting!

I work for a professional services firm, and we have several professional services firms as clients. Professional services organizations are notorious for leveraging the recognition of the high quality of their services and their people into their networking efforts, thereby increasing their capacity to obtain referrals for new clients from others who are already impressed with/satisfied by the services provided by their firms. This has been a standard marketing practice for these types of firms for decades.

Back in the early 1990’s, when “Total Quality Management (TQM)” was all the rage, I remember being advised that satisfied clients, on average, tell four others that they are satisfied, dissatisfied clients, on average, tell seven others that they are dissatisfied, and clients who are dissatisfied, but who have their problems resolved by you in a proactive manner, speak your virtues to, on average, nine others. Moral of the statistics: create a way for your satisfied clients to acknowledge their satisfaction, proactively identify which of your clients are dissatisfied, find out why they're dissatisfied, and fix it quickly.

Eighteen months ago, I began looking for an organization that could help me be a better CEO of a company. A mentor of mine referred me to an organization called TEC - The Executive Committee. I met with one of their chairs, sat in on one of their meetings, and spoke with another business leader (and TEC member) whose opinion I respect. The end result was I immediately joined a TEC group; I highly recommend TEC to whoever is reading this posting (hopefully more than four people!).

It now appears to me that there is the distinct possibility that WOMM is actually the early-21st century version of TQMM (Total Quality Marketing Management), with a pinch of referral-based marketing thrown in. On the other hand, I just might be the early-21st century incarnation of the former leader of the United States Patent Office who, in the late-1800’s, recommended that that organization be disbanded because anything that could be invented had been invented already.

FREE411: Will It Change the World?

Recently, when I needed the number for a place where I can get an affordably priced, high-quality men’s haircut, I recalled an interesting new service a friend had recommended, 1-800-FREE411. Call the number, tell the nice operator what you’re looking for, listen to an advertisement and BAM!–get the number. This way, you avoid handing the phone company a buck for public information. It’s a small victory, maybe, but you have to feel a little satisfied.

In my case, I heard a painless-enough message about the righteousness of a certain satellite TV provider and how evil and lame the cable companies are.

It’s a simple idea—ages old, really. A free service just for putting up with some ads? Sounds like good ol’ broadcast TV. But if FREE411 absolutely caught on, if more companies than just satellite providers bought in and they “enhanced the interface”—or whatever fancy buzz terms you’d like to attach—they just might be onto something.

Let’s say you called FREE411 looking for your local printer’s number. Suddenly, an ad for FedEx Kinko’s comes on, with a prompt to press 1 to get connected to the nearest location. You learn of a choice you might not have been aware of, and big, bad FedEx gets to muscle in on the little guy’s business!

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Vince, are you saying that Free411 could pull together data learned from your location and the SIC code associated with the business you’re seeking and play an ad for a competing company, along with an offer to connect to that company FOC?”

To that, I would say two things “Yes! And what is FOC?” You would then say “Free of charge.”

With all the competition for customers’ attention these days, advertisers are struggling to find their audience. FREE411 could be a new way to target ads at the right niche audiences (similar to the way Google indexes its search queries and shows relevant sponsored ads)—potentially a win/win for customer and advertiser.