The Online Advertising Playbook: Proven Strategies and Tested Tactics from The Advertising Research Foundation

Word of Mouth

Emails can be a personal, opt-in marketing tool, especially suited for building relationships with customers. Another fast growing personal activity over the internet can be conceptualized as word of mouth. Word of mouth is very impactful, but is not under the control of the marketer like email or online advertising.

Word of mouth researcher Keller Fay Group pegs the number of person-to-person brand mentions at 56 per week. Fortunately for marketers, good comments outweigh the bad ones (2006a). Yet with about 25% of the comments critical or negative, word of mouth cuts both ways, and marketers must be prepared for both positive and negative.

Buzz, word of mouth, grassroots marketing, even word of mouse refer to people talking about brands, movies, financial products, the Numa Numa dance, meals, cars, celebrities, or just about any topic, really, taking place online in addition to consumers talking directly with each other via email, land and mobile phones, texting, or instant messaging.

Because people share their personal thoughts and opinions, advertisers have less control over the points made and passed on. Word of mouth involves risk to brands.

As a practice, interest in stimulating and tracking word of mouth is high but adoption by marketers is still at an early stage.

Word of mouth as a discipline is becoming institutionalized through the efforts of two associations, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and the Viral and Buzz Marketing Association. ...