Word of mouth strategy
In my last post about the Watts and Dodds study, I asked the question (to myself, in all likelihood):
1) If you are building a word of mouth or grassroots communication campaign, do you to take a targeted approach and try to focus on opinion leaders? Or, do you take a scattershot approach and try to reach as many people as possible? (Assume you can't do both, given that your resources are limited).
There are advocates of both approaches. Proctor and Gamble has built in house programs (see Tremor) where opinion leaders are identified, qualified and then engaged through sampling, seeding, referrals, etc. For those without P&G's resources, there are agencies such as BzzAgent that offer a database of opinion leaders for rent, folks who can be targeted with sampling and other programs in an effort to build buzz in support of a product or service.
Others approach it from the direction of customer interaction. Brains on Fire, Church of the Customer, and countless other writers, consultants and gurus assert that the way to generate word of mouth marketing is to be nice to the people that talk about you.
Still others (promotion marketing agencies) maintain that word of mouth uses traditional promotion techniques like seeding, sampling, and so forth.
If you are trying to employ word of mouth for marketing or communication purposes, one of your first steps is to figure out which approach to take. Identifying opinion leaders can be a time consuming and expensive process as you try to build a database of influentials. Going with a service runs the risk of targeting opinion leaders who are not truly leaders in your core market--not to mention the fact that the agency may not even have folks available if your business is in a specialized market. So, how do you optimize you decision?
I think the optimal approach is to create a hybrid approach. Build your own database of opinion leaders--folks from your market and your customer base.
Instead of trying to profile them, let them self select into the database by offering things they want and respond to: information and identity.
1) If you are building a word of mouth or grassroots communication campaign, do you to take a targeted approach and try to focus on opinion leaders? Or, do you take a scattershot approach and try to reach as many people as possible? (Assume you can't do both, given that your resources are limited).
There are advocates of both approaches. Proctor and Gamble has built in house programs (see Tremor) where opinion leaders are identified, qualified and then engaged through sampling, seeding, referrals, etc. For those without P&G's resources, there are agencies such as BzzAgent that offer a database of opinion leaders for rent, folks who can be targeted with sampling and other programs in an effort to build buzz in support of a product or service.
Others approach it from the direction of customer interaction. Brains on Fire, Church of the Customer, and countless other writers, consultants and gurus assert that the way to generate word of mouth marketing is to be nice to the people that talk about you.
Still others (promotion marketing agencies) maintain that word of mouth uses traditional promotion techniques like seeding, sampling, and so forth.
If you are trying to employ word of mouth for marketing or communication purposes, one of your first steps is to figure out which approach to take. Identifying opinion leaders can be a time consuming and expensive process as you try to build a database of influentials. Going with a service runs the risk of targeting opinion leaders who are not truly leaders in your core market--not to mention the fact that the agency may not even have folks available if your business is in a specialized market. So, how do you optimize you decision?
I think the optimal approach is to create a hybrid approach. Build your own database of opinion leaders--folks from your market and your customer base.
Instead of trying to profile them, let them self select into the database by offering things they want and respond to: information and identity.
Labels: six degrees, social media, word of mouth marketing
This entry was posted by Tom Pionek, on
Saturday, January 19, 2008.
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