thesis 1:
Word of Mouth Communication
Marketing researchers have found that personal sources play a particularly influential role in affecting product choice, selection of service providers, and in the diffusion of information
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regarding new products. Personal sources often are rated by consumers as the most i mportant source of information, especially when the information seekers perceive high risk, or when
consumers are generally susceptible to interpersonal influence (Gilly et al. 1998).
One of the most widely accepted notions in consumer behavior is that wor d-of-mouth communication (hereafter WOM) plays an important role in shaping consumers’ attitudes and behaviors (Brown and Reingen 1987). WOM is a kind of interpersonal communications in which none of the participants are marketing sources (Bone 1995). Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955)found that WOM was the most important source of influence in the purchase of household goods and food products. It was seven times as effective as newspapers and magazines, four times as effective as personal selling, and twice as effective as radio advertising in influencing consumers to switch brands.
During the 1960s and early 1970s, many other studies demonstrated the continued
importance of interpersonal influence. Arndt (196 proposed that WOM exposure often appeared to be more selective than was exposed to the mass media. In a study on a new food product, the respondents who were most predisposed to buy the new product were more likely to
report WOM exposure, while the less favorably predisposed respondents were less likel y to
receive WOM. Therefore, WOM seemed to reinforce existing tendencies to buy new products.Day (1969) corresponded to Arndt (1967) that WOM has a much greater impact than communications on those who are exposed, because there is an opportunity for fee dback and clarification; WOM is regarded as providing more reliable, trustworthy advice; and personal
contacts are generally able to offer social support and encouragement.
Comments (2)
January 2, 2006
defination of wom and viralmarketing
Filed under: defination — by womkt @ 12:03 pm
Word of mouth
ज्ञानकोश: - The Indological Knowledgebase
Word of mouth 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.
Word of mouth promotion is highly valued by marketers. It is felt that this form of communication has valuable source credibility. People are more inclined to believe word of mouth promotion than more formal forms of promotion because the communicator is unlikely to have an ulterior motive (ie.: they are not out to sell you something). Also people tend to believe people that they know. In order to manufacture word of mouth communications, marketers use publicity techniques.
A very successful word of mouth promotion creates a buzz. A buzz is a highly intense and interactive form of word of mouth. Word of mouth is essentially a linear process with information passing from one individual to another, then to another, etc. A marketer has successfully created a buzz when the interactions are so intense that the information moves in a matrix pattern rather than a linear one. Everyone is talking about the topic.
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. See also grapevine.
Link
Definition
viral marketingMarketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message.
Information
Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly. If the pass-along numbers get too low, the overall growth quickly fizzles.
At the height of B2C it seemed as if every startup had a viral component to its strategy, or at least claimed to have one. However, relatively few marketing viruses achieve success on a scale similar to Hotmail, widely cited as the first example of viral marketing.
Comments (0)
January 1, 2006
WORD OF MOUTH NETWORKING FOR FREELANCERS, HOME-BASED & SMALLBUSINESSES:
Filed under: defination, reasons — by womkt @ 11:43 pm
WORD OF MOUTH NETWORKING FOR FREELANCERS, HOME-BASED & SMALL BUSINESSES:
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What is Word of Mouth Marketing? : Word of mouth is a pre-existing phenomenon that marketers are only now learning how to harness, amplify, and improve.
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Types of Word of Mouth Marketing : Word of mouth marketing encompasses dozens of marketing techniques that are geared toward encouraging and helping people to talk to each other about products and services.
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The Philosophy of Word of Mouth Marketing : Word of Mouth is
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Organic vs. Amplified Word of Mouth :Organic WOM occurs naturally when people become advocates because they are happy with a product and have a natural desire to share their support and enthusiasm.
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Word-of-Mouth: The World’s Best-Known Marketing Secret : Everyone knows about it, but hardly anyone does it well. It’s time to change your approach to word-of-mouth marketing.
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Word-of-Mouth Marketing on a Shoestring : Cheap and easy ways to let customers know you’re here.
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The Best Advertising Money Can Buy : If you’re not budgeting for word-of-mouth advertising, your business is probably suffering. Our ad expert offers his tips on generating customer recommendations.
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Dealing With Negative Word-of-Mouth : At some point, your business may fall victim, warranted or not, to negative word-of-mouth.
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5 Ways to Break Into Online Networking :Our networking expert shares his best tips for promoting your business online with this hot new arena for word-of-mouth marketing.
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Do Referrals Happen by Coincidence? : No, they don’t. Here’s how to stop relying on luck to create word-of-mouth for your business.
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Busting the Myths About Customer Referrals :Learn the truth behind these six common networking misconceptions.
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Read Their Lips : Let your customers do the talking with word-of-mouth marketing.
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The No. 1 Way to Grow Your Business : Forget the fancy advertisements and expensive PR campaigns. The best way to build business is still through good ol’ word of mouth.
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7 Ways to Build Buzz to Increase Sales : Follow these tips to build word-of-mouth, and gain customers, for your company.
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A Sure-Fire Referral Technique for the “Difficult to Refer” Business : Even if your company isn’t the type to easily generate word of mouth, there are still ways you can network and build your business’s reputation.
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Spread The Word : When your customers talk…people listen. So why aren’t more business owners using the cheapest and easiest form of advertising?
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5 Ways to Encourage Employees to Network : Your networking efforts won’t succeed until everyone in the company takes part.
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Want to Join a Networking Group? : With six types to choose from, narrowing the field will help you find the groups that are best for your business.
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Say What? : How to get customers buzzing about your business
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Boost Sales With More Referrals : 3 secrets to help you increase lead generation from networking opportunities
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Tracking Income From Referral Marketing : Before you can gauge the success of your networking program, you need to set goals.
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Anticipating Referrals : If you’re not sure what to expect from your marketing efforts, take these variables into account.
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Capitalize On Contacts To Maximize Sales Momentum : Anything you can do to get people talking about your book is like money in the bank. The most baffling and elusive element in a book’s success is word-of-mouth.
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What’s The Most Important Word In Marketing? : Traditional Marketing used to be all about advertising. It was expensive, short lived, and had little to do with the Internet or word of mouth.
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Don’t Be Incredible : Media coverage or word-of-mouth from the right people heightens your credibility much more than an ad ever could.
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Blogs and Your Business : There are 600+ corporate bloggers at Microsoft. They use blogging as one of their greatest marketing assets, generating an astonishing amount of online and offline word of mouth interaction.
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Marketing Strategy - What’s Your System? : I think a lack of a system might be one reason why so many small businesses conclude that word-of-mouth is their best source of new clients. It’s kind of funny because when I ask others where the business comes from, 99% say that it’s referrals (word-of-mouth)
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Build Trustworthy Relationships with Your Affiliates : The key answer is- spread by word of mouth.
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The Indie Author Revolution : Word of mouth travels fast these days - and between millions of people who’ve never even met.
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Attract More Business By Making Things Easier : To attract clients who want to give you business, create great word of mouth. It is still the world’s most valuable and most sought after marketing tool.
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Positive Word of Mouth Marketing Strategies : Good word of mouth marketing strategies involve finding ways to support satisfied customers and making it easier for them to talk to their friends.
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Unethical Word of Mouth Marketing Strategies : Any practice intended to deceive people is unethical and should not be used.
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Behavioral Study: Evangelists Toast Products for Love (Case Study) : How much do a few evangelists contribute to a company’s revenue stream? A case study from ComBlu details how only five customer evangelists were responsible for generating $200,000 in sales (35-40% of its total revenue) for one liquor store in Chicago.
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The Value of Managed Word of Mouth Programs : The Value of Managed Word of Mouth Programs. Study by Dr. Walter Carl for Northeastern University
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Word of Mouth Fuels Trans Fats Debacle : The BuzzMetrics landmark report “The 2003 Trans Fats Issue” reveals unprecedented insight into how online word of mouth shaped this food-industry crisis.
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The Word on Word of Mouth : by Dave Balter, CEO, BzzAgent.
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A Blog of the Best Blogs About Word of Mouth Marketing :
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The Power of One : Bike maker gears up customer evangelists
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How To Build A Word-Of-Mouth Marketing Campaign : By embracing word of mouth (WOM), marketers can motivate consumer communication and discussion about their brand and generate buzz.
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A Need for News : Well-known for relying on word of mouth to spread news of its services, Google launched its first large-scale advertising campaign in Tokyo.
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Are People Talking About You? : If I were referring to the local town gossip, you would probably want your answer to be no. Although, the way I see it, if they are talking about me, they are leaving everyone else alone.
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The Power of Word of Mouth : Most of us remember the commercial that said, “I told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on, and…”, well you get the picture.
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Word of Mouth’ Marketing : If you have competitors, then you should have at least one Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
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How to Harness the Awesome Power of Word of Mouth. : Marketers are overlooking the obvious. Word of mouth is far and away the most powerful force in the marketplace. Yet, it is the most neglected.
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How To Harness Word Of Mouth in the Pharmaceutical Industry : It has been about 30 years since Ron Richards* and George Silverman invented and developed what are usually called “Teleconferenced Peer Influence Groups,” which we prefer to call Word-of-Mouth Seminars.
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How to harness word of mouth: Guide to Peer Selling : Word of mouth is the most powerful force in the marketplace. Yet there is almost no useful literature on the subject, and it is almost totally neglected, primarily because people think that they can do nothing about it.
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What Exactly Does A Word-of-Mouth Campaign Look Like?Word of mouth campaigns take many different forms. They look quite different for different types of products, services and ideas.
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How and Why to Research Word of Mouth : Word of mouth is the most neglected of all the forces at work in the marketplace. Yet is the most powerful.
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Study Examines Word of Mouth, Sees Growth : While word of mouth has been around since humans could open their mouths and it has been the most highly trusted source of information for most anything in most any category, it is now becoming a marketing practice.
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Word of Mouth Marketing : The power of the human voice and human contact are the most powerful communications tools we have. In this day of intense media bombardment, the average person receives over 1000 messages a day.
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How To Make Word of Mouth Advertising Work For You : When was the last time you told a friend about a good movie? You may not have realized it at the time, but you were providing the best possible advertising for the movie studio…”Word-Of-Mouth” advertising.
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Public Relations through Word of Mouth Marketing : One of the least expensive and potentially most effective ways to promote your Web site or business is through public relations (PR). More specifically, word of mouth.
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Spreading the Word-of-Mouth : WHAT IS WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING?
Comments (2)
defining:viral marketing:wikipedia
Filed under: defination — by womkt @ 10:35 pm
Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that seek to exploit pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness, through viral processes similar to the spread of an epidemic. It is word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced online; it harnesses the network effect of the Internet and can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly.
Viral marketing is sometimes used to describe some sorts of Internet-based stealth marketing campaigns, including the use of blogs, seemingly amateur web sites, and other forms of astroturfing to create word of mouth for a new product or service. Often the ultimate goal of viral marketing campaigns is to generate media coverage via “offbeat” stories worth many times more than the campaigning company’s advertising budget.
The term “viral advertising” refers to the idea that people will pass on and share cool and entertaining content; this is often sponsored by a brand, which is looking to build awareness of a product or service. These viral commercials often take the form of funny video clips, or interactive Flash games, images, and even text.
Viral marketing is popular because of the ease of executing the marketing campaign, relative low-cost (compared to direct mail), good targeting, and the high and rapid response rate. The main strength of viral marketing is its ability to obtain a large number of interested people at a low cost. The main weakness is that sometimes messages can look like e-mail spam and this creates the risk of damaging the brand. The ‘from’ and ’subject’ lines then become very important in order to remedy this problem (Tell-A-Friend principle); for example, when sending a link or webpage, sometimes the subject line is “(Name of person here) thought you would like this page”. The receiver will then recognize the name and know that it is not unsolicited.
The most difficult task for any company is to acquire and retain a large customer base. Through the use of the internet and the effects of e-mail advertising, the business-to-consumer (B2C) efforts have a greater impact than many other tools of marketing. E-mail generates 15% of online sales in North America and is on the increase. Viral marketing is a technique that avoids the annoyance of spam mail; it encourages users of a specific product or service to tell a friend. This would be a positive word-of-mouth recommendation. One of the most successful perspectives found to achieve this customer base is the integrated marketing communication IMC perspective.
Contents
[hide]- 1 History
- 2 Types, Methods, and Barriers
- 2.1 Types of viral messages
- 2.2 Methods of transmission
- 2.3 Barriers to viral marketing
- 3 Examples of viral marketing
- 4 See also
- 5 External links
//
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History
The term viral marketing was originally coined by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson in 1997 to describe Hotmail’s email practice of appending advertising for themselves to outgoing mail from their users. The assumption is that if such an advertisement reaches a “susceptible” user, that user will become “infected” (i.e., sign up for an account) and can then go on to infect other susceptible users. As long as each infected user sends mail to more than one susceptible user on average (i.e., the basic reproductive rate is greater than one), standard results in epidemiology imply that the number of infected users will grow according to a logistic curve, whose initial segment appears exponential.
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Types, Methods, and Barriers
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Types of viral messages
- Pass-along: A message which encourages the user to send the message to others. The crudest form of this is chain letters where a message at the bottom of the e-mail prompts the reader to forward the message. More effective are short, funny clips of video which people spontaneously forward. Many of these, such as the Cog (television commercial) from Honda began life as TV commercials and have since circulated on the web by word of mouth. The number of people reached in this way is often much greater than the number who viewed the original ad.
- Incentivised viral: Offering rewards for providing someone’s address. This can dramatically increase referrals. However, this is most effective when the offer requires another person to take action. Most online contests offer more chances of winning for each referral given; but when the referral must also participate in order for the first person to obtain that extra chance of winning, the chance that the referral participates is much greater.
- Undercover: A viral message presented as a cool or unusual page, activity, or piece of news, without obvious incitements to link or pass-along. In Undercover Marketing, it is not immediately apparent that anything is being marketed. Particular effort is made to make the discovery of the item seem spontaneous and informal, to encourage natural memetic behavior. Outside world “clues”, such as graffiti appearing in cities with key viral words, is often used to direct people to search out the presented “mystery”. Because of the large amount of unusual and entertaining content on the internet, this can be the hardest type of viral to spot, especially as companies try to imitate the style and content of amateur websites and authentic underground movements.
- “Edgy Gossip/Buzz marketing” ads or messages that create controversy by challenging the borders of taste or appropriateness. Discussion of the resulting controversy can be considered to generate buzz and word of mouth advertising. Prior to releasing a movie, some Hollywoodmovie stars get married, get divorced, or get arrested, or become involved in some controversy that directs conversational attention them. An alleged example is the publicity campaign about the dubious love affair between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes that came out just before each of them released a movie. [1][2]
- Anonymous matching services require each user to create a confidential list of friends and acquaintances they are interested in dating. A match only occurs if the object of their affection reciprocates by logging in and placing them on their own secret list; thus, each user has an incentive to get their crushes to visit the site. Most of these services allow users to email recipients anonymous messages informing them that an undisclosed person has a crush on them. On eCRUSH, one system using this methodology, 20% of the email recipients start accounts of their own. A Business 2.0 article noted, “eCrush is intrinsically viral – hopeful romantics become eCrush marketers as they try to find out if their crushes return their ardor” [3].
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