WordSpreadsQuickly.com

What an amazing first week!! If you haven’t downloaded a copy of the study — Perceptions, Practices and Ethics in Word-of-Mouth Marketing — please download the pfd now.

I also wanted to share Barry Spencer’s observations which are provided below. Barry’s an online marketing and membership consultant for AARP. (Disclosure: Barry and I have worked together for a number of years and he’s someone I trust and respect.)

It’s good to read your study - it provides a clear definition of WOM marketing and takes a more-comprehensive view of what constitutes WOM marketing and how it impacts marketing programs. As a participant in some of the surveys that Osterman and BoldMouth distributed to help build this study, it’s more apparent to me how WOM has played a part or even been a cornerstone in previous campaigns I’ve launched. Thanks for providing a systematic and quantifiable overview of how to enlist WOM either as specific campaigns or part of larger marketing efforts.

A couple of suggestions:
It might be interesting to include in the challenges section of the executive summary how a lack of WOM marketing understanding by finance or even executive teams can create a major obstacle for marketers in smaller organizations where budgets are often managed in part by an executive team. Sometimes marketers — even SVPs — have to “sell” non-traditional marketing programs to get budget allocation.

Also, it might be interesting to send a follow-up survey about WOM marketing to the respondents from the original survey. I know that after reading your study results I might adjust some of my responses now that I have a better understanding of what WOM and how I can leverage it (or my awareness of leveraging it) in future campaigns.

TAGS: Word of Mouth Marketing, Barry Spencer, AARP