WordSpreadsQuickly.com

The secret is integration. And, I thought you might be interested in an eMarketer.com report that was just published today on email and word-of-mouth marketing. Here’s a link to the eMarketer study.

The eMarketer.com study also mentions BoldMouth and, includes results from our study Perceptions, Practices and Ethics in Word-of-Mouth Marketing.

Of note, the eMarketer study focuses on email and word-of-mouth integration, and points to the power of network value expressed by Metcalfe’s Law which states that network value increases with the square of the number of people using the network. Integration is indeed an important aspect for success word-of-mouth marketing. However, the mathematical model referenced in the report to demonstrate network value is faulty.

BoldMouth recommends that advertisers utilize Reed’s Law to Metcalfe’s Law as a strategic framework for word-of-mouth. Reed’s Law basically says that Metcalfe’s law understates the value of adding connections to a network. Reed’s law is the assertion that the utility of large networks, particularly social networks, can scale exponentially with the size of the network. Here’s what it means: the number of possible sub-groups of network participants is what creates value. BoldMouth believes that the value of sub-groups and the strong ties that exist in those connections are a major contributing factor to make word-of-mouth more predictable.

TAGS: BoldMouth, eMarketer, Word of Mouth, Word of Mouth Marketing