New Research on Word of Mouth Marketing

What does your "word of mouth" marketing sound like?

Word of Mouth  (WOM) Marketing has often been seen as a powerful way to market products or services. Recently some groups have argued that it’s not predictable, not reliable, and in many cases, not effective.

Our friends as Mashable.com have, as they so often do, have a great piece worth of reading. It’s by Barb Dybwad, and its called The State of Online Word of Mouth Marketing.

Key Takeaways
1) Word of mouth is changing, thanks to social media
2) Influence comes from Social Broadcasters, Mass Influencers, and Potential Influencers
3) Influencing influencers takes new thinking, new skills

Oh, and here’s the kicker…thanks to social media, “influence impressions” total more than 500 billion per year!
Read it here… http://bit.ly/d6HQRJ

http://mashable.com/2010/04/25/word-of-mouth-marketing-stats/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+(Mashable)

Leadership Marketing

Here at Newman Grace, we’ve often spoken of “leadership marketing.” What do we mean?

Simply put, when you begin to market like a leader, it’s one of the first steps to becoming a leader. Remember that in marketing, perception is far greater than reality. If you aren’t the number one brand in your market, but people begin thinking you are, and you deliver on your brand promises, people will begin seeing you as a leader.

Apple is a classic example. In a recent research study I did on student brand perspectives, I found that a majority of college students believed Apple to be the largest manufacturer of computers. Not so. They’re #4. Number one (HP) is nearly 4 times larger. Number two (Dell) is right behind HP. They’re both 26+% of the PC market. Apple has around 7-9%, depending upon which study you read.

The point is that they are perceived as a leader.

Which brings me to the main point. In my last blog, I mentioned that brands growing in brand metrics have done a good job of getting customers to align themselves with the brand’s vision and values. We the second key characteristics of brands growing in awareness and preference is that they are perceived as leaders, innovators, or inventors. If they were actually leaders or innovators or inventors is far less important than if they are perceived that way.

The reality of a good brand will help you keep customers, but the perception of a good brand will do a lot more to help you get new customers.

Stay tuned for the upcoming third and final key to today’s growing brands!

Has Twitter jumped the shark?

I teach advertising and marketing at a prominent university. My students tend to be junior and senior communications students. When it comes to tech, they are savvy.

Hopefully students like my class. That being said, I still think I get the better end of the deal. I think I learn more than my students do. For me, it’s like having a 40 research subjects for a 4-hour focus group each week.

I started this semester with a simple question: Is Twitter lame?

The result? More than 75% of my students said YES!

Their perception is that it’s older adults jumping on a bandwagon. “Why do I need a website to do what Facebook or my cell phone already do?” said one student. “No way I’m using Twitter. My mom uses it!”

When Fonzi jumped the shark, literally, in the now famous episode of Happy Days, it became synonymous with taking something too far. A little known fact is that they did something like 100 more episodes after they jumped the shark, so by no means did it sink the show.

My thoughts? Twitter will not take over the world. It’s not the end all, be all. For some things, it’s use is perfect. For others, not so much.

Here’s my caution: be careful of your blind devotion to it. If it works for you, your business, or your industry, leverage it for all you can. For the rest of you, and probably the vast majority of you, proceed with at least a little caution. Twitter-aholics are not being seen as leaders in all circles. In fact in some, they’re definitely Fonzi’s.