Word of mouth
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Word of mouth (WOM) , aka Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM), is a formalized marketing effort designed to stimulate 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 face-to-face spoken communication, although phone conversations, text messages sent via SMS and web dialogue, such as online profile pages, blog posts, message board threads, instant messages and emails are often now included in the definition of word of mouth. 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.
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[edit] Word of mouth marketing (WOMM)
Word of mouth promotion, also known as buzz marketing and viral advertising, 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 was satisfied by the goods or services provided and is unlikely to have an ulterior motive (i.e., they are not out to sell you something) (for evidence as to the conditions under which word-of-mouth communication is effective, see Grewal et al. 2003). Also, people tend to believe people whom they know. In order to manufacture word of mouth communications, marketers use publicity techniques. Word-of-mouth effects in the life cycle of cultural goods have been mathematically modelled (Hidalgo, Castro & Rodriguez-Sickert 2006).
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[edit] References
- Renée Dye, 'The Buzz on Buzz,' Harvard Business Review, November-December, 2000.
- Rajdeep Grewal, Thomas W. Cline, and Antony Davies, 'Early-Entrant Advantage, Word-of-Mouth Communication, Brand Similarity, and the Consumer Decision-Making Process,' Journal of Consumer Psychology, October, 2003.
- Frederick F. Reichheld, 'The One Number You Need to Grow,' Harvard Business Review, December, 2003.
- Yubo Chen and Jinhong Xie, 'Online Consumer Review: A New Element of Marketing Communications Mix,' http://ssrn.com/abstract=618782, July, 2004.
- Florian v Wangenheim and Tomás Bayón, 'The effect of word of mouth on services switching: Measurement and moderating variables,' European Journal of Marketing, September, 2004.
- Paul Marsden, Alain Samson, and Neville Upton, 'Advocacy Drives Growth,' Brand Strategy, December, 2005.
- BoldMouth and Osterman Research, 'Perceptions, Practices and Ethics in Word of Mouth Marketing,' Website, May, 2006.
- César A. Hidalgo, A. Castro and Carlos Rodriguez-Sickert, 'The effect of social interactions in the primary life cycle of motion pictures,' New Journal of Physics, April, 2006.
- Buzzmarketing: Get People To Talk About Your Stuff, Mark Hughes (Penguin/Portfolio) Website
- Andy Sernovitz, Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, Kaplan 2006 Website
