Will word of mouth work for you?

Hi,

Some categories are naturals for word of mouth. In fact, some have word of mouth built into them. Movies. Sports. Fashion. Pop music. These fields fuelled by and live or "the new". News is central to their essence. They are disposable. They have a use by date. Their uptake is nearly 100% driven by word of mouth. IT products come to life because geeks can't stop talking to each other about them. Some famous brands have been pure WOM, including Palm Pilot (very visible public usage), Walkman (ditto), HotMail (pass-it-on built in), Viagra (news for some), and Starbucks (a place to talk).

In fact a brand that relies on something as old-fashioned as advertising to launch it is as old-fashioned as advertising.

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, said: “The myth is that brands get built by advertising. The evidence is exactly the opposite. Brands get reinforced by advertising, but they get built by grassroots adoption and word of mouth. That was true of Amazon, AOL and Yahoo.”

The new medium is social networks and you must learn how to use them if you are to remain relevant.



Cheers!

Michael Kiely