David V. Lorenzo's Blog is now: www.careerintensity.com/blog

Buzzkillers

Word of Mouth expert Buzzoodle Ron gives us a lesson in his post Buzz Barriers.  Here’s my favorite:

“Don't like your organization. - If you do not like the place you work, start working on getting out. One way to do that is to create positive buzz about yourself and where you work, despite how you feel. Remember, few people hire a complainer. The positive attitude and great buzz you create for yourself will help you achieve your goal and your employer will still benefit.”

Read his entire post by clicking here.

If you don’t like where you work you probably need a healthy dose of Career Intensity.

For that - click here.

Good Conversations Start with a Good Product

Word of mouth is dominating the conversation in marketing land these days.  Positive word of mouth is critical to the success of any business.  First and foremost, you need to have a product or service worth talking about and you have to differentiate it in some way.

George Silverman discusses this exact thought on his blog. Here is the money quote from his latest post:

“Content rules. You still have to have a big idea, differentiate it in a meaningful and beneficial way and have a product that is extraordinary in a way that people will talk about. Then you analyze the decision process, find the blocks and encourage people to talk about the things that are holding people back.”

You need to give people something powerful to talk about.  If you don’t your word of mouth marketing is, at best, just noise.

More on Word of Mouth

A couple of days ago I wrote a post about Do It Yourself Word of Mouth.  Make no mistake, I believe that word of mouth is the most influential form of advertising a business or an individual can employ. I believe it is so important that I devoted a whole chapter of my book – Career Intensity: Business Strategy for Workplace Warriors and Entrepreneurs – to generating personal buzz. 

Today I came across even more evidence of the importance of this powerful medium.  A recent study conducted by Bigresearch found that word of mouth was the most influential form of media.

Like anything else, word of mouth requires planning.  You need to understand what perception you want your potential customers to have and then you need to develop a strategy for generating the word of mouth that will help create that perception.

People will talk about you and your business.  The question you need to answer is: How do you get them to say what you want them to?

Do it Yourself Word of Mouth

Formalized word of mouth campaigns are making a big splash.  Yesterday The Wall Street Journal discussed word of mouth marketing for businesses of all sizes (page A14). 

The article features a product that is marketed by Buzz Agent – a word of mouth marketing firm based in Boston.  Buzz Agent is one of the most effective and most renowned firms working in this space.  I have seen their results first hand and they are impressive. 

Here’s my question:  When did word of mouth become such a specialized field? My dentist asks for referrals.  The guy who makes my suits asks for referrals.  My barber asks for referrals.  None of these people pay the $95,000 that Buzz Agent charges for a typical campaign yet they are able to get many of their clients to tell other people about them.  I’ve referred at least ten people to my dentist this year and I found him through a referral. Would I have referred twenty people if I were recruited to do so by a firm with slick brochures? Probably not.

So what do you get for spending that kind of money on a word of mouth campaign?  It strikes me that the main advantage for hiring a firm like Buzz Agent is the savings in recruiting time and effort.  These companies have a network of individuals that are ready, willing and able to talk about your product or service.  This is particularly valuable if you are launching something new. 

If you want to save the money associated with hiring a firm and a network, you can generate your own word of mouth campaign by talking to your existing customers.  Collect e-mail addresses and stay in touch regularly.  When you have something new to introduce, you can let them know and ask them to tell their friends.  Maybe you can even provide them with an incentive for doing so – a discount on a product or service for every ten referrals. 

Admittedly, there’s more to it than that but it won’t cost you $95,000 to find out what it is.  It takes time and effort, but in the long run creating your own word of mouth campaign will strengthen your relationship with your customers.

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Dave Lorenzo is an author, strategist and trusted advisor to some of the most successful companies and executives in the world. 

He regularly shares his expertise through his weblogs:

The Power of Perception is a discussion on Integrated Marketing Communications

SoHo Savvy is dedicated to the needs of the Small Office | Home Office Businessperson

The Career Intensity Blog is an ongoing discussion about business strategy for workplace warriors and entrepreneurs

Dave’s first book:  Career Intensity:  Business Strategy for Workplace Warriors and Entrepreneurs will be released in May 2006.