There are right ways and wrong ways for marketers to influence consumer word of mouth communications.
A few months ago, I wrote an article about marketing blogs in which I compared the blogosphere to the land of the Lorax, from the Dr. Seuss fable. The basic premise is that the blogosphere is virgin territory -- a pure (albeit imperfect) landscape that could be easily mucked up if too many marketers come in and use questionable and/or overly aggressive tactics.
Today, my subject is word of mouth marketing. And wouldn’t ya know it, many of the same "Seussian” themes apply to this nascent discipline. I understand that word of mouth marketing has been around for years -- the good folks at Roper have been analyzing opinion leaders for well over half a century. However, the Internet has made word of mouth a much more compelling and powerful tool. As a result, marketers are not only starting to use it as a vehicle for better understanding consumer sentiment, but they are also seeking ways to exert influence over that sentiment. In some instances, they’re seeking to manipulate consumer opinion.
What is word of mouth?
Word of mouth marketing is about direct communication between individuals regarding some product, service, event, brand, etc. Generally, at least one of the individuals will have had some experience with the product or service discussed. Often, but not always, the person who is doing the communicating will have some relationship -- or at least something in common with -- those with whom she or he is communicating. Traditionally, word of mouth buzz has spread organically.
Word of mouth has evolved considerably over the years. Back in the day, my grandmother, after a particularly bad experience with a non-stick pan, told all the ladies at her bridge club not to buy that brand of cookware. Fortunately for the cookware company, there were only so many grandmothers playing bridge in Milford, CT at that time, so the economic impact of Grandma’s rant was probably minimal.
Today, with the maturation of the Internet as a communications vehicle, I pity the poor cookware company that produces a non-stick pan that occasionally ruins a grandson’s birthday cake. In contrast to my grandmother, today’s opinion leader has the opportunity to influence tens and even hundreds of thousands of other consumers. They can (and will) take pictures of defective products and post them on blogs, message boards and online communities. They can tell the world why they loved (or hated) the latest Tom Hanks movie on Yahoo! Movies. And they can let everyone who uses Epinions know that the hotel they just visited in Miami was out of this world.
As marketers, we need to be listening to these folks.
Pete Blackshaw, CMO of consumer generated media research firm Intelliseek, underscores the importance of leveraging consumer insight. “Strategically, many firms have undervalued customer service and customer feedback programs, and that is now coming back to haunt them,” he says. One need only look as far as the recording industry to see what happens when an industry doesn’t listen to its customers.
There are a lot of people out there -- and they’ve got a whole lot to say about your product, service or brand. At the very least you should know what those people are saying. But many marketers are taking word of mouth to the next level by seeking to influence what is said. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, there are right ways and wrong ways to exert that influence.
Marc Schiller, CEO of online buzz marketing firm Electric Artists, notes that one key element in effective buzz marketing lays in seeking out opinion leaders. Schiller suggests the Internet is a much better communications medium than broadcast. According to Schiller, the key is to seek out opinion leaders in areas where the dialog is strong. The trick is for Electric Artists to discover those communities and build one-to-one relationships with the leaders of those communities.
The problem with allowing opinion leaders behind the proverbial corporate curtain is that you run the risk of them not liking what they see. However, according to Schiller, that’s generally not such a big deal. “In our experience, if the opinion leaders don’t dig the product, they simply pass on it, and usually don’t say much about the product again,” says Schiller.
Jonathan Carson, CEO of word of mouth research and planning firm BuzzMetrics, acknowledges that opinion leaders should be dealt with skillfully and transparently. “Online opinion leaders are in many ways the new journalists,” says Carson. As such, companies need to be very careful in the way they approach them. “If opinion leaders are approached by grass roots marketers in a way that they don’t feel is appropriate, then there is a chance they will either ignore their product, or trash it.” Neither is a welcome response.
Opinion leaders are not shills
Some organizations have tried paying opinion leaders as a way to get them to write positive things about your product. For example, the infamous Raging Cow gaffe a few months ago -- when a company paid to transport a number of young people to their corporate headquarters, indoctrinated them, and then set them loose on the blogosphere to shill for their soft drink product. The problem was exacerbated when the company asked the bloggers not to mention that they’d been enlisted by the company to evangelize the product.
Blackshaw does not advocate paying these opinion leaders. “People can sniff out a shill in a minute, and completely turn on a brand,” says Blackshaw. Often, the influencers want early information rather than money. For them, the incentive is to have access to information before the press or the general public. “Once you’re actually paying someone money, they become an employee, and they are losing all semblance of objectivity,” says Carson.
Professor Chrysanthos Dellarocas of MIT has recently written a white paper that analyzes the economic impact of companies that pay employees or others to seed message boards with comments that are favorable to company products. In some instances, companies have paid to post glowing reviews of their products. Dellarocas’ research found that the first few companies who engage in this practice will probably realize some economic gain. However, as more and more companies seed the message boards, each of them will realize an economic loss as message board readers begin to tune out.
The bottom line
There are positive and negative ways to influence consumer perception of your product, brand or service. The key is to do so in a responsible manner. Word of mouth works best when it is openly and organically created. Messing around with that formula without knowing what you’re doing is kind of like throwing a knuckle ball -- you’re never quite sure where your message will land. And if you think about it, that’s pretty dangerous. Most of us have learned not to send out 100 million emails, or deluge people with X10-like pop-up ads. But I suspect we’ll see many marketers shoot themselves in the foot by failing to adhere to word of mouth best practice standards. Ain’t that the way?
Note: There’s a new industry group, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), that is dedicated to developing best practice standards. If you are thinking about getting into this space then I encourage you to visit their site.
Alan Chapell is a consultant focusing on Privacy-Marketing -- helping companies understand privacy and incorporate consumer perception into product development. He has been in the interactive space for more than seven years with firms such as Jupiter Research, DoubleClick and Cheetahmail. Mr. Chapell is the New York Chapter Chairman of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, and he publishes a daily blog on issues of consumer privacy.
Additional resources on word of mouth marketing: