Church of the Customer Blog
« The influence of word of mouth | Main | Tour bits: Las Vegas »
January 27, 2007
The influence of word of mouth
Our friends at BigResearch have new findings from their 15,000-person panel dedicated to understanding how all of those people use media.
I love that Big pairs its findings with Ad Age's measures of money dedicated to the top five media categories for buying cars and electronics. Even though Big's big panel finds that word of mouth is the most influential media for buying cars and gadgets, budgets have yet to be established for word-of-mouth programs that help sell them.
Steal our chart if you need ammo to convince the higher-ups that establishing blogger-relations practices, launching social network-based fan communities or hosting events for your evangelists and citizen marketers is the key to driving future growth.
Update: A few commentors had trouble finding the survey results. I updated the post with a direct link after bypassing the frame-based nav. (Hey BR: Frames are not your friend!)
Other blogs that reference The influence of word of mouth:
» The Power of Word of Mouth from Strategy Central
While I was at Fellowship of The Woodlands we ran a very frequent membership class. In the last year that I was there we averaged over 100 per class. As part of our agenda we regularly asked how people had [Read More]
» Word of Mouth en marketing budget from Enthousiasmeren
BigResearch heeft resultaten gepubliceerd van hun 15,000-personen panel die ondervraagd worden om te begrijpen hoe deze mensen de media gebruiken.
Wat duidelijk te zien is hoe belangrijk Word-of-Mouth (WOM) is voor onze beslissingen. Nu is dit een Ame... [Read More]
What is the name of the report? Maybe I'm dense, but of the complimentary reports with likely-sounding names, none that I downloaded contained that info.
Thanks.
Which of the complimentary findings is that from? It wasn't obvious to me. Consumer Intentions and Actions?
Would be interested in seeing if they have info on financial services, mortgages in particular.
I figured out the direct URL to the findings and update the post to reflect that. Here's the link: http://www.bigresearch.com/news/big011807.htm
Thanks for posting this, guys. No doubt the data is hard for a marketer to ignore.
That said, while this is a wonderful tool for helping the client advocate get budget approval for a WOM spend, it's the lack of tracked % of media spend that's a glaring irregularity.
For all the analysts and media researchers out there, it's time to give this industry its due, by establishing benchmarks of spend and growth for Word of Mouth initiatives. You'd be startled at the number of companies that have dedicated budgets for WOM media.
Thanks for the update Ben.
Thanks, these stats are very helpful, I've referenced them in my latest post on the impacts of social media on customer reference programs
"Steal our chart if you need ammo to convince the higher-ups that establishing blogger-relations practices, launching social network-based fan communities or hosting events for your evangelists and citizen marketers is the key to driving future growth."
Do either of your books discuss these practices? My company is considering the practices mentioned above and I would like to learn more.
Adam -- Both books touch on the idea of community and how they can inspire others to word of mouth and even forms of evangelism.
