How to Build a Word-of-Mouth Marketing Campaign: Tips From Forrester Research

By Allan Pulga

Getting your business’ name on people’s lips is often easier said than done. But word-of-mouth marketing is more influential than ever – with technologies like e-mail and instant messaging spreading consumer know-how like wildfire – and retailers cannot afford to be left out of the dialogue.

According to a group of analysts at Forrester Research, word-of-mouth marketing is all about “generating a buzz.” In their 2005 report, How To Build A Word-Of-Mouth Marketing Campaign, Michele Bouquet, Jim Nail, Fiona McDonnell and Jaap Favier break down the fundamentals of spreading the word about your business without using traditional advertising.

They define word-of-mouth marketing as “an honest targeted conversation based on something valuable that creates a buzz.”

OK, so how do you create a buzz?

Bouquet and Co. list three ways of making your business a topic of conversation between as many friends and acquaintances as possible:

• Targets - evangelists or influencers: “Evangelists are consumers who voluntarily convert others to a brand or product. These people can be employees, vendors, consumers – anyone who comes across the brand or product and develops an emotive connection with it. Influencers (are) consumers who have influence on others because they’re recognized experts on a subject or known for passing on great ideas.”
• Channels - viral or traditional: “Traditionally, word of mouth happened at bars and corporate water coolers. In viral Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) campaigns, consumers pass on messages using new channels like the Net, mobile phones and MP3 players. These devices fuel much faster distribution – the Trojan Games viral marketing campaign got 6 million people visiting its website in the six months after its launch.”
• Content – anything consumers want to share: “Messages that spread well in WOM marketing have two key characteristics: 1) They meet the emotive or rational goals of the evangelist or influencer; and 2) consumers can pass them on easily, such as the four downloadable movies that financial services firm Cetelem offered online and through mobile phones.”

The Forrester team continues with what they call “four classic choices” in recruiting consumers to become “an extension of the marketing department by helping spread the word and create buzz.” The choices are:

• Who do I target? “Most consumers chose with their gut, not their brain. Therefore evangelists have a strong effect. Firms that have few evangelists need to concentrate on influencers who can endorse choices. Marketers can find evangelists and influencers by listening to consumers and welcoming positive and negative comments that they communicate directly to the firm or indirectly via ‘Emotive Network’ tools like blogs and forums.”
• How do I get the word out? “More than 60 per cent of online Europeans are engaged in peer-to-peer activities, and 20 per cent of them have looked at product reviews from other Net consumers. The speed and ease with which these consumers can pass on content should convince every marketer that they need viral elements to their WOM strategy. Consumers downloaded a John Cleese video from LiveVault more than 300,000 times, multiplying its website traffic by ten and generating thousands of sales leads.”
• What’s the message? “Marketers should think about the reaction they want from the recipient. They have an enormous toolbox for viral campaigns – online videos, online games, web forums, blogs, podcasting – and even traditional methods like referral programs or product seeding.”
• How do I measure the effect? “Buzz may sound like a fuzzy concept, but it’s traceable. Vendors like BuzzMetrics, Intelliseek and Viral Tracker look at key metrics like spread, analyze the tone of what’s being said, identify key ‘connectors,’ and determine how the campaign is affecting the company’s image.”