As we are exposed to advertising in more and more different and surprising ways, in my presentation I would like to pay attention to one of (in my opinion) most interesting types of marketing – the Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM).Before showing you what WOMM is and how it works, I would like you to answer a few questions:
- How do you look for information about the product you have never used?
- Whose judgment do you rely on most?
Research shows that 95% of customers’ choice of a product is based on an opinion of someone they know who has tried the product themselves.
Source: www.kevinharrington.com
You may ask what it has to do with WOMM? Simple, this is what WOMM is based on. WOMM is a kind of marketing that uses the fact that people like to take others’ advice before buying a product. WOMM is what people do every day unintentionally. Naturally when we went to a restaurant and enjoyed time spent there we often tell our friends about it, we encourage them to try it too. Or if you see a good movie you often recommend it to your friends. That is what WOMM is all about.
The purpose of WOMM is not to create opinions. It’s to make customers happy with a product and create opportunities to share this happiness with their surroundings. An important part of WOMM is reaching influential individuals, trendsetters, people on whose decision others rely on the most, and convince them that the product the company is selling meets their needs perfectly. Once a company does that, the rest happens naturally, people talk to each other and share their opinions about products they’ve used recently. Techniques that WOMM uses are based on consumer satisfaction, and that’s what makes it so
successful.
The basic elements of WOMM are:
- Educating people about the products and services
- Finding people most eager to share their opinions
- Providing tools making sharing information easier
- Studying how, where, and when customers share opinions
- Listening and responding to supporters, detractors, and neutrals.
Source: www.womma.org
At the end of this part I would like to ask you:
- What do you think about this type of marketing?
- Do you think it is effective?
- Have you ever bought anything or gone somewhere influenced by WOMM?
Well, I can honestly say that most of my purchases have been made basing on the WOMM... It's so natural to find out first what the others think about the product you want to buy.
ReplyDeleteEh, it's hard to evaluate anything before you try it yourself. But I always want to be sure that I'm making the best possible choice, so almost every time I plan to buy anything I check the opinions on the Internet...
But apparently the internet fora are not free from manipulation and spam... I personally think that marketing is strongly related to manipulation in it's nature.
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But checking the others opinion on the particular product or reading the reviews is rather related to purchases of some relatively a bit more expensive goods (more expensive than usually ;P). I don't think anybody consults what brand of milk or cheese to buy... Those little purchases are to common :) And what about those ordinary products?
Does WOMM also apply to this kind of normall things like cheese, milk, soap?
Yes, WOMM does apply to basic products. Sometimes for basic products marketers use Buzz marketing, e.g. they send samples of a product to a group of people and encourage them to spread it in their nearest surrounding. Once people use the samples they are asked to fill out some surveys on the product, and are often asked to recommend it if they liked it.
ReplyDeleteThere are sites where you can register to be a potencial tester. For example www.streetcom.pl
I think it's quite effective way of promoting products. I guess best advertise is nothing compared to friends recommendation.
ReplyDeleteAnd although I often ask friends for their opinion about products I like to check it before buying. But sometimes I catch myself on picking up some product intuitively not because I know I like it, but because I saw it or I heard about it, so somehow its subliminally manipulation.
I've read that Edelman company made some researches and found out that over 70% bloggers would like to get free products to write about them later on their blogs, fb or other sites. Internet has a great power in promoting products and reaching a lot of consuments. You can see it by yourself, how often you use internet as a source of informations and opinions?
As for last question - I think everyone of us ever bought something influenced by WOMM even if we didin't know about it.
I believe that WOMM is an extremely powerful tool that reaches directly to the recipient. Probably once I bought something under the influence of WOMM because I like to take others advice before buying a product. When are you planning to buy something expensive, you would like to get the best opinion of this product among friends and family, you're looking at various forums if anyone share their opinions about products they’ve used recently.
ReplyDeleteAs estudiante said WOMM is extremely powerful tool - I think the same. Especially I like to have an opinion of my friends about some restaurant (is food good there, is staff kind etc.). This way I know really how does it look like. I never believe to tv commercials where each product is the best and we should buy everything according to them. If I have to buy something new what I haven't used before I like to do some research around my friends or around the Internet to check what other people (that used this product) really think about it - not the ones that were paid to say couple of positive words about the product.
ReplyDeleteAs everyone said here, WOMM is very effective.
ReplyDeleteMany times when I buy somethink new I like to know what other people think of that. You can get that information from yours friedns, family or internet. But I heard that on internet stores, where are the comments to each product, they are sometimes fake. It is done to get higher selling rate of product.
Well done. Most of you mentioned that online comments can be fake. That's what the third part of my presentation is about. Feel free to comment:)
ReplyDeleteI think word of mouth marketing is very effective. I can imagine most of us make the final decision basing on comments/reviews before buying things.
ReplyDeleteThere is a company in Poland - streetcom which is sending sample stuff for testing and requires you to spread your opinions about this product.
In my opinion WOMM is simple and effective marketing strategy. It is based on our basic habits. Almost everyone buys products and services, that other people enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I ever bought anything or gone somewhere influenced by WOMM, but it is possible, because I often base on my friends opinions when I want to buy something.
Buzz marketing is very effective, but in Poland you can say we are dealing with a wild buzz marketingkiem, because of weak security of our discussion forums and social networking sites.
ReplyDelete1. I think it's good marketing tool to promote a bad product. If you would focus on improving the product you could riecive the spontaneously generated positive feedback. On the other hand, people tend to write in the forums about the product when it turns faulty.
2. Buzz marketing is effective. However, many of my friends do not trust forums and comments because of the awareness of company's investing money in the generation of good reviews of the product.
3. Hard to say, rather, yes.
1. Yes, I have seen a lot of virals. Most of them were on youtube in the form of funny video clips. One of the interesting virals was a movie in which you placed a picture of a friend, and he became a part of this movie, where people spoke of him as a great authority and showed his pictures.
ReplyDelete2. Yes, I used to send links to such products.
3. It is effective because people send you links by themselves, once having made such a Virus you does not need to invest in its transmission.
I think WOMM is one of the most powerful and the least invasive way of creating and influencing opinions. It is a little bit frightening when you start thinking of your every day choices. You begin to notice that you bought or ate something and you realize that you really didn’t want to buy that dress or eat that burger but you did it anyway. The Idea wasn’t yours but was someone else’s suggestion and you didn’t even notice it. Creepy.
ReplyDelete1. I think that this is the most basic form of marketing that's perfectly in line with our economic model based on competition. Other forms of marketing, such as advertising, where sellers spend money to convince potential buyers that they offer the best value are a bit artificial. The product should sell best when it meets expectation of real users.
ReplyDelete2. It all depends on what type of product or service you're going to sell. Most goods used everyday don't need this type of marketing. A lot of them are advertised traditionally. Word of mouth is a "killer strategy" for niche products, which are used by specific people among whom most of them know each other (they share interests, workplace, etc.).
3. WOMM mostly just draws my attention towards particular product or brand and I seriously take it into consideration when making buying decision. I have bought a few electronic devices (for example a smartphone), which at first seemed not necessary, but now I'm using it all the time, as I heard about its usefulness from others.
What do you think about this type of marketing?
ReplyDeleteI thing that that type of marketing is interesting but it can be easily faked. Why do I think so? Many people want to know the opinion of the majority about the products but they forget that every person is different and have their own taste. Individuals have the worst situation because they want to have their own opinion about the products and choose unpopular ones. That's why I do think that that system doesn't work. Is the practice that companies hire people to make some comments in the internet about the products.
I have never bought anything by WOMM because I am a huge individualist and I have to make my own opinion about everything.
Have you ever bought anything or gone somewhere influenced by WOMM?
I have never heard about WOMM. Colloquially on this type of advert is talked recommendation. But it is good to know that there is some identifications to this kind of advertisment. I think that most people haven't heard about it but everyone do it unconsciously. I don't know people who never describe something or never propose to enjoy something. So everyone do it and I think it is convincing for most of us. This kind of advertisment is really often and if someone recommend you some products it is more perhaps that you will buy it. I also taste some recommended products. I am thinking now about restaurants which my collegue recommend me and since then I go there very often.
ReplyDelete