Ever have one of those projects where you think you have successfully positioned the value of a social media-based WOM program and then in the 11th hour, someone decides that all they want are click-throughs to the ad campaign microsite?
Okay, that's the same intro to another post. It illustrates a truth. In the case of brand marketers who need to sell product or "convert" in some way (vs. social marketers who are changing behavior or corporate PR folks trying to manage reputation), they need to understand how WOM compares and interacts with other marketing and communications efforts.
If the best advertising is judged by whether it "sells," so must word of mouth be judged. I attended a very senior cabal today of digital smart thinkers. Someone made the joke about spending 20 years putting definition around all sorts of proxy metrics to avoid reporting against sales. While I know it was meant in jest, there is a truth at its core.
The studies tell us that some people trust word of mouth over and above other communications, media and marketing messages in some cases. I have added the "somes" because the context, the product in question, the degree of familiarity and trust with the source will impact the WOM impact. Lots of annoying variables. Even still, what someone I know tells me about a product or service is much more impactful to me than all the advertising in agency-land.
Time to prove it.
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