E-commerce Link: Did You Hear That?
Learning to leverage word of mouth
December 2007 By Jeffrey Eisenberg
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Would you admit to having seen the movie “Gigli”? I asked that question of more than 5,000 people during my book tour for “Waiting For Your Cat To Bark?” but I can count the number of hands that went up with my fingers.
Before “Gigli” was released, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were superstars. Every magazine cover seemed to feature their Hollywood romance. They were a movie marketer’s dream. They had the winning formula. Then, the movie hit the theaters.
Within hours of the first showing, word of mouth spread via cell phone, IM and online reviews. When it opened on the West coast, word got out: “‘Gigli’ is a bore!” It flopped with the largest week-to-week drop in the history of the box office, courtesy of word of mouth. That was 2003.
Word of mouth is becoming more muscular and nimble. It’s not just another marketing buzzword; it’s a growing reality that should concern marketers enough to budget and plan for it.
Word of Mouth Is King
We see the emerging generation reviewing products in forums, blogs and by any other means technology allows. “The Internet is becoming mainstream, and customers have easier access to each other than ever before, so people look to each other when making buying decisions,” word-of-mouth guru and Bazaarvoice CMO Sam Decker wrote last year in his corporate blog.
Decker also cited a 2006 Edelman study that states consumers’ trust in “a person like me” zoomed from 20 percent in 2003 to 68 percent in 2006. “Customers just don’t believe companies anymore,” he wrote. “People are looking to each other to justify and validate their product experiences. So, the best way a company can traverse the word-of-mouth marketing universe is to be more transparent.”
Budget for Experience
The days when marketers were paid to make promises the business had no intention of keeping are coming to an end. This decade’s newly established brands are based on experience (e.g., Google, Starbucks, eBay) and not just hype. Can you say that about your products and services?
Today, customers’ actual experiences live in the public domain. If your product is bad, no amount of spin, marketing or branding will fix it. It also means that if your product experience is average, good or great, the word will get out.
Roy H. Williams, founder of Wizard Academy, identified the three factors that trigger word of mouth. Understanding these triggers can help you create better experiences and better marketing.
The three triggers, according to Williams, are:
1. Architectural: This is a product, package or store design. When a product or experience is planned or controlled for a specific effect, it’s architectural. Aesthetics and a unique appearance and experience are architectural triggers.
Product examples: iPhone, iPod, Bose, BMW, Motorola’s RAZR and Michael Graves’ products at Target stores.
Experience examples: Facebook, Flickr, Apple retail stores and Starbucks stores.
2. Kinetic: This is energy and performance, in the show-business sense of the word. Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, which the well-known book “When Fish Fly” is based on, is the quintessential example of a kinetic trigger. Hipness, selection, fashion and outstanding product performance also are kinetic triggers.
Product examples: BlackBerry, Red Bull and Starbucks’ products.
Experience examples: StumbleUpon, Digg, Cabela’s stores, JetBlue and iTunes software.
3. Generous: A generous trigger occurs when perceived value substantially exceeds the price of a product or service. Extremely large portions in a restaurant, oversized seats on an airplane and consistently low prices are all generous triggers.
Product examples: Gmail, Vonage, Skype and Hyundai’s warranty.
Experience examples: Ubuntu Linux, Wal-Mart and SteepandCheap.com. And now music groups like Radiohead, Oasis and Nine Inch Nails are offering their music online for free.
The more remarkable the experience, the stronger the word-of-mouth effect, for good or bad. Just meeting expectations or barely surpassing them simply won’t be remarkable.
Create Transparency
Many companies still believe the outdated notion that any negative word of mouth is harmful. This simply is no longer true. When Dell got blasted in Jeff Jarvis’ famous “Dear Mr. Dell” blog post, many feared for Dell as it also announced its first quarterly losses. Instead, Dell refocused on its service and products, and launched a remarkably transparent blog that has been well-received.
People share bad experiences, but they also love to share their good experiences. According to Bazaarvoice’s Decker, “In its recent Marketing Leadership Council, Interbrand stated 21.5 percent of large market capitalization growth is directly attributable to customer experience.”
Take Advantage of Customer Reviews
We have tested what type of reviews to feature in our clients’ marketing, since not all reviews are created equal. We found that the best-performing reviews meet the following criteria:
• A review has to feel real because any sense of professional editing will be rejected by customers;
• A review has to convey that the reviewer had a real experience with the product or service; and
• A review should have details and specifics about how it helped the reviewer.
When you feature reviews, look for those that have at least one of the three word-of-mouth triggers:
Architectural: “It’s so sleek and elegant; plus I can fit all my equipment inside.”
Kinetic: “It fits in my pocket, takes great pictures—even in low light.”
Generous: “They were fast, and the location is great. They didn’t just offer coffee while I waited, they offered fresh baked cookies. I’ll be back.”
The Golden Rule
The golden word-of-mouth rule is “be real, and let your customers be real.” Work at continually optimizing customers’ experience with your product or service. If the experience customers have with you doesn’t match the marketing hype, you’ll get burned. The best ROI today comes from creating delighted customers.
Jeffrey Eisenberg is co-founder and CEO of Future Now Inc., a New York-based consultancy that specializes in online conversion strategies. He can be reached at jeff@futurenowinc.com.
Before “Gigli” was released, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were superstars. Every magazine cover seemed to feature their Hollywood romance. They were a movie marketer’s dream. They had the winning formula. Then, the movie hit the theaters.
Within hours of the first showing, word of mouth spread via cell phone, IM and online reviews. When it opened on the West coast, word got out: “‘Gigli’ is a bore!” It flopped with the largest week-to-week drop in the history of the box office, courtesy of word of mouth. That was 2003.
Word of mouth is becoming more muscular and nimble. It’s not just another marketing buzzword; it’s a growing reality that should concern marketers enough to budget and plan for it.
Word of Mouth Is King
We see the emerging generation reviewing products in forums, blogs and by any other means technology allows. “The Internet is becoming mainstream, and customers have easier access to each other than ever before, so people look to each other when making buying decisions,” word-of-mouth guru and Bazaarvoice CMO Sam Decker wrote last year in his corporate blog.
Decker also cited a 2006 Edelman study that states consumers’ trust in “a person like me” zoomed from 20 percent in 2003 to 68 percent in 2006. “Customers just don’t believe companies anymore,” he wrote. “People are looking to each other to justify and validate their product experiences. So, the best way a company can traverse the word-of-mouth marketing universe is to be more transparent.”
Budget for Experience
The days when marketers were paid to make promises the business had no intention of keeping are coming to an end. This decade’s newly established brands are based on experience (e.g., Google, Starbucks, eBay) and not just hype. Can you say that about your products and services?
Today, customers’ actual experiences live in the public domain. If your product is bad, no amount of spin, marketing or branding will fix it. It also means that if your product experience is average, good or great, the word will get out.
Roy H. Williams, founder of Wizard Academy, identified the three factors that trigger word of mouth. Understanding these triggers can help you create better experiences and better marketing.
The three triggers, according to Williams, are:
1. Architectural: This is a product, package or store design. When a product or experience is planned or controlled for a specific effect, it’s architectural. Aesthetics and a unique appearance and experience are architectural triggers.
Product examples: iPhone, iPod, Bose, BMW, Motorola’s RAZR and Michael Graves’ products at Target stores.
Experience examples: Facebook, Flickr, Apple retail stores and Starbucks stores.
2. Kinetic: This is energy and performance, in the show-business sense of the word. Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, which the well-known book “When Fish Fly” is based on, is the quintessential example of a kinetic trigger. Hipness, selection, fashion and outstanding product performance also are kinetic triggers.
Product examples: BlackBerry, Red Bull and Starbucks’ products.
Experience examples: StumbleUpon, Digg, Cabela’s stores, JetBlue and iTunes software.
3. Generous: A generous trigger occurs when perceived value substantially exceeds the price of a product or service. Extremely large portions in a restaurant, oversized seats on an airplane and consistently low prices are all generous triggers.
Product examples: Gmail, Vonage, Skype and Hyundai’s warranty.
Experience examples: Ubuntu Linux, Wal-Mart and SteepandCheap.com. And now music groups like Radiohead, Oasis and Nine Inch Nails are offering their music online for free.
The more remarkable the experience, the stronger the word-of-mouth effect, for good or bad. Just meeting expectations or barely surpassing them simply won’t be remarkable.
Create Transparency
Many companies still believe the outdated notion that any negative word of mouth is harmful. This simply is no longer true. When Dell got blasted in Jeff Jarvis’ famous “Dear Mr. Dell” blog post, many feared for Dell as it also announced its first quarterly losses. Instead, Dell refocused on its service and products, and launched a remarkably transparent blog that has been well-received.
People share bad experiences, but they also love to share their good experiences. According to Bazaarvoice’s Decker, “In its recent Marketing Leadership Council, Interbrand stated 21.5 percent of large market capitalization growth is directly attributable to customer experience.”
Take Advantage of Customer Reviews
We have tested what type of reviews to feature in our clients’ marketing, since not all reviews are created equal. We found that the best-performing reviews meet the following criteria:
• A review has to feel real because any sense of professional editing will be rejected by customers;
• A review has to convey that the reviewer had a real experience with the product or service; and
• A review should have details and specifics about how it helped the reviewer.
When you feature reviews, look for those that have at least one of the three word-of-mouth triggers:
Architectural: “It’s so sleek and elegant; plus I can fit all my equipment inside.”
Kinetic: “It fits in my pocket, takes great pictures—even in low light.”
Generous: “They were fast, and the location is great. They didn’t just offer coffee while I waited, they offered fresh baked cookies. I’ll be back.”
The Golden Rule
The golden word-of-mouth rule is “be real, and let your customers be real.” Work at continually optimizing customers’ experience with your product or service. If the experience customers have with you doesn’t match the marketing hype, you’ll get burned. The best ROI today comes from creating delighted customers.
Jeffrey Eisenberg is co-founder and CEO of Future Now Inc., a New York-based consultancy that specializes in online conversion strategies. He can be reached at jeff@futurenowinc.com.
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