An introduction to WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING

What it is and how to use it. A primer for software company CEOs and CMOs who need to drive sales with more credible marketing.
The goal of this white paper is to help you understand the process well enough to know where to turn for help. Awareness of word of mouth (WOM) is growing exponentially in the press and in the marketplaceand yet its application is often poorly understood. There are currently several versions in vogue. The major word of mouth trade associations (www.womma.org and www.vbma.net) are still struggling to define the ground rules for its deployment. This document offers the authors views shaped over the past four years by many of the major resources impacting this powerful approach to new business. It provides solid case studies and shows how to get started. Many marketers refer to word of mouth as the worlds greatest sales force. It could be!

By Keith W. Bates
keithbates@kbates.com

April 24, 2005, Version 1.7

COMPILED BY

SPONSORED BY

www.illinoistech.org

About the Illinois Technology Association

THE ITA MISSION: The Illinois Information Technology Association exists to be a leading change agent that drives growth, development and retention of IT-focused businesses and talent in Illinois by providing networking, advocacy, resources and leadership. They serve members in Chicago-land and throughout the State and exist to help grow the number of successful businesses that create, deploy and utilize information technology as a core part of their organization. www.illinoistech.org

We represent the interests of our diverse membership at a local and national level, and work to connect member companies with each other and the resources they need to succeed. The ITA continues on a more than twenty year tradition of service to the technology community, and in 2005 was renamed from the Chicago Software Association (CSA). The CSA had a solid program and had been recognized as one of the most important technology organizations in the Midwest. ITA remains committed to continuing the good programs we began as the CSA.

About Keith Bates

The MISSION of this Keith Bates effort is to offer the members of the Illinois Technology Association a resource where they can benefit from the past four years of Bates research into Word of Mouth marketing. That research was preceded by 30 years as CEO/Creative Director of Keith Bates & Associates Inc., a high tech ad agency Bates founded in 1970 to serve exclusively the software industry. He also founded Walker-Bates, a high tech PR firm that he managed concurrently with the ad agency. Over those years his agency and PR firm supported the sales and marketing communications needs of more than 150 software/services vendors. www.kbates.com

What is the inspiration behind this seemingly altruistic effort? Bates was inspired by Peter Drucker, the great management writer and thought leader, who has a goal of learning something completely new, in depth, every decade. This decades learning for Bates (which began in 2001) has been word of mouth marketing and its application to the software industry. Today the technology industry is being challenged to improve both marketings efficiency and credibility while reducing costs. Word of mouth offers these solutions and Bates wants to share what hes learned in hopes of shortening someone elses learning curve.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW .. EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT WOM Word of mouth marketing defined .. Viral marketing explained .... Benefits to marketers and buyers .. Word of mouth stories and case studies . Choose your approach: Influencer Relations . The Ideavirus . The Shockvirus .. Costs overview .. Challenges to implementation .... The deliverables from WOM marketing .... Launching a WOM program .... Understanding network hubs ... Warning: Failure to explore all three could be hazardous... Random comments from practitioners, authors, WOMMA, and VBMA ... Report on the first ever WOMMA Summit ......................................................................................... WOMMA Code of Ethics .. WOMS NATURE AS PRESCRIBED BY ITS AUTHORS/PRACTITIONERS ............................................ Regis McKenna, Word of Mouth .. Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point Seth Godin, Unleashing the Ideavirus Emanuel Rosen, The Anatomy of Buzz . George Silverman, The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing ... Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell, Creating Customer Evangelists .. Ed Keller and Jon Berry, The Influentials .. Paul Rand, Ketchum . VBMA Global. Andy Sernovitz, WOMMA CONCLUSION: A ONE PAGE CALL TO ACTION If you found this white paper provocative enough to study its detailsthen do something! ... APPENDIX: A ONE PAGE LAUNCH OUTLINE A KBA Communications Support Plan focused on WOMM .. 4 6 6 6 6 7 11 11 12 13 13 14 14 14 14 16 16 19 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

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to add wings to your marketing, spurs to your sales

Executive Overview
Awareness of word of mouth marketing (WOMM) is growing exponentially in the press and in the marketplaceand yet its application is often poorly understood. The goal of this article is to help you understand the process well enough to know where to turn for help, or how to launch your own program. WOMM Defined For the purpose of this white paper I am dividing word of mouth into several categories although in reality, according to Dr. Paul Marsden, WOMM/Viral/Buzz are all same thing, namely network enhanced Word of Mouth. For those who want nuances: viral marketing leverages digital networks; buzz leverages media networks; and WOMM leverages social networks. Viral marketing can employ either an ideavirus or shockvirus approach, while social networking is typically managed as influencer relations. Keep in mind that pure word of mouth has no limits on distribution vehicles. Viral Marketing Explained And from Justin Kirby, Managing Director of DMC Ltd., In fact the most successful use of online viral marketing is not as a standalone tactic but as an integrated part of a brand's overall marketing strategy. One of the big mistakes brands make is thinking that an online viral campaign is an end in itself rather than recognizing that it's a means to an end. Viral marketing, like PR, is a process not an event. Its point is to create a buzz in order to help build brand and shift product, not just to create a buzz full stop. There is no point in 'going viral' without fulfilling a wider or longer-term strategic purpose. Metcalfes law, the power behind viral marketing Metcalfes law tells us that the value of a network Perhaps the first issue to resolve, because of the nature of the audience for this white paper, is whether WOM lends itself better to consumer marketing or business to business. The answer is both equally well. In the B2B world it is particularly well suited to the pharmaceutical and technology industries because of the need for one on one conversation about technical aspects. From the customers point of view word of mouth emanates from a trusted source, is credible, friendly, and tuned to the listeners personal interests. It also overcomes the four most feared words in advertising, I dont believe you. And then not much happened until 2001 when the July 30 issue of BusinessWeek carried Buzz Marketing as their cover story. Thats also the year when four major books came into being expanding on the concept of word of mouth marketing. Those four books are identified with stars on the Authors/Practitioners page. Benefits of employing WOMM increases with the square of the number of people using it. So when you have 10 users in the world, thats 25 times better than when there were two. And at 100 users your network is 1000 times better than at 10. With 100 user hubs your network has a reach of 10,000 people. 100 hubs seems to be the magic number. Twenty five years after Regis McKenna published a brochure touting the value of word of mouth the term viral marketing was created by the VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. It was used to describe the phenomenon of Hotmail, which grew with the rapidity of a cold virus, from 0 to 12 million subscribers in eighteen months. Viral marketing was pronounced marketing buzzword of the year for 1998.

Stories and Case Studies From Stanley Arnolds Tale of a Blue Horse to the incredible stories of Hotmail, Post-it Notes and a dozen others youll find inspiring success stories. Netscape, Napster, Trivial Pursuit, and BullGuard software security all offer exciting examples of WOM. Choose the approach that best fits your needs. There are three, and they range from Ideaviruses to Shockviruses to Influentials. Ideaviruses are predicated on spreading the word based on a superior product. Shockviruses are predicated on spreading the word based on superior advertising. And Influentials are predicated on spreading the word based on either evangelists, or the mavens and connectors that populate network hubs who are persuaded to spread the word based on either the users enthusiasm for the product or corporate sponsored relationships. A point of clarification contributed by Justin Kirby, Whats the difference between Viral Advertising and Viral Marketing? Well any viral advertising campaign is doing viral marketing but what is specific about viral advertising is the use of creative agents rather than the amplification and acceleration of product recommendations. And referencing a recent Marketing Sherpa report, The reason you focus on the creative agents is because the product normally doesnt have a uniqueness that can be leveraged to amplify and accelerate word of mouth. So you make the creative agent/communications sticky because the product isnt necessarily. Costs Overview You will encounter two sets of costs if you pursue a WOM program. First will be an ongoing monthly fee to design and manage the process. These monthly fees can range from $5,000 to $20,000 and will probably be based on a one year commitment. Second will be your out of pocket costs for production services which need

to be estimated before a commitment is made but this cannot be accomplished until the planning is done. Challenges to implementation Both WOM and viral marketing can be a tough sell to management because they reflect a major change in the typical approach to marketing communications. However they solve some big sales and marketing problems like qualified leads, shorter selling cycles, and often an overall reduction in the cost of sales. Deliverables from your WOM marcom group Marketings deliverables include development of a virusworthy product or story, databases of power influencers, messaging and assistance with accelerated contagion or seeding. Launching a WOM program I mentioned earlier that WOM is not a standalone tactic, but rather a component in your overall marketing strategy. So before putting all your eggs in the WOM basket be sure you develop a comprehensive Communications Support Plan. Understanding network hubs Network hubs are individuals who communicate with more people about a certain product than the average person does. Researchers have traditionally referred to them as opinion leaders. In industry theyre called influencers, lead users, or sometimes power users. They are the 10% who influence the 90%. To wrap this up read seven pages of random comments from practitioners, pioneering WOM authors, and my friends from both WOMMA and VBMA.

Where to turn then? Help can be found via word of mouth consultants, ad agencies, and PR firms.

to add wings to your marketing, spurs to your sales

Everything you ever wanted to know about WOM

WORD OF MOUTH DEFINED Regis McKennas explains the difference between word of mouth and all other forms of communications with the following. It is an experienced process, rather than an observed one. The message is tuned to the individual listener. The credibility of the speaker carries over to the message immediately. Experts can be used in this medium without the negative effect of commercializing his or her position and message. Efficiency while taking time to disseminate the message is delivered directly to those who must use the information and act on it. Feedback is instantaneous. To quote Emanuel Rosens The Anatomy of Buzz, To create buzz and use it effectively, you should have a realistic view of the phenomenon, not glorify it. For example, some word-of-mouth enthusiasts argue that if you get good buzz, you dont need to do any marketing. This can be a major mistake. Distribution, advertising, promotions and other traditional marketing activities can translate the goodwill surrounding your product into sales. Good buzz is the best thing you could wish for, but its just one component of your marketing mix. VIRAL MARKETING EXPLAINED Conceived in 1996. Born in 2001. Its the management of an ideavirus, or a shockvirus through word of mouth online. Its word of mouth on steroids. Its marketings response to the educated consumer and the Internet. As the ability (speed) of customers to communicate with customers grows stronger, the credibility of marketers communicating with customers grows weaker. If charging people for exposure to your virus is going to slow down its spread give it away! Apple cut the price of WebObjects from $50,000 to BENEFITS TO MARKETERS AND BUYERS The simplest reason for choosing word of mouth marketing over traditional advertising is that it can be FASTER, CHEAPER, BETTER! But no guarantees! A recent study by advertising giant Euro RSCG Worldwide states that for generating excitement about products, word of mouth is 10 times more effective than TV or print ads. If you can achieve focus on your products virus-worthiness viral marketing will deliver
th 10X the market impact at 1/10 the cost. VM turns your

$699 recognizing that unless a lot of people used their software no one would use it! WHY GO VIRAL? WHY CHOOSE WORD OF MOUTH? BECAUSE TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING IS COSTLY AND SERIOUSLY LACKING IN CREDIBILITY! And because viral marketing has become the latest stealth strategy for qualified lead generation. Whats this viral marketing thing all about? Viral marketing (VM) is defined as managing digitallyaugmented word of mouth, or buzz. Digitallyaugmented simply means using the Internet to deploy your VM program and email is the primary tool of choice. Word of mouth has been around since the beginning of time but the spreading, without electronic support, is typically both tedious and slow from a marketing standpoint. The Internet has changed all that. To quote Seth Godin from his Unleashing the Ideavirus,Stop marketing at people. Turn your ideas into epidemics by helping your customers do the marketing for you!

ideas into epidemics by helping your customers do the marketing for you. It also overcomes the four most feared words in advertising, I dont believe you.

Why the viral marketing approach to word of mouth? In a nutshell its the speed and low cost distribution enabled by the Internet. And because traditional advertising is costly, not terribly productive anymore, and lacking in credibility word of mouth marketing is becoming the best way to launch a brand. Today the speed of information diffusion enable by the Internet is weakening the ability of marketers to communicate with customers and strengthening the ability of customers to communicate with customers. From the customers point of view word of mouth emanates from a trusted source, is credible, friendly, tuned to the listeners personal interests, very efficient, and offers instant feedback. In other words, dialogue, rather than monologue. WORD OF MOUTH STORIES AND CASE STUDIES From Stanley Arnolds Tale of the Blue Horse, 1968 comes the story of United Airlines and how they used word of mouth to inspire executive secretaries to choose United over competitors when charged by their bosses to book a flight. At that time Uniteds public image seemed to lack something. Arnolds suggestion: send a freshly cut, long-stemmed rose every Monday of every week for a year to the executive secretaries of the top 1000 CEOs (fifty-two thousand roses). Plus a bud vase with the first mailing. The result: doors closed previously to United salesmen were suddenly open. Within six months dramatic increases in ticketing occurred. Before General Foods could sell (new products) they first had to announce this new line of products to their salesmenthe men who would sit down with the buying committees of the retails stores and try to persuade them that a demand for (their new products) would be sweeping the nation (via word of mouth). Young & Rubicam, their ad agency, was therefore asked to develop an imaginative idea that would help General Foods introduce (the new products) to its sales force with flair and confidence. Y&R turned to Stanley who

dreamed up the idea of a blue horse consistent with General Foods promise that the new product line would definitely be a horse of a different color. On meeting day the blue horse had been tethered to a tree about forty feet from the bar. After the first round of drinks the salesmen of General Foods could not believe their eyes. "These drinks are so damn good," one of the regional sales managers said to me, "I believe I see a blue horse out there." All the others said the same thing, but none could believe what their eyes told them. Finally the meeting began as General Foods announced to its salesmen that their company was going to give them the most exciting line of products in their company's glorious history. General Foods finally revealed it was going into gourmet foods. Everyone quickly had a second drink. The applause was perfunctory. Some of the applause even sounded like hissing. "This is new territory for General Foods," the speaker went on. You might even say that compared to what youve been selling until now, this is a horse of a different color. At that point they responded. They had seen a blue horse out there. Now they knew what it was all about. The meeting finally picked up momentum, and to the extent that experienced food salesmen can summon up enthusiasm for gourmet foods, these salesmen were close to a level of exuberance. The introduction of the gourmet line was dispatched beyond anyone's expectations.

In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman. In 1980 Peters and his coauthor Bob Waterman, (McKinsey consultants) put together a 125page summary of what later became the classic management book In Search of Excellence. They gave it to just a few executives they knew, but very quickly these individuals started discussing with others what they had read. Tom Peters attributes part of the success of his first book to an extensive seeding campaign.

VIRAL MARKETING STRATEGY: Successful seeding is an active process. It goes well beyond the Field of Dreams clich "If you build it, they will come." Rather than waiting passively for people to come to you, you go out and plant seeds all around the forest. Here are a few guidelines: VIRAL MARKETING TACTICS: As word about the coming book started to spread, demand soared, and the authors decided to seed the market with 15,000 copies of this preliminary report. Their publisher was worried that Peters and Waterman were giving too many. Edward Burlingame, who commissioned the book for Harper & Row, said that the company expected to sell around 60,000 copies in the first year, meaning that the 15,000 copies represented 25 percent of that amount. But Peters believes that these copies were important in generating word of mouth and sales. "Within days of the book's launching, supportive reviews appeared, and the network of 15,000 (plus at least an equal number of photocopied knockoffs) hurried to buy the real thing, often in bulk for their subordinates," Peter recalls in Thriving on Chaos. RESULTS: In Search of Excellence sold 1.5 million copies in hardcover alone. The game of Trivial Pursuit sold 20 million copies in 1984 but word about the product didnt spread by contagion alone. Buzz was accelerated by a seeding campaign. Samples were sent to celebrities mentioned in the game. The helped start trivia parties which in tern were encourage by more than 100 radio stations asking trivia questions. They also sent teaser mailings to toy buyers just before a major industry toy fair. Emanuel Rosen calls this type of acceleration leapfrogging. In 1993 people didnt really understand online services. AOL had formed alliances with major media but the masses werent responding. Comprehension and credibility were low. So Jan Brandt mailed 250 million CDs to seed the market. The program cost $300 for a new user worth only $124. It worked. After reaching

their tipping point costs dropped to less than $100 per new user. THEN THE INTERNET ARRIVED The Hotmail story started in 1995 with two young men from Silicon Valley, each working for a different company, but needing to collaborate on a common project without using their companys email. Suddenly they had a bright ideaa free email service that could be accessed through the web. With only $300,000 in VC seed money they launched the company. A word of mouth program launched both electronically and faceto-face started to spread the word. It was good old word of mouth marketing at Internet speed. Within two months they had 100,000 users, and by eighteen months they had 12 million subscribers. The term viral marketing evolved from this success story. Microsoft bought Hotmail for $400 million and as of 2001 was signing up a hundred thousand people a day. Napster, a way of networking peoples hard drives so that they can share music, spread so fast in only a few months that it threatened the entire recording industry and appeared on the cover of Newsweek! The story of Post-It notes is so good it ought to be apocryphal but its actually true. Nobody was buying the. 3M was going to cancel the whole program. Then the brand manager of the product persuaded the secretary of the chairman of 3M to send a case of PostIts to the secretaries of the chairmen of the other 499 Fortune 500 Companies. Suddenly, the most powerful sneezers in the most powerful companies in the country were sending around memos, all containing comments scrawled on Post-Its. It took just a few months after that for it to become yet another successful business communication device. A classic ideavirus. From a recent Wall St. Journal article, Airlines in bankruptcy usually dont have the luxury of grinding through precious dollars with fancy image campaigns to reassure nervous travelers. United spent some $30

million on advertising in the first half of the year, according to CMR/TNS Media Intelligence. But airlines do have an army of messengers in flight attendants, gate agents, and ticket-counter people, and the key is to get them plugged in and on board quickly with positive spin on a financial restructuring, crisis specialist say. Uniteds ad agency, Publicis Groupes Fallon Worldwide is managing the marketing plans.

The e-mail included a link back to the SeeAmerica.org deals section. Campaign Insights: The campaign won a gold medal at the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) annual awards ceremony held in New York in January. This is the most prestigious Tourism Communication Competition.

Word of mouth makes the front page of the Wall Street While Starbucks and those offering Wi-Fi at hotels and airports advertise their services online and through local promotions, in the majority of cases word about free WiFi hot spots spreads by word-of-mouthand fast. From iMedia Communications, Inc. Following the Sept 11 events, travel fell drastically in the United States and the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA) determined that there was a need for some immediate action to encourage Americans to travel again. The association conceived a "See America Day" -- which coincided with Veterans' Day - - and asked Ripple Effects Interactive (REI) to propose a cost-effective Internet-based campaign. REI determined that a grassroots e-mail campaign leveraging the association's members was by far the most cost-effective and impactful means of reaching Americans interested in travel. As such, TIA forwarded to each of its 2,200 members the flash creative and encouraged them to forward it to their own e-mail lists -thereby hundreds of thousands of would-be travelers. Participants included Hotel Operators such as Ramada and Travelodge, transporters like Amtrak, and Visitors' Bureaus such as the Las Vegas CVB. Now, of course this all needed to be done with a very little budget. Hence, the viral e-mail (although we like to call it "video e-mail). We asked two things of our members: 1. Submit a special deal to be posted on SeeAmerica.org 2. Take the viral e-mail and forward it on to their email lists (vendors, employees, customers, etc.) From George Silverman: A complicated piece of machinery required extensive research to buy, usually Journal: On Jan. 13, Shannon Syfrett, a 15-year- old ninth-grader at Central Academy in Macon, Miss., launched a chain letter over the Internet. E-mail chains that seek responses from around the world are the latest rage in science-fair projects, as kids set out to learn where and how fast information travels. Shannon called her project "howfastorfar2003@aol.com," and she expected that in six weeks she "might get 2,000 or 3,000" replies to her note asking people to write back and then pass her message along. That was her first miscalculation. The next day, Jan. 14, the request she had sent to 23 people generated 200 e-mail replies, an average of one every 7.2 minutes. By Jan. 16, messages had arrived from 47 states and 25 countries, including Australia and Zimbabwe. There were 8,768 e-mails on Jan. 24, and another 12,013 three days later. They were now arriving one every 7.2 seconds. Overwhelmed and sick with the flu, Shannon shut down her screen name for 2 1/2 days, but 9,455 e-mails flooded in when she reopened it on Jan. 31, her log shows. Messages from Libya and Iran popped up on Feb. 2. On Feb. 4. Shannon and her parents emptied the electronic mailbox 35 times--it holds 1,000 incoming messages--but stilI, a man telephoned from France to complain that he couldn't get his e-mail through. On Feb. 5, there were another 37,854 e-mails, one every 2.3 seconds. Shannon pulled the plug, 17 days early. Altogether, she had received 160,478 e-mails from 189 countries and 50 states.

taking about six months. It then needed to be compared to the alternatives, which also took months. Then it had to be tried, which took about a year. Then it had to be rolled out gradually, with training. Another year. The whole thing was compressed into about eight weeks by holding a seminar/training program, then following it up by audio teleconferences. The decision makers were given the material that would have taken them months to find, shown how to evaluate it, given extensive (and flattering) competitive materials, and encouraged to try one against the other-all in a carefully structured trial that kept several prospects in touch with each other and with customers, with a hotline to thirdparty experts. This word of mouth, applied to several critical bottlenecks in the decision process, cut the decision time by multiples, while at the same time showing that the company had nothing to hide.

. To brand BullGuard as "the young rebel" in the security industry . To generate trial downloads of the BullGuard security software package Solution . Videos communicating overall USP . "Real life" web-, surveillance- or video-cam shot, making the videos appear very realistic . Integrated into BullGuards corporate website enhancing trial downloads. . Daily surveillance - clips adjusted and optimized during the first weeks after launch Results . More than 10 million views . Significant percentage of trial software downloads . Growth in search engine traffic . 317% growth in revenue in year one after launch . Access to retail distribution side by side with main

Netscape Navigator: Built entirely upon word of mouth, Netscape captured about 90 percent of the Web browser market before it placed its first ad. The company did it by giving away the first versions of its product, and by word of mouth, primarily on the Internet. Netscape has now been overtaken by Microsofts Internet Explorer (which stole a process patented by Eolas Technologies Inc. to achieve this feat). BullGuard develops security software for the home user The following case study is presented by fellow VBMA member Claus Moseholm of GoViral.com for a Denmark client of his www.bullguard.com/movies Background . BullGuard is a small company operating in a battle of the giants (Norton & McAfee) . BullGuard's marketing budget non-existent . Viral is inexpensive compared to other consumer advertising Objectives . To build awareness and interest towards a global target group of home Internet users

competitors due to increased brand awareness. . Plenty of PR and funnier company presentations WHO ELSE IS DOING THIS? RECOGNIZE ANY OF THESE NAMES? From "The Anatomy of Buzz" the listed companies include: Amazon.com, AOL, Amway, Apple Computer, Armani, AT&T, Avon, Barnes & Noble, Blair Witch Project, BMW, Budweiser, Car & Driver Magazine, Charles Schwab, Cisco Systems, CNN, Coca Cola, Compuserve, Crisco Oil, DaimlerChrysler, Dell Computer, EBay, Edison, FedEx, Ford Mustang, General Motors, Harper & Row, Hewlett Packard, Honda, Intel, Intuit, Kodak, Lotus, Macy's, McDonald's, MCI, Microsoft, Miller Brewing, Neiman Marcus, Nike, Nintendo, Palm Computing, Pepsi, Polaroid, Proctor & Gamble, Saks Fifth Avenue, Star Wars, Sun Microsystems, Taco Bell, 3COM, Twentieth Century Fox, Union Bank of California, Warner Brothers, Yahoo, Ziff Davis. From "The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing": Adobe, AOL, Apple, Avon, Campbell Soup, Citigroup, Dell, Disney, Eudora, First USA, Google, Hotmail, McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, Napster, Roche Laboratories, United States Postal Service, Verizon DSL, Wall Street Journal, Xerox Parco From "The Tipping Point"; ABC News, Airwalk Company, Audi Automobile, CBS, Centers for Disease Control, Century Wilshire Hotel, Coca Cola, Columbia Record Club, Glaxo Wellcome, Gore-Tex, Hush Puppies Shoes, New York City, Prozac, R.J. Reynolds, Sesame Street, TV Guide, Winston Cigarettes.

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From "Unleashing the ldeavirus"; Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Amazon, com, American Airlines, American Express, American Greeting, Amway, AOL, Apple, Atkins Diet, Audi, Barnes & Noble, Budweiser, Burger King, Cisco, Clairol, Coke, eToys, FedEx, Google, Hallmark, Harry Potter, Herman Miller, Hotmail, Intel, Kodak, Lycos, Marlboro, Mary Kay Cosmetics, McDonalds, MCI, McKinsey, Microsoft, Napster, Nike, Palm, PC Magazine, Polaroid, Post-itNotes, Priceline, Reebok, Rexall, Schick, Sports Illustrated, Starbucks, Star Wars, Martha Stewart, 3M, Time Warner, Tommy Hilfiger, Toyota, ToysRUs, Tupperware, Twentieth Century Fox, VW Beetle, Yahoo. The companies in the foregoing list were referenced in the four books published on the topic of word of mouth/viral marketing in 2001. I cannot verify that these are all case studies of viral marketing, only that they touched the concept in some manner deemed worthwhile by the various authors. Hotmail, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon, GeoCities, Broadcast.com, Googleall of them succeeded because an ideavirus was unleashed and spread. To reach 10 million users it took radio 40 years, TV 15 years, Netscape 3 years, and both Hotmail and Napster less than a year. Hotmail and Napster got the hang of viral marketing. CHOOSE YOUR APPROACH There are several approaches for launching word of mouth marketing and they vary substantially so it seems worthwhile to study them separately. Variations on the public relations industry concept of Influencer Relations seems to be one of the more popular but equally powerful in a slightly different fashion are two flavors of viral marketing, which I have arbitrarily divided into the Ideavirus approach and the Shockvirus approach. INFLUENCER RELATIONS

value of their relationships with elite industry influencers. The buying decisions of your customers are influenced by a far broader base than media and industry analysts, although each is vital to the overall communications mix. Today, the purchasing process is influenced by a broad array of friends, colleagues and peers, pundits, academics, authors, researchers, and many others. Whats more, each market has its own set of influencers, making it necessary to understand how to identify, and then to reach, these new influencers. Simply put, the mantle of thought leadership and influence has fragmented, resulting in the need to expand your communications. Many years ago I managed the high tech public relations firm that I founded with Rich Walker. I wish I had understood influencer relations at that time. Regis McKenna summed it up well in his 1982 brochure on Word of Mouth which states, Regarding the 90-10 Rule by now one might be saying, Okay, by talking to everyone in the world we can better communicate our message. That's not practical or possible, Right! But the 90-10 rule states that 90 percent of the world is influenced by the other 10 percent. There are probably no more than 20 or 30 people in any one industry who have a major impact on trends, standards, opinion and a company's image or character. Certainly we know this is true in the media and financial community. While there may be dozens of magazines and mountains of analysis covering an industry, only several have real influence and impact. This is true within companies as well. A relatively few people hold the key to power in any organization. This is not to say that these key influences are easy to reach. A memo may reach them easier, but credible word-of-mouth approach will be far more influential and effective. LAUNCHING INFLUENCER RELATIONS:

From my friend Patrick Rooney of Expand Communications come the following thoughts: What is Influencer Relations? Influencer Relations is a program to help ensure clients benefit from the lasting Start by getting managements acceptance of the principles of the seminal Ed Keller/Jon Berry book on influencer relations titled The Influentials.

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The following outline is presented to you courtesy of Ketchums recently introduced, proprietary IRM (Influencer Relationship Management) program. It uses a highly targeted approach rather than traditional mass media to identify, target and connect with individuals and groups that can directly affect buyers perceptions and behaviors. 1. Start the process of market segmentation and identification of key three most critical proponents; initial influencers, ultimate influencers, buyers and decision makers. 2. Ecosystem and mapping is based on clearly determining desired mindset, actions and impact of Key Three and Initial Influencers 3. Prioritization and Benchmarking. 4. Strategic Alignment (program development) 5. Engagement 6. Measure: With priorities, benchmarks and programs formalized IRM measures specific agreed upon values. 7. Manage

introduced to products that require us to change our current mode of behavior or to modify other products and services we rely on such change-sensitive products are called discontinuous innovations. The contrasting term, continuous innovations, refers to the normal upgrading of products that do not require us to change behavior." Ideaviruses represent discontinuous product innovations. I like Geoffrey Nicholsons (VP Technical Planning/Technical Ops for 3M) statement from some years back that I saved. If an idea doesnt stop people in their tracks, then maybe its just an incremental change and not an innovation at all. Ideaviruses have nothing at all to do with incremental change. You must think long and hard about which approach is best. So if you dont have a unique idea perhaps you should explore a shocking presentationwhich is what many companies in the United States and the rest of the world are doing these days LAUNCHING AN IDEAVIRUS:

THE IDEAVIRUS An Ideaviruses is about the concept of the product while a Shockvirus is about the presentation of the product. One is about good ideas and the other about good presentations. Traditionally great ideas last longer than great presentations. Depending on where you live, although the lines are blurring today, you may be exposed to either ideaviruses or shockviruses. Viral marketing in the UK is a little different than the early efforts of viral marketing in the US. Their leading practitioners depend more on powerful graphics than unique product attributes to convey the power of the product. They focus more on shockviruses than ideaviruses, simply two schools of thought. Both are effective. The Ideavirus was really the pioneering viral marketing catalyst and traces the concept of its origin back to Geoffrey Moores Crossing the Chasm where he discusses technology adoption, "any time we are The challenge Ive encountered is with startup companies who dont have a hundred users and are reluctant to give product away, or with established companies who get a lot of money for their product and To quote Seth Godin, to embrace ideavirus marketing techniques you also have to accept a change from the status quo. And many of the executives who are now in charge made their way to the top by embracing the status quo, not fighting it. First, and often the biggest challenge is to get management acceptance of Metcalfes law that tells us that the value of a network increases with the square of the number of people using it. So when you have 10 users in the world, that's 25 times better than when there were two. And at 100 users your network is 1000 times better than at 10. With 100 user hubs your network has a reach of 10,000 people. For success a large user base is imperative. 100 Network Hubs seeming to be the magic number.

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are reluctant to give up any income. These giveaways should be considered beta sites. THE SHOCKVIRUS Shockviruses are typified by shocking graphics and tend to rely more on entertainment and visual excitement for their distribution. DMC and The Viral Factory were early proponents of this approach. Ideaviruses traditionally have relied more on unique product attributes although that is changing rapidly as I write this. Other issues to contend with have to do with augmenting your viral marketing. Shockviruses tend to have a shorter life than ideaviruses. But ideaviruses are dependent on powerful product discontinuous innovations while any brilliant creative director can come up with a shockvirus. Because either approach will wear out its welcome once the newness and excitement grow old you must explore ways to augment, or maintain or reinforce your message. Augmentation typically uses traditional integrated direct marketing programs, whether ongoing or of the 90-Day Blitz variety, and are often supported by public relations. Viral augmentation tactics also will be heavily dependent also on the Internet. Whats a 90-Day Blitz? Simply a deluge of marketing materials that acts as a quick fix for inadequate lead flow. Pioneered by Ernan Roman its a multimedia, lead generation activity based on response compression techniques. It is a fully integrated 3 month program that combines traditional media with interactive media to create a sense of event, which in turn produces a substantial flow of leads in a very short time with minimal commitment of financial resources. For 20 years its been a hot seller at the Bates agency. LAUNCHING A SHOCKVIRUS: The first challenge to getting started with the Shockvirus approach is locate a production firm with the creative expertise, and experience to build a virus so provocative that it spreads to epidemic proportions like the recent Subservient Chicken from Burger King.

And the second challenge is then to assign a viral marketing / creative consultant to work with the production company who understands the product and market well enough to keep the viral creatives on track. This person could come from the ranks of creative consultants or ad agency creative directors. Then you follow these next few steps which have much in common with the Ideavirus approach. 1. Identify Regular and Mega level hubs within your Network Hubs databases. 2. Develop virus-worthiness concept/strategy around which the Shockvirus will be developed. 3. Write copy /design storyboards to support the Shockvirus and generate buzz 4. Expose the virus through regular/mega hubs. 5. Support the epidemic with accelerated contagion which can be ongoing ad and PR work or a blitz tactic. NOTE: Before considering a viral marketing program please take a moment for introspection: What is the buzz that your company wishes to spread, hopefully to epidemic proportions? In ten words or less, what makes your product virusworthy? If you cant come up with an answer fix the product, or reposition your marketing differentiation message. COSTS OVERVIEW To use the Marcom Engine model I developed many years ago is to use a six step process that is common knowledge among marketers. First theres a Planning Module that delivers an audit of the market followed by strategy development which is in turn followed by the creative process. Second is the Execution Module which develops the arsenal of marcom tools, the actual deployment of the strategy/tactics, and finally the tracking and maintenance of the program. For the PLANNING MODULE and its three components typical monthly fees of a marketing consultant, whether independent, or attached to an ad agency or PR firm

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can range from a low of $5,000 to $20,000 or more for large companies in big markets. For the EXECUTION MODULE and its three components costs cannot be estimated until the planning stages, complete with media strategy, are completed and are more inclined to represent out of pocket expenses. They can vary dramatically from one campaign to the next depending largely on media and the complexity of your accelerated contagion plan. CHALLENGES TO IMPLEMENTATION Both word of mouth and viral marketing are often a tough sell to management because it reflects a major change in the status quo. Budgeting for ads, direct mail, and websites is done every day. But word of mouth marketing? Whats that? It wasnt invented here. Remember also that an ideavirus adores a vacuum. Youve got to be first. If youve got a product and its not unique, consider changing the productor the playing field. Your idea needs to be inherently unique, or positioned to appear so. However, viral marketing can solve some BIG marketing problems. Like achieving quarterly revenue goals. Increasing the numbers of qualified leads. Shortening of selling cycles. Reducing the overall costs of marketing. And inspiring employee and vendor evangelism. THE DELIVERABLES FROM WOM MARKETING Depending on whether you opt for influentials, shockviruses, or ideaviruses the deliverables may vary slightly but from any of the approaches you should receive: Development of a newsworthy product Database of power influencers Message development An accelerated contagion strategy LAUNCHING A WOM PROGRAM One approach is the Marcom Engine from which evolves the Communications Support Plan. The Marcom Engine blends the disciplines of Business

Process Reengineering (BPR) with Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) as well as concepts from Geoffrey Moores TALC (technology adoption life cycle) approach in Crossing the Chasm. It drives revenue enhancement by fine tuning the value proposition into the most compelling reason to buy, and by reducing the waste and inefficiency of the typical random task approach to marketing. Plus it is the single most efficient way to manage a product launch. The Marcom Engine typically consists of six modules, three for Planning and three for Execution but can be shortened for convenience to three: Audit and Strategy: Do your homework. Build a marcom team. Develop a plan. Identify network hubs Creative and Arsenal: Develop virus-worthiness messaging, copy and art. Build the arsenal. Deployment and Monitoring: Define a media plan; expose the virus through mega/regular hubs. Then plan support with accelerated contagion. Monitor.

Start by creating small movements first. The big one follows. A paradox of word of mouth marketing is that before creating one contagious movement you have to create many small movements first. This means that before you can fan the flames you have to ignite the fire. Igniting the fire means that first you must understand the Law of the Few. Spreading the word depends on people who are either experts or possessed with a rare set of social gifts. Theyre called power influencers and evangelists. And they are found as spokes in your Network Hubs and are further refined as Regular Hubs (non-media people), and Mega Hubs (media people). UNDERSTANDING NETWORK HUBS The following section on Network Hubs was extracted from Emanuel Rosens The Anatomy of Buzz, and Malcolm Gladwells The Tipping Point, and then edited by Keith Bates.

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NETWORK HUBS Network hubs are individuals who communicate with more people about a certain product than the average person does. Researchers have traditionally referred to them as opinion leaders. In industry theyre called influencers, lead users, or sometimes power users. There are two major types of Network Hubs: Regular Hubs, acting as regular folks who serve as sources of information and influence in a certain product category and may be connected to only a few other individuals-or to several dozens. And Mega Hubs, which refers to the press, celebrities, analysts, and politicians. Both these categories have subsets, known as Mavens and Connectors.

WHERE DOES ONE FIND NETWORK HUBS? There are four methods commonly used: 1. Letting network hubs identify themselves. This means capturing the names of those who visit your website, or ask questions via email/snail mail. 2. Identifying categories of network hubs. Responses from ads in trade publications, or attendance at conferences, trade shows. However, these efforts primarily gather titles only. 3. Spotting network hubs in the field. To do this you must join a community, or solicit help from those already inside the community. 4. Identifying network hubs through surveys. Studies can be done online using such resources as RoperASW, Greenfield Online, or Opinion Research. Surveys can be subdivided into socio-metric, informant ratings, or self designating. HOW TO WORK WITH NETWORK HUBS Mega hub tacticsthe mediaare well known by publicity people, and I have little new to offer here. What others do not usually discuss is how to go about reaching the millions of regular hubs who can spread news about a product. So I will focus here on reaching regular hubs. Regular hub tactics first challenge is keeping track of them. Building a system to record information about hubs is mostly a matter of making everyone at your organization aware of them. The database you build should have telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, regular mailing addresses, as well as information about the scope and source of their influence and the nature of the networks they belong to. Timing is important, seeding is often required, targeting hubs first (before PR and ads), give them something to talk about, stimulate them to teach others, give them the facts, dont abuse the relationships, be sure people

Mavens (those who accumulate knowledge) are listened to because they have demonstrated significant knowledge of a certain area (at the very least, they have convinced others of their authority on a subject). Mavens tend to specialize in one narrow field of interest (movies, computers, corporate governance, and litigation). Connectors are those people in every group who are more central because they are charismatic, are trusted by their peers, or are simply more socially active. Connectors know lots of the right kind of people. Let me offer an easy acronym you can use to remember them: network hubs are ACTIVE. They are Ahead in adoption, Connected, Travelers, Informationhungry, Vocal, and Exposed to the media more than others. Network hubs are usually not the first to adopt a new product, but they are at least slightly ahead of the rest in their networks. The fact is, not much is definitively known about network hubs; moreover, the nature of network hubs may differ from industry to industry. You wont find their names and addresses in any directoryidentifying network hubs is substantially more complex than renting a mailing list. But the rewards for paying attention to these people can be huge.

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see hubs using your product, and beware Mega Hub bias. WARNING: FAILURE TO EXPLORE ALL THREE WORD OF MOUTH OPTIONS COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR MARKETING HEALTH. Each of these approaches, whether Ideavirus, Shockvirus, or Influentials, has different underlying strategies, tactics and costs. Be sure to explore them carefully before making a choice as they are quite different in nature.

from Diffusion of Innovations, Thriving on Chaos, Secrets of WOMM, and Anatomy of Buzz - the books are full of them.

Dr. Paul Marsden: However, I predict that alternative marketing campaign success will be measured in terms of the impact on customer recommendation rates and the correlation between the increasing instances of these and sales, rather than being based on a simple CPM model.

Justin Kirby in response to Keith Bates request for RANDOM COMMENTS FROM PRACTITIONERS AND AUTHORS Plus FRIENDS AT BOTH WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Assn.) AND VBMA (Viral+Buzz Marketing Assn.) Linda Zimmer: What makes metrics a tough nut to crack is that viral/buzz marketing must focus on all types of modern media not just web, email, or Internet. It has to reach the customer where they are, when they want it, and in the manner in which they want it (my term is liquid media). That can be SMS, a podcast, social networks, or smart tags. If sales is the ultimate goal, sales/revenue is the final measurement. But, over what period of time? During the campaign, 3 months afterwards, one year? A great viral campaign can influence me to buy months down the road. Justin Kirby: As you probably all know by know I recently chaired the Alternative Marketing & Advertising Conference in Melbourne Australia mostly thanks to my colleague Piers Hogarth-Scot at DMC Australia bringing me up as co-founder of the VBMA. I've also chaired Marketing Week's Non-Traditional Marketing Conference in London in December, and been a panelist at Ad:Tech New York and DM Show in London in November. As you can imagine, I've seen a Heinz 57 Dr. Paul Marsden: Keith, hi - the idea that WOM is a C2C phenomenon is ill-informed and plain wrong. The business classic Diffusion of Innovations (which author Everett Rogers attributes to WOM) is full of B2B examples, as is Tom Peter's Thriving on Chaos. The whole area of change management is a B2B offer and the entire healthcare industry is based on B2B programs between drugs companies and healthcare providers. All are based around the simple idea that product placement research (seeding trials) with internal decision makers is the solution to igniting WOM. There are probably more B2B case studies of WOM than C2C. I suggest you liberate case studies Online viral marketings three main purposes and benefits from a strategic viewpoint are: 1. To maintain or boost a cost-effective level of brand awareness during ATL media spend 'downtime', usually by releasing web-only viral material that retains the brand and campaign themes. 2. To kickstart new marcom activity, which often means releasing a web-first viral edit of a mainstream variety of alternative marketing techniques being presented as the antidote to the fragmented and cluttered media landscape advertisers are now faced with. B2B examples: Obviously (your audience) never heard of Phase IV research in health care marketing where influentials are seeded with products in the name of research. It helped Prozac become the biggest selling prescribed drug ever. Yes consumers use the product but the marketing is B2B.

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ad before it hits TV, in order to create a buzz and exploit the exclusivity factor. 3. As an effective standalone marketing tool for brands that either can't afford ATL marketing, or that require only online distribution to a widespread target group.

enough, but these typically occur when capacity is limited.

Technology markets, for example, are almost like presidential election campaigns, where there's no prize for second place. Winner takes all. In these markets the natural spread of word of mouth must be accelerated.

It's also worth bearing in mind that integrating online viral marketing within the overall marketing mix doesn't mean making sure the campaign's graphics and straplines are the same across all media. It means telling a similar campaign story in slightly different ways across the media used, depending on the specific channel and audience. Online viral marketing is simply another way of telling a story, but in a manner that is appropriate to the peer-to-peer and file-sharing activities that web users engage in.

Having a good product is not enough.

Dont be concerned about boring expert hubs. Dell Computer Corporation came to realize that network hubs are willing to spend twenty minutes with an ad and go through the specs and the features. Thats why Dells ads look like catalogs.

What kind of products lend themselves to buzz? Products that somehow create high involvement among customers: Innovative productslike Netscape, and

George Silverman, Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Word of mouth among business people and professionals (such as physicians, pharmacists, architects, and financial advisors) is very different from word of mouth for relatively low-ticket consumer products. The more expensive and complicated a product is, the more word of mouth comes into play. This is true because these products are more risky in terms of time, money, and potential damage to professional reputation. High-ticket products are not as easily tried as simple consumer products. People have to rely on other people's experience to substitute for all or part of the experience they would get in a trial.

Complex productslike software.

The more connected your customers are to each other, the more you depend on their buzz for future business. To see the full impact of this, look at a company like Cisco that has always served a tightly connected customer base. Cisco sells the hardware devices that glue the Internet together; almost by definition, all of its customers (network administrators and information technology managers) are heavy users of the Internet. "Our company started by word of mouth. There was no advertising," says Keith Fox, vice president of corporate marketing at Cisco. Since 1984, buzz about Cisco has been spreading relentlessly on the Net. Several Internet

Emanuel Rosen, The Anatomy of Buzz: My own experience with buzz has been mostly in the software industry

newsgroups are dedicated to Cisco's products. How do you identify network hubs? Use the acronym ACTIVE. They are Ahead in adoption, Connected,

For buzz to spread, you need two things: a contagious product--one that has some inherent value that makes people talkand someone behind the scenes who accelerates natural contagion. Yes, there are cases where having a great product or service alone is

Travelers, Information-hungry, Vocal, and Exposed to the media more than others. On the topic of connected for examplenetwork hubs in the high-tech industry tend to gravitate toward other network hubs from whom they can get more information (which they then will transmit within their cluster). To find these other

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network hubs, they go to trade shows, join user groups, and hang out in on-line forums that discuss the topics they are interested in. These activities result in additional links to the outside world.

companies over the years. There are two traps companies can fall into. The first is thinking that creating buzz is all about network hubs. If you exclusively focus on the two-step flow model, you can leap to the dangerous conclusion that direct

Gabriel Weimann traces the notion of (WOM) all the way back to the Bible. When Moses complained to God that he could no longer control the people of Israel, God told him to gather seventy men of the elders of Israel and use them to spread the word to the rest of the people. If you subscribe to the belief that were all connected by a chain of no more than six mutual acquaintances then you might want to consider Emanuels math: Even in a small network that consists of only 100 people, there are 4,950 possible links among them. In a network with just 1,000 members there are almost half a million possible links!

communications with your customers is not important. The second potential trap lies in a narrow interpretation of the term network hubs. Almost all companies try to go after network hubs. But theres a big difference between going after an elite group of forty influencers and going after a broad, less visible population of four thousand of them. Numbers make a big difference in getting the word out. Many experts agree that the percentage of opinion leaders on average in the population is about 10 to 15 percent. But in practice, marketers sometimes target just a handful of influencersnot the full 10%.

The best buzz comes not from clever PR or advertising but rather from attributes inherent to the product itself.

The spread of buzz, since it is not always easy to trace, tends to be neglected. To learn how to help create buzz, you should be able to answer these questions: From whom do your clients or customers typically learn about your product? What do people say when they recommend your product? How fast does information about your product spread compared with other products? Who are the network hubs? Where doest the information hit a roadblock? How many sources of information does a customer rely on? Which ones are more important? What other kinds of information spread through the same networks?

Contagious products can be grouped into six categories, as follows: 1. Products that evoke an emotional response. For most products and services it is usually the feeling of excitement and delight you get when your expectations are exceeded. 2. Products that advertise themselves. This type of product creates visual buzz by generating excitement simply by people viewing them in action. 3. Products that leave traces. These are products that self-propagate by leaving traces of themselves behindpaper trails or other evidence of their passing. 4. Products that become more useful as more people use them. Telephone, fax, and email

Its crucial to understand that buzz about a product never spreads as simply as the two-step flow model would indicatefrom company to media and megahubs, and from these hubs to the public. Yet the twostep model has been blithely assumed by countless 6. 5.

are examples. Products that are compatible. Products that fit peoples preexisting beliefs spread faster. Products that do the rest. Products that are easy to use spread faster because customers are hungry for simplicity. Example: Kodaks

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first camera copy line, You press the button, we do the rest. When a customer has to explain just one step, her likelihood of completing the sales pitch successfully is much higher than if she had to describe seven steps.

advertising can also kill buzz when people feel that someone is shoving the message down their throats.

The six rules about ads and buzz: 1. Keep it simple. Message needs to be simple to be easily passed along.

ALWAYS EXCEED EXPECTATIONS!

2.

Tell us whats new. Fluff doesnt travel well. Keep it relevant and news worthy.

Cisco Systems, for example, serves network administrators who virtually live online, so youd expect Cisco to use online methods to spread the word about its products. They do. But Cisco doesnt limit itself to the online world. The company organizes more than one thousand seminars every year to meet potential customers face to face, they organize networking events for their current customers, and they attend dozens of trade shows. Relationships with many customers start via face-to-face communication. The Net is used to maintain those relationships.

3.

Dont make claims you cant support. Dont tell customers you care without proving it.

4.

Ask your customers to articulate whats special about your product or service. Just ask!

5.

Start measuring buzz. Very few ad agencies pretest for conversational impact. Helpful to ask two questions: Will the ad help network hubs answer questions they may get from other people in the networks? Will the ad stimulate members of the network to seek information from network hubs?

6. DOES MADISON AVENUE STILL MATTER? The truth is that very few products can rely on buzz alone. When used correctly, advertising can help buzz. However, its also worth noting that ads can sometimes hurt genuine word of mouth. So in this chapter I want to focus on answering three questions: 1. Can advertising stimulate buzz? Absolutely. A good ad can help get people talking. (The shockvirus approach). It does so by jumpstarting the process, reaching hubs, reassuring buyers, and getting the facts straight. 2. Can advertising simulate buzz? What about ads that masquerade as word of mouth? This is a tricky topic. You have to understand that an ad can hardly ever enjoy the credibility of buzz. Consider the friendly tone, testimonial advertising. 3. Can advertising kill buzz? Although there are many good reasons to advertise, advertising is a tool that should be used very cautiously if you want to promote buzz. Because

Listen to buzz. Monitor the network. Improve messaging.

The extensive buzz about high tech products is also driven by their complexity which makes them difficult to evaluate. Talking with current users of a certain software package helps customers reduce the risk associated with the purchase.

Seth Godin, Unleashing the Ideavirus: Why do some viruses burn out more quickly than others? The simplest reason is that marketers get greedy and forget that a short-term virus is not the end of the process, its the beginning. By nurturing the attention you receive, you can build a self reinforcing virus that lasts and lasts and benefits all involved. Admit that few viruses last forever. Embrace the lifestyle of the virus.

REPORT ON THE FIRST EVER WOMMA SUMMIT Held in Chicago on March 29, 30 was the first ever summit meeting for the newly formed Word Of Mouth

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Marketing Association. (Reprinted from my weblog at www.keithbates.blogspot.com on March 31, 2005)

last minute. The last two days represented an incredible learning experience even to me who has immersed himself in word of mouth and viral marketing for the past four years.

First WOMMA Summit (March 29-30, 2005) a smashing success. Word of mouth marketing is obviously an idea whose time has come.

One of the things I learned, somewhat to my consternation, is that Viral Marketing, which is what I have been pursuing aggressively, is not the end-all of WOM, but in fact a subset of this awesome

On day one of the Summit, in the opening letter from my WOMMA folder I found a message, Theres a sense of history in the air. Can you feel it?

communications tactic. In a very well done hand-out from Greg Wester of Soapbox Marketing he makes the point that we, as WOM practitioners, need to go beyond viral marketing pointing out that VM is a form of

I felt it. And what followed was two of the most rewarding days Ive had in years.

marketing reliant upon the transfer of a pre-fabricated marketing message between and amongst consumers, a form of digital marketing hyped by email technology

As I wrapped up my role of moderator for the last two sessions of an incredible two days I sensed a reluctance to leave among the 350 attendees who jammed Chicagos Intercontinental Hotel. The heart warming camaraderie was coming to a close as the worlds first-ever word of mouth marketing conference came to an end. WOMMA CEO Andy Sernovitz (andy@womma.com) had just pulled off what seemed like an impossible, Herculean task.

providers and advergame developers. He goes on to say that the result of this confusion is that marketers wise enough to focus on improving word of mouth often unwisely limit their scope to viral marketing. Word of mouth marketing includes any marketing where consumers are responsible for the messages content and/or message distribution. Viral is only one form.

This WOMMA conference was the forming of a new industry in America, complete with ethics code,

The closing of the first days session, the halfway point, found nearly 300 people, not at all tired from a days worth of marathon speeches but full of enthusiasm, hopping onto a bus for a long evening of storytelling at the beautiful downtown Chicago Rezas restaurant on West Ontario. This event ran until 10:00 (your author, a little older than most of the crowd, went home at 9:00)

standards council, education council, and buyers guide all readily available at www.womma.org.

A blue ribbon panel of speakers included a stirring presentation by Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki, best selling authors Emanuel Rosen, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, Ed Keller, George Silverman and Mark Hughes plus 47 other luminaries from the world of marketing, advertising and public relations including my

In only a few short months of existence WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) www.womma.com, generated over 100 charter members and rounded up attendees from all over the world (Austria, Brazil, Canada, Poland, Singapore are only a few of the dozen the author can recall) to fill the Grand Ballroom. With no advertising, using word of mouth only, WOMMA outgrew the original venue and had to relocate at the

friend Paul Rand, head of Ketchums global technology practice and developer of IRM (Influencer Relations Management).

An exhilarating time was had by all. In addition to the exciting presentations, and very-well done (and brief) PowerPoints, was an exciting luncheon exercise put on by Jackie Huba, co-author of Creating Customer

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Evangelists. Jackie and Ben have written a small paperback supplement to their big book and handed out copies to everyone over a box lunch on Wednesday to support a little exercise. Each person was assigned a table and then a chapter within the book to study and discuss per a round table discussion. The comments and results were then gathered for review by the WOMMA group for publishing. It made for a very vocal, fun filled lunch hour.

perhaps most appropriately traditional Product Managers should morph into, or assume the additional duties of, Word of Mouth Manager. I think the key issue is that full responsibility must reside with a single empowered individual who should be as close to the CEO as the CMO or closer!

Todays blog is totally inadequate for presenting all the great material that speakers shared with the audience but a few that stood out from my own personal

One point made repeatedly that I think is important to share is the issue of whether WOM is a BtoC or BtoB phenomenon. The answer is both! It is equally effective whether consumer or business focused. Because the consumer approach is so highly visible it gets most of the press (Subservient Chicken, Oprahs Pontiacs) but there were endless exciting BtoB stories covering businesses ranging from the pharmaceutical industry to a Chicago area Automotive Consulting Group. When Emanuel Rosen announced from the stage that I was developing a white paper on WOM to be published by the newly formed ITA (Illinois Information Technology Association-- formerly the Chicago Software Association), I was approached by innumerable people offering me their cards with promises of BtoB stories to share.

perspective were the following:

From Andy Sernovitz, WOMMA CEO, in his opening remarks: there are two visions of the future concerning what we do, our industry, and our jobs and we must make a conscious choice regarding each as we move forward. Do we, as WOM practitioners, want to be viewed as the voice of the consumeror manipulators? As partners in a unified WOM industry or isolated niche specialists? As marketing prosor experimenters on the edge? In order for the WOM industry to grow and flourish it is obvious that we must vigorously pursue the former alternative in each case, and vigorously reject the latter.

From Pete Blackshaw of Intelliseek, cofounder of WOMMA: Consumer-Generated Media (CGM)

Another important point that was made is that WOM is now a mainstream marketing tool, part of the total marcom mix, not necessarily limited to the domain of PR firms, or marketing companies, or ad agencies but to anyone who has an interest in marketing communications that can put the process in motion. Its not always the fastest, but it is by far the most potent. And in fact it is typically better started by an internal company evangelist and then supported, or sustained, by outside professionals.

describes a variety of new sources of online information that are created, initiated, circulated and used by consumers intent on educating each other about products, brands, services, personalities and issues.

Ever growing in number and format on the Internet, CGM refers to any number of online word-of-mouth vehicles, including but not limited to: consumer-toconsumer email, postings on public Internet discussion boards and forums, consumer ratings web sites or forums, blogs (short for weblogs, or digital diaries), moblogs (sites where users post digital

A title that should soon be appearing on the client side, in addition to VP or Director of Marketing, should be Online Community Manager, Customer Evangelist, or

images/photos/movies), social networking web sites and individual web sites. Although influenced or stimulated by traditional marketers and marketing

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activities, online word of mouth is nonetheless owned and controlled by consumers, and it often carries far higher credibility and trust than traditional media, especially as media channels become more fragmented and less trusted. The growth of its influence poses challenges and opportunities for marketers.

pay for.

From Rick Murray of Edelman, five words to consider: Insight, into consumers. Creativity, bellwether of great campaigns. Integration, of PR, ads, clients. Measurement, because we need to know what a home run looks like before we start the game. Courage, to

From Emanuel Rosen, ten questions to ask yourself before your next marcom campaign: 1) Does this product lend itself to WOM? 2) Are we reinforcing the concept and the message behind the product? 3) Can we release information gradually? 4) Are we giving our customers something to talk about? 5) Do we give them an opportunity to get involved? 6) Are we making it easy to spread the word? 7) Can we stimulate interaction between customers? 8) Can we identify network hubs by category? By their activism? Through surveys? 9) Are we seeding the networks? 10) How is this campaign going to affect the network hubs credibility?

break with tradition.

From Keith Bates: If youre reading my blog regularly you know that it was established almost two years ago to share my knowledge and experience with both viral marketing and word of mouth and that its goal has been to help readers understand the process well enough to know where to turn for help. Awareness of word of mouth is growing exponentially in the press and in the marketplaceand now you have the best resource anywhere ... www.womma.org.

Visit their site, join the organization. Read the PowerPoint PDFs soon to be available from the

Another note: For all of us who grew up in direct response you may want to know that WOM lends itself particularly well to test marketing. In other words build a small flame first, and then use it to fan the flames of a conflagrationafter learning what your market responds to.

Summit. Tell Andy that Keith sent you. Participate, and share your experiences so that all of us who believe in the power of WOM can do an even better job for our clients and our customers. A big two thumbs up for WOMMA, and for Andy Sernovitz.

WOMMA published its draft Ethics Code for the And in taking your product to market keep in mind that while case studies are important, stories resonate better, because all people are innate story tellers. word of mouth marketing industry on February 9, 2005. This is a first step in the complicated process of building an industry based on consumer respect and fundamental ethical principles. The essence of the From David Ries of DEI, eight simple rules of WOM: 1) treat people like theyre smart and savvybecause they are. 2) relate to people as individuals. 3) reach people on their terms. 4) give people a way to tell you what they thinkand take it seriously when they do. 5) conversation/test is the new medium. 6) useful information is the currency of influence. 7) let go of corporate control of the message. 8) you get what you WOMMA Code comes down to the Honesty ROI: Honesty of Relationship: You say who you're speaking for Honesty of Opinion: You say what you believe Honesty of Identity: You never obscure your identity. For more information visit www.womma.org

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WOMS NATURE as prescribed by its authors and practitioners

Regis McKenna, Word of Mouth Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point Seth Godin, Unleashing the Ideavirus Emanuel Rosen, The Anatomy of Buzz George Silverman, The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing Jackie Huba/Ben McConnell, Creating Customer Evangelists Ed Keller and Jon Berry, The Influentials Paul Rand, Ketchum Viral+Buzz Marketing Association Andy Sernovitz, WOMMA

Keith Bates is personally acquainted with nearly all of the people above, many of whom have had a powerful influence in shaping his knowledge and opinions regarding word of mouth and viral marketing over the past four years.

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Regis McKenna, Word of Mouth

The difference between word of mouth and all other forms of communication include: It is an experienced process, rather than an observed one. The message in word of mouth is embodied in a living, breathing, emotional person.
HOW TO START A WORDOF-MOUTH CAMPAIGN The Message. Word of mouth is not appropriate for all communication. The message itself has to be developed and analyzed. Word of mouth is most effective when one wants to build credibility and establish lasting ties or when commitment is most critical. It is effective when the message must carry intangibles such as commitment, credibility appeal, adaptability and support. Segmentation. You must break down the network into manageable pieces and identify major influences within each segment. This task must be done by knowledgeable, experienced people. Unlike other promotional tools, word of mouth requires someone who "knows" the influencing factors. Analyze the segment. Ask the question, "How does information pass within each segment and how are the segments linked?" Then ask, "Who are the most influential people within each segment?" Pick the targets. Make a list of the 20 or 30 major influences and assign the most credible members of the organization to deliver the message.

The message is tuned to the individual listener. It is changed, simplified, altered, embellished and verified for each person. The credibility of the speaker carries over to the message immediately. Experts can be used in this medium without the negative effect of commercializing his or her position and message. Efficiency; While word of mouth takes time to disseminate, the message is delivered directly to those who must use me information and act on it. Feedback is instantaneous: agreement, disagreement, understanding, not understanding.

THE 90-10 RULE By now one might be saying, "Okay, by talking to everyone in the world we can better communicate our message. That's not practical or possible:' Right! But the 90-10 rule states that 90 percent of the world is influenced by the other 10 percent. There are probably no more than 20 or 30 people in any one industry who have a major impact on trends, standards, opinion and a company's image or character. Certainly we know this is true in the media and financial community. While there may be dozens of magazines and mountains of analysis covering an industry, only several have real influence and impact. This is true within companies as well. A relatively few people hold the key to power in any organization. This is not to say that these key influences are easy to reach. A memo may reach them easier, but credible word-of-mouth approach will be far more influential and effective.

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Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point

In this brilliant and groundbreaking book, New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Ideas, behavior, messages, and products, he argues, often spread like outbreaks of infectious disease. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a few fare-beaters CONTENTS 1. The Three Rules of Epidemics. 2. The Law of the Few: Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen 3. The Stickiness Factor: Sesame Street, Blue's Clues, and the Educational Virus 4. The Power of Context (Part One): Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime 5. The Power of Context (Part Two): The Magic Number One Hundred and Fifty 6. Case Study: Rumors, Sneakers, and the Power of Translation 7. Case Study: Suicide, Smoking, and the Search for the Unsticky Cigarette 8. Conclusion: Focus, Test, and Believe and graffiti artists fuel a subway crime wave, or a satisfied customer fill the empty tables of a new restaurant. These are social epidemics, and the moment when they take off, when they reach their critical mass, is the Tipping Point. Gladwell introduces us to the particular personality types who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends, the people who create the phenomenon of word of mouth. He analyzes fashion trends, smoking, children's television, direct mail, and the early days of the American Revolution for clues about making ideas infectious, and visits a religious commune, a successful high-tech company, and one of the world's greatest salesmen to show how to start and sustain social epidemics. What You'll Learn In The Tipping Point: Directions for reaching a Tipping Point. You'll learn how the three rules of the Tipping Point -- the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context -- offer a way of making sense of epidemics. How to choose the people who will spread the epidemic. Spreading the word depends on people who are either experts or possessed with a rare set of social gifts. You'll learn how to identify mavens, connectors, and salesmen (persuaders). The importance of memorable product exposure. The Presentation is everything. If your product is not inherently exciting you must position your message so that it is, and has the ability to move people. Understanding the power of context. You'll learn to become sensitive to the circumstances and conditions of times and places, those specific and relatively small elements in the environment can serve as Tipping Points. The paradox of the epidemic (viral marketing) is that in order to create one contagious movement; you often have to create many small movements first.

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Seth Godin, Unleashing the Ideavirus

If you don't have time to read the whole book, here's what it says: Marketing by interrupting people isn't cost-effective anymore. You can't afford to seek out people and send them unwanted marketing messages, in large groups, and hope that some will send you money. Instead, the future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people What Youll Learn In Unleashing The Ideavirus Why ideas matter. In this section you'll learn about the holy grail for people who deal in ideas, how to create an environment where consumers market to each other, the key steps to building a virus, 6 reasons why ideaviruses are so important, 5 things ideaviruses have in common, and 7 ways an ideavirus can help you. How to unleash an ideavirus. Learn why you must focus on "sneezers" those people best qualified to start an epidemic, why unleashing and ideavirus is more than simple word of mouth, and thirteen question ideavirus marketers must have answered. Understanding the ideavirus formula. How to tweak the formula and make it work plus a look at the eight underlying variables that impact success. can market to each other. Ignite consumer networks and then get out of the way and let them talk. Why Ideas Matter. The holy grail for anyone who traffics in ideas is this: to unleash an ideavirus. An idea that just sits there is worthless. But an idea that moves and grows and infects everyone it touches ...that's an ideavirus. An ideavirus is a big idea that runs amok across the target audience. Word of mouth is not new it's just different now. Ideaviruses give us increasing returns, word of mouth dies out, but ideaviruses get bigger. And finally, ideaviruses are the currency of the future. While ideaviruses aren't new, they're important because we're obsessed with the new, and an ideavirus is always about the new. The key steps for Internet companies looking to build a virus are:

Create a newsworthy online experience that's either totally new or makes the user's life much better. Or makes an offline experience better/faster/cheaper so that switching is worth the hassle.

Have the idea behind your online experience go viral, bringing you a large chunk of the group you're targeting without having to spend a fortune advertising the new service.

Fill the vacuum in the marketplace with your version of the idea, so that competitors now have a very difficult time of un-teaching your virus and starting their own.

Achieve "lock in" by creating larger and larger costs to switching from your service to someone else's. Get permission from users to maintain an ongoing dialogue so you can turn the original attention into a beneficial experience for users and an ongoing profit stream for you.

Continue creating noteworthy online experiences to further spread new viruses, starting with your core audience of raving fans.

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Emanuel Rosen, The Anatomy of Buzz

Emanuel Rosen, with nine years experience as Marketing VP for a Silicon Valley software company, here illuminates the reality of how "buzz" can be launched and managed so as to more rapidly reach a critical mass (the tipping point) of adopters for one's innovation. CONTENTS Part One. How Buzz Spreads 1. What is Buzz? 2. The Invisible Networks 3. Why We Talk 4. Network Hubs 5. It's a Small World. So What? 6. How Buzz Spreads Part Two. Success In The Networks 7. Contagious Products 8. Accelerating Natural Contagion Part Three. Stimulating Buzz 9. Working with Network Hubs 10. Active Seeding 11. The Elements of a Good Story 12. Viral Marketing 13. Does Madison Avenue Still Matter? 14. Buzz in Distribution Channels 15. Putting It Together 16. Buzz Workshop What You'll Learn In The Anatomy of Buzz How buzz spreads. You'll learn that buzz is all the word of mouth about a brand, which it spreads through invisible networks of very special people, that we talk because we're programmed to talk, and that nothing happens without the establishment of network hubs. You'll also learn the structure of these networks and about the energy and credibility required to make it work. How to assure success. You'll learn that some products evoke and emotional response, some advertise themselves, some leave traces, others become more useful as people use them, products that are compatible, that "do the rest", and the power of gossip. And you'll learn that there's still a need for traditional advertising, promotion and PR to accelerate the whole process but that the timing of this stuff is critical. It's called Leapfrogging, and it builds momentum. How to stimulate the spread of buzz. You'll learn how to identify and nurture network hubs, the importance and techniques of "seeding", the importance of having a good story. You'll learn to think of viral marketing as a buzz accelerator and that very few products can rely on buzz alone. But ads can hurt as well as help. Plus skills at channel deployment. And lastly examples of people who did it and how, followed by a Buzz Workshop chapter that Seth Godin says "by itself is worth the entire price of the book!" Does Madison Avenue still matter? Yes! The truth is that very few products can rely on buzz alone. Six rules about ads and buzz: keep it simple, tell us what's new, don't make claims you can't support, ask your customers to articulate what's special about your product or service, start measuring buzz, and listen to the buzz. Can advertising kill buzz? Yes, if it's shoved down their throats, or perceived to be dishonest.

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George Silverman, The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing

Twenty-Eight Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing #1. Selling is mostly an illusion. #2. By influencing word of mouth directly, sales can routinely be increased three to ten times or more! #3. Single most effective method for speeding up decisions is word of mouth. #4. Word of mouth is as easy to structure and use as traditional advertising. #5. Word of mouth is literally thousands of times as powerful as advertising. #6. Word of mouth is paradoxically the most powerful and most neglected force in marketing. #7. It is almost impossible for your product to succeed unless it has massive positive word of mouth. #8. Word of mouth either explodes at an exponential rate or it fizzles. #9. There are over a dozen reasons why word of mouth is so powerful. All of these reasons, once understood, can be turned to your advantage. #10. The overriding characteristic that gives word of mouth its power: word of #11. There are many different types of word of mouth, all potentially controllable. #12. Different types of decision makers need different types of word of mouth at each stage of the decision cycle. #13. As important as content is, the sequence and source are just as important. #14. There are basically two levels of word of mouth, expert and peer, and their relative power varies at different stages of the decision cycle. #15. In word of mouth marketing, confirmation and verification are more important that information. #16. In word of mouth marketing, you are navigating spheres of influence. #17. Experts are more approachable that ordinary people, but only through total honesty. #18. Credibility is more important in an expert than fame. #19. There are many reliable mechanisms for delivering word of mouth. #20. Word of mouth must be approach systematically, as a campaign. #21. The word of mouth among your sales force can be more important than the word of mouth among your customers. #22. There is a specific way to research the naturally occurring word of mouth so that you can identify exactly what your customers are actually saying. #23. There is a way to experiment with ways to influence the natural word of mouth and verify that it is in fact persuasive. #24. There are many ways of producing and delivering "canned" word of mouth that are almost as powerful as live, spontaneous word of mouth. #25. Paradoxically, in word of mouth, unlike in conventional marketing, negatives can be more reassuring than positives about the product. #26. "Word-of-mouth advertising is a contradiction in terms. #27. In word of mouth marketing, any perceived attempt to influence the content will totally invalidate the communication. #28. The usual rules of advertising and salesmanship are often counterproductive in word of mouth marketing.

CONTENTS CHAPTER 1-Dominating Your Market By Shortening The Customer Decision Cycle CHAPTER 2-The Power of Word of Mouth CHAPTER 3-The Nine Levels of Word of Mouth CHAPTER 4-Harnessing Word of Mouth CHAPTER 5-Using Word of Mouth to Speed the Decision Process CHAPTER 6-Delivering the Message CHAPTER 7-Viral Marketing CHAPTER 8-Researching Word of Mouth CHAPTER 9-Constructing a Word-of-Mouth Campaign CHAPTER 10-Word of Mouth, the "Tried and True" Way CHAPTER 11-Campaign Methods That Work Best t CHAPTER 12-Practical Tips and Suggestions CHAPTER 13-The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing CHAPTER 14-An Allegory: The Emperor's New Marketing CHAPTER 15-The Future

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Jackie Huba/Ben McConnell, Creating Customer Evangelists

You are an evangelist. You tell others what movie to see, which computer to purchase, what restaurant to visit, which dentist you prefer, which cell phone to buy, which books to read, which clubs to join. Your recommendations are sincere. Passionate, perhaps. Perhaps you didn't realize that you are an evangelist-a bringer of glad tidings-but your sphere of influence, made up of friends, family, colleagues, and professional communities, realizes it. HOW TO SPOT EVANGELISTS AND WHAT TO DO WITH TH EM People talk about you. They talk about your company, your products and services, and your personality. Many say nice things, and some are absolutely gushy with their praise. Would you like to know who they are? How do you find your evangelists? Short of spy cams and hidden microphones, it's not difficult to find your evangelists. Here are a few ideas. Scan the Web using your favorite search engine and discover where you are mentioned online and by whom. Make note of everyone who compliments your products and services and everyone who criticizes them. For the people who love you, send them a hand-written thank-you note. Invite them in to a special club with other evangelists where they get inside information about products and services. Make them feel extra special. For those who take issue with your products or services, find a way to contact them via e-mail or ask if it's OK to talk on the phone. The difference between an unhappy customer and an evangelist is often just a phone call. More than anything, unhappy customers just want to be heard and acknowledged. Grant an unhappy customer that wish. Ask prospective customers specifically how they discovered you. If it was from a friend or colleague, ask the prospect for the name of the referrer. Keep detailed records of how people discovered you. With some of our clients, we create a Buzz Map, which illustrates the actual routes of how they landed customers via word of mouth. A map of customer connections quickly illuminates your biggest evangelists. If you have an opt-in e-mail list, add a field that asks how people discovered you. Continually refine the quantifiable nature of this field. You want to gather as much information as possible from this field, especially if the referrals are from people. Those are your evangelists! Be an active participant in e-mail discussion lists and online bulletin boards that your customers frequent. Watch for customers who post recommendations about you. Cultivate relationships with them. Keep them in your loop.
And from Guy Kawasaki Sales is rooted in whats good for me. Evangelism is rooted in whats good for you.

From their research into the best practices of some of the most forward-thinking companies, McConnell and Huba outline and explain the six basic tenets of creating customer evangelists: Customer plus-delta: Continuously gather customer feedback. Napsterize knowledge: Make it a point to share knowledge freely. Build the buzz: Expertly build word-of-mouth networks. Create community: Encourage communities of customers to meet and share. Make bite-size chunks: Devise specialized, smaller offering to get customers to bite. Create a cause: Focus on making the world, or your industry, better.

Use Web site tracking software to understand how Web site visitors discover you. If customers, prospects, fans, or evangelists link to your site, do not send them a cease-and-desist letter. This creates customer vigilantes, not customer evangelists. Do not let your corporate counsel argue that fan sites contribute to brand dilution. This is pure crap espoused by prosecutorial-minded lawyers intent on making customers play by ridiculous notions of trademark protection. (Note: Protect your trademarks against competitors, not customers.) En- courage links to your site, wherever fans would like to create them. Provide fans with pictures of your products, logos, movies, animations-anything that makes them feel connected to you. They are your volunteer sales force.

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Ed Keller and Jon Berry, The Influentials

One American in ten tells the other nine how to vote, where to eat, and what to buy. They are The Influentials. Who are they? The most influential Americans-- the ones who tell their neighbors what to buy, which politicians to support, and where to vacation--are not necessarily the people you'd expect. They're not America's most affluent 10 percent or best-educated 10 percent. They're not the "early adopters," always the first to try everything from Franco-Polynesian fusion cooking to digital cameras. They are, however, the 10 percent of Americans most engaged in CONTENTS 1. Who Are The Influentials? 2. The Influential Personality. 3. The Influence Spiral: How Influentials Get And Spread Ideas. 4. The Message Of Influentials: The Age Of Autonomy And The Rise Of SelfReliance. 5. The Influential Vision: Seven Trends For The Future. 6. Developing An Influential Strategy: Six Rules For Getting Into The Conversation. their local communities . . . and they wield a huge amount of influence within those communities. They're the campaigners for open-space initiatives. They're church vestrymen and friends of the local public library. They're the Influentials . . . and whether or not they are familiar to you, they're very well known to the researchers at RoperASW. For decades, these researchers have been on a quest for marketing's holy grail: that elusive but supremely powerful channel known as word of mouth. What they've learned is that even more important than the "word"--what is said, is the "mouth"--who says it.

SIX RULES FOR GETTING INTO THE CONVERSATION

WHAT'S YOUR INFLUENTIAL STRATEGY?" If you've not asked yourself this question already, you should. To succeed today, you need to connect with the people who are at the center of the conversation. Business, government, and nonprofit organizations need to have influential strategies just as they need marketing, advertising, public relations, promotion, or Internet strategies. Specifically, you should make sure you are reaching the decision makers who are influential in others' decisions. You should know where the opinion leaders get their ideas--the kinds of publications they read, the programs they watch, the radio stations they listen to, and the Web sites they go to. You should make sure you don't have the door shut when opinion leaders come to you with a complaint or question. You should be out in the community to make sure you're listening to opinion leaders' concerns. You should pay attention to what's happening in opinion leaders' lives, the issues that opinion leaders are reading up on, the problems they are focused on, and their short-and long-term goals. Companies should be asking themselves if their products and services, environmental stance, and corporate practices are consonant with opinion leaders' expectations. What the opinion leaders say and think about companies has more of an impact on what their customers are thinking and doing than companies realize.

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Paul Rand,
Partner, Director, Global Technology Practice, and Managing Director, Chicago office

Ketchum Public Relations

NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2003 - Ketchum, capturing the growing importance of influencers in shaping buying decisions, today launched Ketchum Influencer Relationship ManagementSM (Ketchum IRM). The proprietary program identifies and reaches that select group of people who, for each company or organization,
"In a time when people drown in information, influentials play a crucial role in how people think and act. They serve to filter and validate information for people who want trusted counsel," said Paul M. Rand, a Ketchum partner and leader of the IRM development team. "Ketchum IRM becomes a marketer's new currency in strengthening relationships with its most powerful and vocal advocates." Ketchum used to draw up lists of 2,000-3,000 names, but the IRM system focuses on 150200- "the cream of the crop," said Paul Rand, director of Ketchum's global technology practice in Chicago and head of the IRM practice. 'We as an industry are going through a big evolution; what typically worked in the past does not necessarily work today," said Rand.

mold the perceptions and behaviors of customers and decision makers. The global initiative features a customized Web-based portal to manage and measure relationships with these influencers. Ketchum IRM embraces a proven seven-step process and a proprietary technology infrastructure. The secure portal database, overseen by a certified Ketchum team, captures key data on each influencer, making it simple to manage the program's progress. The offering reflects Ketchum's extensive experience helping companies work more closely with the key individuals and small groups that can affect -positively or negatively -- broad market perceptions and behaviors quickly and directly. Several Fortune 500 companies have piloted the program successfully to accelerate the effectiveness of their overall marketing campaigns. Ketchum IRM extends far beyond traditional influencers such as media, government and analysts to include others whose opinions and advice people trust highly. Researchers at RoperASW indicate that consumers and buyers increasingly look to this mix of key individuals or small groups possessing specific, relevant knowledge that can help simplify how they think and act. "Today, a fragmented market has made it possible for buyers and decision makers to opt out of mass-market advertising, which means a different route must be taken to capture their hearts and minds," said Ed Keller, chief executive officer of RoperASW and co-author of The Influentials: One American in Ten Tells the Other Nine How to Vote, Where to Eat, and What to Buy. "The Ketchum IRM program is a thoughtful and organized approach to help get influencers on your side." Directly reaching consumers, buyers and other key targets is getting tougher. The typical consumer faces information overload, bombarded by 10,000 to 30,000 commercial messages daily, plus an additional 200 or so personalized messages in the form of phone calls, e-mails, faxes and memos. Add recent questioning of corporate credibility to this mix and it's easy to see why an outbreak of recent books, articles and stories question the value of simply using current mass-advertising and mass-marketing strategies while highlighting the growing importance of influencers.

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VBMA Global
(Viral + Buzz Marketing Association)
marketing association

viral+buzz

VBMA Manifesto 1: Mission and Affiliation All members of the VBMA share the conviction that Viral Marketing, Buzz Marketing and Word-of-Mouth Marketing (and other related marketing approaches that harness network-enhanced word of mouth) are based on the principles outlined below, and that we work constantly on improving these marketing techniques:

The Viral & Buzz Marketing Association (VBMA) is an international group for the development, validation and promotion of consumer-oriented marketing trends and techniques.
Our members are viral and buzz marketing practitioners and academics who specialize in consumerfocused marketing. We aim to create international collaborations, swap case studies, develop best practice and dispel the myths surrounding viral and buzz marketing in order to help it become more widely accepted as a credible, key part of brands overall marketing activities. If you would like to apply to join and help drive the VBMA, please click on www.vbma.net All members of the VBMA share the conviction that Viral Marketing, Buzz Marketing and Word-of-Mouth Marketing (and other related marketing approaches that harness network-enhanced word of mouth) are based on the principles outlined on www.vbma.net/mission.html

1) We strive to identify only those people who will be interested in a particular marketing message; deliver the message to them in a way that makes it an enjoyable or valuable experience; provide it in a manner that encourages them to share it with others. We will therefore be providing a benefit to our audiences and their acquaintances and in so doing, to the brands for which we work. 2) Our goal is to foster genuine enthusiasm about brands and brand communications, which can spread through networks in a way that is enjoyed, appreciated and / or valued. 3) We believe that network-enhanced word of mouth has a critical role to play in the future of integrated marketing communications. Marketers need to offer content in the media and through one-to-one connections that the recipients themselves choose to propagate to those that they deem appropriate, thereby eliminating irrelevant, untimely and (as a consequence) annoying marketing messages. 4) We believe that whatever our target, we will always be dealing with educated people who detect when they are being deceived. These people appreciate brands that find smart ways to entertain, educate or inform them. They are well-informed in the area of marketing, peer-to-peer exchange and consumption, enabling them to function as partners and stakeholders in marketing communication activities. As partners, we treat these people with care and respect. We will not only develop or send information or content to them, but will also listen to their opinions. We value their contributions. Our audience-centric vision of connected marketing seeks to put the target networks at the center of marketing. These positions are unifying principles shared by all members of the VBMA. We agree that working in this field is considered acceptable, professional and valuable when these principles are respected. Companies or individuals who do not adhere to these principles are not considered to be carrying out viral/buzz/word-of-mouth marketing by the VBMA.

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Andy Sernovitz, WOMMA

(Word of Mouth Marketing Association)

What is Word of Mouth Marketing? Word of mouth is a pre-existing phenomenon that marketers are only now
WOMMA is Word of Mouth Marketing, Andy Sernovitz its founding CEO. WOMMA is the official trade association for the word of mouth marketing industry. WOMMAs mission is to promote and improve word of mouth marketing by: Protecting consumers and the industry with strong ethical guidelines. Promoting WOM as an effective marketing tool. Setting standards to encourage its use. WOMMA members are building a prosperous word of mouth (WOM) marketing profession. Thriving markets are built on best practices, effective standards, and ethical leadership. Those are the qualities that bring WOMMA members together -- and we hope that you will join us if you share these values. You can explore WOMMA at www.womma.org.

learning how to harness, amplify, and improve. Word of mouth marketing isn't about creating word of mouth -- it's learning how to make it work within a marketing objective. That said, word of mouth can be encouraged and facilitated. Companies can work hard to make people happier, they can listen to consumers, they can make it easier for them to tell their friends, and they can make certain that influential individuals know about the good qualities of a product or service. Word of mouth marketing empowers people to share their experiences. It's harnessing the voice of the customer for the good of the brand. And it's acknowledging that the unsatisfied customer is equally powerful. Word of mouth can't be faked or invented. Attempting to fake word of mouth is unethical and creates a backlash, damages the brand, and tarnishes the corporate reputation. Legitimate word of mouth marketing acknowledges consumers intelligence -- it never attempts to fool them. Ethical marketers reject all tactics related to manipulation, deception, infiltration, or dishonesty. All word of mouth marketing techniques are based on the concepts of customer satisfaction, two-way dialog, and transparent communications. The basic elements are: Educating people about your products and services Identifying people most likely to share their opinions Providing tools that make it easier to share information Studying how, where, and when opinions are being shared Listening and responding to supporters, detractors, and neutrals

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to add wings to your marketing, spurs to your sales

ConclusionCall to Action
Now that we understand the concept behind word of mouth marketing and the various tools required for its implementation perhaps its time to consider putting it work for us. Tell me again why I need WOMM. Its not an overnight panacea for inadequate lead flow but it offers a powerful resource for adding credibility to your marketing messages something that is sorely needed in a world that just doesnt want to hear it anymore from traditional marketers. Its the secret weapon behind qualified leads. Why the departure from tradition? Traditional marketing is just not effective anymore because the speed of information diffusion, enabled by the Internet, is weakening the ability of companies to communicate with customers and strengthening the ability of customers to communicate with customers. An effective WOM campaign will establish a foundation process where interested people market to each other. Inspired by Metcalfes law, case studies, and practitioners comments where do we begin? You begin by making an assessment of your product, your market and your needs. This leads to a choice of which is best a corporate contact program to influentials, or a virals program employing customer word of mouth. First, the product. Before considering a viral marketing program take a moment for introspection. What is the buzz that your company wishes to spread, hopefully to epidemic proportions? In ten words or less, what makes your product virusworthy? If you can't come up with an answer fix the product or reposition your marketing message. Next the market. How great is the need? And Understanding network hubs Without a good set of names, researched through both primary and secondary research, you have no place to begin. Its critical that you understand network hubs, so perhaps you should reread that section. If youre ready to put WOM into action revisit www.womma.org not only for its wealth of information but for the listings of resources among its membership. Study the presentations from the recent WOMMA Summit. Ask Andy Sernovitz, CEO, of WOMMA for advice. He knows everybody in the business. Contact him at andy@womma.com. For do-it-yourselfers read Rosens and Silvermans books or at least keep copies handy for questions, and then follow the simple steps outlined on pages 11 through 14. Good luck! Creative is king when launching WOM! Messaging concepts, copy, graphics will largely determine the success of your venture assuming you have something the market needs, and can get excited about. But remember to integrate that messaging within an entire communications support plan which must embrace and include the sales force (whether direct, channel, or OEM) as well. how will the perception of your message be received, i.e. is your product/service really innovative or just incrementally better? And lastly your needs, which are influenced to a certain degree by marketing dollars available. Would a low key, slower moving influencer program do the job? Or do you want to gamble on a fast return viral effort? Many people do both because there is a similarity in the startup procedure relative to the development of a customer and/or influencer database.

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A KBA COMMUNICATIONS SUPPORT PLAN FOCUSED ON WOMM

PREFACE: Keep in mind that the most successful use of WOMM, whether Influential or Viral focused, is not as a standalone tactic but as an integrated part of a brands overall marketing strategy. Note also that this Communications Support Plan should be preceded by the Market Development Strategy Checklist from Paul Wiefels The Chasm Companion, a fieldbook to Geoffrey Moores Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado. Why choose word of mouth marketing? Because traditional advertising is seriously lacking in credibility! And because the ROI metrics are poorly defined. Word of mouth marketing, as defined by Regis McKenna, the guru of technology PR, is the planning and use of established person-toperson relationships. While WOMM / Viral / Buzz are all the same thing there are nuances one should be aware of: WOMM leverages social networks Viral leverages digital networks Buzz leverages media networks Be sure to explore each carefully before making a choice as they can be quite different in nature. The differences: WOM-Influentials is long term and directed to known influentials within both social and media networks. WOM-Viral is short term and directed to unknown user / prospect recipients after online seeding to a small known base. Deliverables required for both influentials and viral recipients: Prospect database A noteworthy product/service Powerful creative concepts I. INTRODUCTION Program Name, Brief Description, Definitions, Target Audiences, and Launch Date, Summary: WOM choice rationale Influentials: The 90-10 Rule Virals: The 3 Rules: stickiness, law of the few, context Developing network hubs 7 Steps to an Influentials plan 7 Steps to a Virals plan Tracking: monitor effect, assess the return from cost of developing viral agent and seeding.

II. PLANNING COMPONENTS OF THE KBA MARCOM ENGINE One: AUDIT Marketing Focused Checklist Target customer / influencer Compelling reason to buy / influence Whole product, or a component Partners and allies Distribution Pricing Competition Positioning Communications Focused Checklist Segmentation of Network Hubs External--one voice Internalshared vision Two: STRATEGY Communications audiencedefined Reason to buythe 5 whys Communications Objective Create awareness, interest, then buzz among key influentials in client community. Generate excitement, then enthusiasm for sharing of an online viral presentation. Communications Strategies Develop Strategy Statement short forms for both Influencer Relations and Viral Advertising Key message / USP Reasons to believe Accelerated contagion / Blitz Influencer Relations Tactics Segmentation of influencers Influencer analysis Benchmarking and metrics Keeping in touch: personal and impersonal Measurement & management Viral Marketing Tactics Create viral agent and how to spread (text, image, or video). Seeding: ID websites, blogs, people to send email to.

Three: A CREATIVE REPOSITORY IS DEVELOPED TO SUPPORT THEME/IMAGE STANDARDS AND THE CREATIVE PLATFORM Craft messages for influencers. Craft integrated ad messages and images across all components of interactive and traditional marketing efforts. Craft mega hub/PR messages. Craft seminar copy, speeches to various market segment leaders, white papers, etc.

III. EXECUTION COMPONENTS OF THE KBA MARCOM ENGINE One: ARSENAL WOM-Influentials Personalized correspondence, email, direct response efforts, samples, info kits, articles of interest, awards, conferences, briefings, webinars, road trips, lunch and dinners, group brainstorming, testimonials, facilities visit, CEO summit meetings at HQ. WOM-Viral advertising 20 to 30 second viral, incentives to participate, email support Two: DEPLOYMENT OF THE PROCESS Development of Time Lines and Scheduling To seeding resources for virals To network Hubs for influencers Place ads, mail, email, broadcast fax, telemarketing, etc. (elements of 90 Day Blitz) Promote seminars Plan for trade shows Build chat rooms Dependencies. Issues to Be Resolved. Three: TRACKING, TESTING & KEEPING BUZZ ALIVE Its hard to get it going, still harder to maintain Focus, test, and believe

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