Shared consumer experiences can make or break your brand when it comes to WOM. See how to increase your chances of getting on your customers good sides.
It's incredible to think that not too long ago, when I had a great experience with a new product or a comment about how a hotel might improve customer service, I took the time to research an appropriate company contact, write a letter expressing my opinion and mail it. I would even wonder, with no good way to find out, if other consumers may have had a similar experience.
Today, communicating with a brand has new meaning. The millions of conversations taking place online pose a tremendous opportunity for brand owners to engage with their target audience, resulting in invaluable brand equity. But there are right ways and wrong ways to join the conversation if you want to proliferate favorable brand perception, or turn consumer criticisms back in your favor.
Connect with contemporary consumers
Consumers discussing their opinions online tend to navigate to very specific affinity groups. Understanding these groups and how they relate to your brand is the first step towards executing an online word-of-mouth marketing campaign.
To discover where a target audience resides online, brand owners can evaluate psychographic variables, such as personality, values, attitudes, interests or lifestyles, and use the results to create social forums (websites, blogs, forums, etc.) that feature the brand prominently.
The internet is a continuously evolving social landscape, though, and it can be extremely challenging to keep up with the new environments and websites where you can reach your most receptive consumers. For this reason, outsourcing a word-of-mouth initiative is an attractive option for companies of various sizes.
A great example is OPI's word-of-mouth marketing campaign with SheSpeaks to raise awareness and excitement around Nic's Sticks nail polishes. OPI targeted 25-50-year-old women on the SheSpeaks network who indicated a strong interest in beauty products, sending them information about the new product as well as special offers. As a result the company reported that each SheSpeaks program member told an average of 10 friends about Nic's Sticks.
Avoid marketing speak
It is just as important to understand how your consumers are talking as it is to identify where they are online. For example, it is critical and ethical that a brand identify itself when entering a conversation, so there can be no accusations of subterfuge.
Also, each online community usually has its own slang, buzz words and terms, so it's important that each communication be crafted to fit in with the predetermined lingo, rather than trying to use re-purposed ad copy.
Create "social currency"
Your word-of-mouth campaign should have a compelling story, a reason for communicating with your customers online, in order to generate what we call the "social currency." This is the nugget of information that interests the consumer and entices them to pass along your brand message.
A great example of this social currency is the Oreo cookie "What's the Second Sport" integrated marketing program. The Oreo brand created a humorous and compelling campaign around the anticipated announcement of football's famous Manning brothers taking up a second sport -- the Oreo Double Stuf Racing League ("DSRL"). To build buzz around the announcement, Oreo supplemented its traditional national television media with newly created viral elements, such as teaser videos of the Mannings on major video sharing sites, the ability for consumers to vote on what the second sport was and an interactive element called Yoobles, where consumers could create an animated alter ego in the Double Stuf Racing League. It was the combination of a compelling story and smart viral elements that greatly contributed to consumers becoming engaged in conversations about the program and sharing that information with friends.
Don't shy away from consumer criticism
Brand owners should also consider online WOM campaigns for countering negative perceptions about their products, or the brand on a whole. For example, when a major internet service provider engaged consumers online about a new product launch, customers took the opportunity to voice concerns about customer service and performance issues surrounding the previous version of the product. The proactive outreach campaign by the ISP gave consumers a forum to air their grievances, receive answers and, most importantly, be assured that the new version of the product was worth a trial.
Is your industry is a good fit for WOM?
The entertainment and consumer electronics industries are natural fits for WOM, and with heightened consumer interest in do-it-yourself projects and cooking, other categories like food, beverages, packaged goods and home products are also great candidates.
However, one industry that requires special consideration is children's products. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulates marketing to kids through The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), so there are a lot of outside considerations when using word of mouth in the kiddie sector. But influencing their parents is a tactic that has proven to be successful for some companies. Kabillion, the first multi-platform kids network for broadband and video on demand, as an example, used WOM marketing in order to drive new sign-ups by reaching out to parents through targeted blogs and social networks to educate them about the new service and why their kids would like it.
Keep the lines of communication open
While many marketing efforts are one-way conversations from the brand or agency to the consumer, word-of-mouth marketing should be a two-way engagement, offering market intelligence and insider status in return for valuable consumer insight. In fact, according to new research from BlogHer and Compass Partners, 35 percent of women aged 18 to 75 participate in the blogosphere weekly. The study also reported that, of online women, 53 percent read blogs, 37 percent post comments and 28 percent write or update blogs.
A good WOM marketer will understand this and ask the right questions while engaging with consumers, in addition to having the methods in place to record and quantify this data. It is this valuable market intelligence that is gathered throughout the course of a word-of-mouth campaign and distinguishes it from other, more traditional marketing tactics, such as buzz marketing.
Maximize effective tactics and messaging by changing your campaign
Real-time consumer feedback enables brand owners to revise messaging or strategy at any point during a campaign — a great way to constantly make your campaign more intuitive and successful.
For example, one of our clients encouraged consumers to pre-order a soon-to-be-launched teeth whitening product. While the tactic that did not result in significant sales for that product immediately, the conversation did bring the process of teeth whitening top of mind -- and drove consumers directly into stores to buy a competing product that was currently available. If the brand owner had already purchased print or TV advertising, it would have been impossible to change the direction of the message, but with the feedback from online WOM, the client was able to make a strategic revision, pause the existing efforts and relaunch the campaign once its the product became available.
Conclusion
Consumers have very powerful voices, and they might just be telling you something critical to the success of your brand. So knowing your audience, understanding where they reside online and engaging with them in an honest and compelling manner will not only help to humanize your brand, but will get consumers talking about it both online and off.
By Lou Cuming
