Word of Mouth Marketing

Word of Mouth Marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing refers to the company's efforts to enable consumers to spread their product information and brands through exchanges between friends and family . This marketing method is characterized by a high success rate and strong credibility. This marketing method, which uses word of mouth as a channel, is called word of mouth marketing. Analyzing from the practical level of corporate marketing , word-of-mouth marketing is a market in which companies use various effective means to trigger corporate customers to talk and communicate about their products, services, and the overall corporate image, and to encourage customers to introduce and recommend to their surrounding populations Marketing methods and processes.

Trend catchers, mainstream consumers of product consumption, even if they are the first to experience the reliability and superiority of the product, they will immediately disseminate the product's own texture, raw materials, and effects to the surrounding circle of friends, or product companies, businesses 5S The systematic and thoughtful service experience tells the people around, and then leads others to follow a new product, a popular song or a new business.

P & G ’ s Tremor advertising campaign has recently attracted attention and discussion from all parties. We feel that Tremor advertising has achieved a “potential” in word-of-mouth marketing, relying on everyone ’s encouragement and incitement to increase product awareness. P & G has invested some time and energy. But realized the low-cost strategy of word-of-mouth marketing.

We are convinced that by encouraging the consumer elite, combined word-of-mouth and expansion of word-of-mouth can drive consumption and make products extremely influential. Indeed, brand companies such as Procter & Gamble , Amway , Wuliangye, etc. have been working hard on word-of-mouth marketing. On the one hand, they mobilized all resources to encourage consumers to buy; on the other hand, they tried their best to expand their word-of-mouth marketing mix and expand their audience , Carry out "one-on-one", "personal" combined word-of-mouth marketing tactics to reduce operating costs and expand consumption.

People who convey information have no sincerity, word-of-mouth marketing is ineffective and loses the significance of word-of-mouth communication . Any company that hopes to achieve brand promotion through word-of-mouth communication must try to carefully modify its products and improve the sound and efficient service value concept in order to achieve the best results of word-of-mouth marketing.

When a consumer first comes into contact with a new product, he first asks himself: 'Is this product worthy of my publicity? 'Valuable is their passport to keep their foothold in the market, so what they have to be “word of mouth” must be something they can trust and be valuable. "

When a product's information or experience is easily talked about, and the product can naturally enter people's conversation after dinner, we think that the product is valuable and therefore easy to form a reputation.

Disseminated products are valuable. For enterprises, companies need to have a reasonable orientation, so that early adopters of the market have a focus and a correct understanding of the product in order to fully express the value of the company's products.

When consumers obtain product information and generate purchases through the media and word of mouth, they hope to get corresponding returns. If the products or services provided by profitable enterprises and institutions make the audience really feel good value for money, then the products or services will be smoothly and short-term. Promote the concept to the market and achieve the purpose of low-cost profit.

It is the dream of business operators to enable every customer to extol the "virtue" of their business. But is the formation of word-of-mouth all purely accidental and totally spontaneous? McKinsey marketing expert management company in London, the hot-Dai (Renee Dye) and her colleagues analyzed 50 studies after sales cases found that word of mouth advertising manufacture explosive demand, and by no means accidental coincidence, but there are a few rules to follow . Enterprises can fully predict the spread of word-of-mouth advertising by analyzing the interaction and interaction between consumers, making it networked, knowledgeable, and global . This requires our marketing to pay great wisdom.

Not all products are suitable for word-of-mouth marketing, and word-of-mouth marketing plays a different role in different products. According to the analysis of authoritative survey companies, from the perspective of the types of products that people are willing to disseminate, "clothing, shoes and hats" (53.4%), " daily goods" (46.7%), "home appliances" (39.2%) and "food / beverage "(37.1%) became the main product topic people talk about. Further analysis found that the products communicated by people of different ages and genders are different: younger people often talk about information about "clothing, shoes and hats," especially among respondents aged 18-25, who communicate with others "Clothing, Shoes and Hats" (61.7%), "Mobile Phones / Pagers" (50.7%), "Cosmetics" (41.5%), "Computers" (40.9%) and "Audiovisual Products" (38.8%), younger than 25 The level of information exchange among people is much higher than that of other age groups; with the increase of age, " daily merchandise ", "food" and "housing" gradually become the main products for people to communicate; "clothing, shoes and hats" ( 65.3%), "daily commodities" (54.8%), and "cosmetics" (44.2%) are the most popular topics for women to communicate with, while men often talk about "home appliances" (50.6%), "mobile phones / pagers" ( 45.3%) and information on "housing" (42.0%).

Therefore, in order to make more effective use of word of mouth, all marketing activities should be targeted at these groups who are more willing to disseminate such products, and first disseminate the information that these groups are most concerned about. Gené Dai advises marketing experts to pay attention to two criteria: first, the product must have a certain uniqueness, appearance, function, use, price, etc .; second, the product must have the potential for word-of-mouth advertising to make the advertisements look great mouth.

A slogan was written on the message board in each office 　　at Dell's headquarters: "Customer Experience: Grasp It." The so-called customer experience, "it is the sum of customer interaction with the company's products, people and processes." That is to put the customer in the whole process of manufacturing, or let the customer enjoy the fun of consumption, so as to form "get the things you want at the price you want, at the time you want, and in the way you want". Strong consumer desire , Dell even believes that "customer experience is the next battlefield of competition."

Pfizer 's "Ecoka" does not have much advertising investment, but it can be popular all over the world in a short period of time. The important point is to use people's experiential consumption to make people positive, negative, positive, and negative about this product. The discussions and disputes have become the focus of almost every country's street debates. The "blue pill" of "Ecoka" has become a well-known product in the world under the reputation of people.

The experience of experiential consumption is profound and memorable. Because of this, more and more products choose experiential consumption, and use this ancient and magical marketing method to guide companies to go more stable and go further in marketing.

Let good brands recommend some brands that have not yet established a good reputation, and will get unexpected results. Mike Jordan and Tiger Woods made frequent appearances in Nike product advertisements, making Nike a world-famous brand. Coincidentally, at the 23rd Olympic Games, the Chinese women's volleyball team drank Jianlibao and took the "Toyo Witch", then swept the leaves with autumn wind. The situation frustrated the American women's volleyball team, ascended to the throne of the world championship, Jianlibao also became famous.

For a new product, the recommendation of a well-known brand will undoubtedly help dispel consumer doubts. If Newtway products start to appear on the market, customers need to be convinced that the product has no aftertaste and is very safe. The first point is easy to prove, as long as customers are allowed to taste risk-free. But getting customers to believe the second point is more difficult. Newway products are safe. This quality characteristic can only be verified after long-term use. When Coca-Cola , Pepsi, and other brands launched Newtway Low Sugar products, they virtually supported their claim that "Newtway is a safe alternative to sugar".

It is conceivable that if a certain brand of automobile engine is jointly recommended by Mercedes , Toyota , BMW and other brands, the engine used in their car is a certain brand, and we can assert that users around the world will use it with confidence, Brands will be in short supply.

Stories are an effective tool for spreading reputation, because their spread is emotional. In the new century, Italian leather shoes "Ferrano" quietly landed in the Chinese market, and are loved by domestic film and television stars, successful men, celebrities and other high-end consumer groups, not only the "Fareno" leather shoes with novel style and fine workmanship Exquisite materials, full of self-confidence, noble and extraordinary man style, and a legendary myth.

In 1189, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I and the Kings of Britain and France led the third Crusade to Jerusalem. When approaching the Alps, the weather changed suddenly, the wind and snow were heavy, and the Crusaders' feet were frozen. In a hurry, the Roman knight FARINO asked others to wrap their leather around their feet and move on. In the 14th and 15th centuries, a famous leather shoe manufacturer in the northern city of Italy named the most high-end leather shoes "Ferrano" in memory of General Funello's fun story. The reputation of "Farreno" thus spread.

Beautiful and timeless legends will always make your products memorable. It is estimated that the hit of the TV series "House Gate" will certainly make Tongrentang's pharmacy famous throughout China.

Sometimes it is not the main body of the product that affects consumer reputation, but rather some not-so-obtrusive "parts and components", such as buttons for suits, buttons for home appliances, a word of repair service, etc. These "minor" Wrong, but can cause consumer dislike. These more important resentments are difficult for brand companies to hear and difficult to make rapid and thorough improvement. Often, the sales volume is greatly reduced, but the root cause is not known. According to a survey conducted by a professional market research company, only 4% of dissatisfied customers will complain to manufacturers, but 80% of dissatisfied customers will talk to their friends and relatives about an unpleasant experience.

There is a large information desk in the shopping hall of New York's Merrill. The main function of this help desk is to serve customers who have not purchased anything from the company. If a customer does not buy the product they want to buy from Merrill, the help desk staff will guide you to another store with such products. The practice of Merui Company is inadequate, but it is the "details" that can be seen and touched. People have talked about it and have a deep memory of it. Not only won the trust and admiration of competitors , but also made customers feel close to Meri. Whenever shopping, they always ran to Meri, and the number of customers who came here was increasing. Meri's business was booming.

A touching story from Haier :

A user in Fuzhou called the headquarters in Qingdao and hoped that Haier would send someone to repair his refrigerator within half a month. Unexpectedly, the maintenance staff rushed to his home the next day. The user couldn't believe it. As soon as I asked, the maintenance staff arrived by plane overnight. The user was touched, and wrote the words on the repair order: "I want to tell everyone, I bought a Haier refrigerator." Repairing a refrigerator by plane, from a pure benefit perspective, the travel costs and the refrigerator price The difference is almost the same, but it's a little bit worthwhile; but from the perspective of corporate image, it can gain a good reputation for Haier and attract potential customers for the company.

American computer industry leader EMC believes that once customers trust the company, the company must do its best to maintain that trust. If the company can prove its determination to be responsible to the customer, the customer will not leave. Therefore, when there is a problem with EMC's storage system, EMC will provide customers with two options: one is to get a new EMC system, and the other is to pay for EMC, and customers specify to buy other brands of systems. At that time, some people in the company questioned this kind of money-losing method for customers to choose a solution, but the customer realized the EMC's commitment to the customer in the end. Due to EMC's attitude of being responsible for customers, many of EMC's customers still insist on choosing his products, even though the price is higher than other companies. In addition, we can also create good reputation for brands or products by using forms such as rankings, social welfare activities, and limited sales.

It is worth reminding that to gain popularity, you only need to invest a lot of money and carry out intensive advertising bombing, and it will be formed in a short time; and to win word of mouth, you must do all the basic work very carefully, in place, and persist, only products and services Levels exceed customer expectations in order to get their recommendations and publicity, and those services and measures that are ahead of competitors or ingenious, will allow consumers to enjoy happily while spreading vividly.

One pass ten, one hundred ten, and one hundred million, word-of-mouth marketing is showing its long and eternal charm.

"The wine is not afraid of the alleys." The key is that the wine should be fragrant. Without satisfactory quality and service to customers, good word of mouth can only be empty talk. Some companies do not focus on improving the core competitiveness of their products, and just blindly carry out overwhelming advertising and a large number of promotional activities, but they often fail to achieve good results. Some companies, although they have had a good reputation before, stand still, ignore the improvement of product and service quality, and can only be eliminated by fierce market competition.

"Wang Mazi in the north and Zhang Xiaoquan in the south." The "Wang Mazi" knife and scissors factory was established as early as eight years in the Qing Dynasty (1651) at Caishikou, Beijing. It is a well-known Chinese brand . For hundreds of years, Wang Mazi knife and scissors products have been known to the people for their sharp edges and durability. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, "Wang Mazi" reached its historical peak and once set a record of selling 70,000 kitchen knives and 400,000 scissors a month. However, starting in 1995, Wang Mazi began to lose money for years, and eventually applied to the court for bankruptcy 352 years after its establishment.

"Wang Mazi" has a good reputation among consumers as an old name, but why was it abandoned by consumers in the end? The problem lies in the "Wang Mazi" scissors factory's steadfast self-containedness and resilience. The products of “Wang Mazi” have always used the iron-clamped steel process. The made knives are easy to use and durable. However, with the advent of stainless steel knives and scissors, the products of “Wang Mazi” have gradually exposed their shortcomings: Easy to rust, old-fashioned appearance, low grade. Faced with the impact of new products, "Wang Mazi" has continued to use the techniques and shapes of decades ago, and has not actively developed a new Wang Mazi that suits the market demand. It is natural to lose the favor of consumers.

With the development of the market economy , the improvement of people ’s knowledge level and the increase in consumer experience, consumers have become more and more rational, and they are more inclined to learn about the product from the people around them, avoiding direct experience of the risks and Cost, therefore, word of mouth marketing has also become more important. Some companies use the so-called "actual effect" to propagate. They have invited many celebrities, but they have no "celebrity effect". They have invited many customers to "show their opinions", but they give people the suspicion of "trust". On the contrary, some companies do not shy away from the shortcomings of their products in the process of publicity, and realistically promote the functions of the products, but they can win the trust of customers and bring a good reputation.

Marketing ethics is the premise of corporate word of mouth marketing. Enterprises should first ensure the objectivity and authenticity of their publicity, and not overstate their products and services. Otherwise, it is likely to bring about negative word of mouth .

At the beginning of 2003, SARS had just begun to appear in Guangdong. Just when people did not understand what this highly contagious disease was, a message appeared on the Internet: this disease was some kind of bird flu, and a certain company produced it. A medicine is a potent medicine for treating and preventing this bird flu. For a while, “Luoyang Paper Expensive”, the company ’s special-effect medicines were in short supply and even out of stock . In the case that the health department has not confirmed the virus, this phenomenon has attracted the attention of government departments and the media. After investigation, it turned out that this company Gu Ren posted false information on the Internet to use the panic of the masses to promote sales the goal of. Under the question of the media and the public, the company has repeatedly denied its wrongdoing, even attempting to buy advertising by using advertising as a bait. In the end, the top pharmaceutical company in the world was severely punished by the government, and more importantly, its reputation for years of hard work in China was ruined.

Many companies in the marketing process often understand marketing as one-sided marketing , word-of-mouth marketing within the company is easily overlooked. In fact, if the employees of the enterprise are working for the enterprise with dissatisfaction, the effect is conceivable. And when these employees always complain when talking to friends about their business, their negative word of mouth as a source of information is far more effective than the average consumer. Moreover, this kind of resistance to the enterprise will definitely affect the normal production of the enterprise.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, a well-known accounting firm, experienced a severe "collective idle" storm for Chinese employees in 2004. In such a multinational company that ranks first among the world's four largest accounting firms , how can there be "collective slowdown"?

The unreasonable salary system is the main reason for this turbulence. In the accounting and auditing industry, employees' income mainly comes from basic wages and overtime income. On the issue of overtime wages , PwC's consistent system is: junior employees pay overtime wages according to rules without year-end dividends , and management of senior employees and managers They do not pay overtime wages, but give year-end dividends as compensation. According to this system, although senior employees who do not belong to the managerial level often have to work overtime, they do not receive overtime wages. As a result, the salaries of senior employees are not as high as those of junior employees, which makes senior employees feel that their pay is not directly proportional to what they receive. At the same time, dozens of senior executives transferred from Hong Kong by the company are holding high salaries, which is in stark contrast to mainland employees, and the management culture brought by senior executives in Hong Kong makes them feel uncomfortable. The long-term conflict finally led to a crisis within the company.

Although the company has adjusted the overtime wage system after the incident of idle work, the actual wages of senior employees are still lower than their due wages. Although the storm was finally resolved with the compromise of all parties, the related business will inevitably be postponed and the number of orders will be affected in the short term. More importantly, PwC's good reputation for many years of hard work may suffer serious losses in China.

PwC's "work slowdown" reflects that even large companies with modern business ideas tend to mishandle internal employees' dissatisfaction and cause fires in the backyard, which will seriously affect the company's social reputation. Therefore, enterprises should pay full attention to internal word-of-mouth marketing, make employees truly recognize and integrate into the corporate culture, and sincerely carry out positive word-of-mouth communication for the enterprise . The sincerity of employees is often more convincing than the praise of ordinary word-of-mouth communicators.

Word-of-mouth is a double-edged sword, which can not only bring word-of-mouth effects to enterprises, but also negatively affect the spread of negative word-of-mouth. Modern enterprises, even some large enterprises, tend to ignore the seriousness of negative word-of-mouth communication . Without a set of mechanisms to deal with crises in a timely and correct manner, the crisis of the enterprise is often deepened.

In 1999, two users in Texas in the United States accused Toshiba of a notebook computer of a disk loop problem, which could cause damage to the stored data, so they initiated a joint lawsuit against Toshiba. To avoid the risk of high compensation, Toshiba agreed to "private" and paid a total of US $ 1.05 billion in compensation for US users. The news was released on the Internet by a returnee six months later, and at this time has caused dissatisfaction among Chinese consumers. However, this matter did not attract enough attention from Toshiba Corporation. When Chinese consumers also requested compensation, they were rejected by Toshiba Corporation and were subsequently jointly sued by the Chinese consumers to court. Toshiba 's "double standards" caused a stir in China, and Toshiba's original good image plummeted. The Toshiba notebook computer incident has caused Toshiba's sales to experience a cold winter. According to statistics released by International Data Corporation on December 19, 2000, the sales situation of Toshiba notebook computers in the increasingly prosperous personal computer market in mainland China this year has declined sharply. Sales in the second quarter were only 17,697 units, a decrease of 432 units over the first quarter, and the market share in the second quarter also dropped from 19.4% in the first quarter to 15.4%.

In China, the most common method used by many companies in times of crisis is to lock their doors, refuse all interviews, and try to deceive consumers by various means. Even many internal employees of the company do not know what happened. The result of this "covering the ugliness" can only be counterproductive, making the image and reputation of the company more questionable by consumers.

Many companies now blindly use marketing methods such as advertising, sales promotion, and business promotion . The development of the Internet and information technology has exacerbated this behavior, but the effect is not obvious. As a result, some companies hold the mentality of "the wine is not afraid of the alleys" and are blindly immersed in the production of products, excluding other marketing methods such as advertising and sales, so they will go to the other extreme. Enterprise marketing should be based on the characteristics of their own products. Starbucks ' word-of-mouth marketing strategy may not be suitable for other enterprises.

In the past, when referring to Maotai, people would think of "national wine" and "national banquet", thinking that this is a noble wine that only big men can drink. Moutai always seems to be very reluctant to take off the mysterious veil on his body. "The wine is not afraid of the alleys." As an advanced product under the planned economy , Moutai never needs to consider whether his wine can be sold. However, under the tide of the market economy, Maotai gradually lost its dominant position and was facing a strong impact from liquor brands such as Wuliangye and Langjiu. Finally, Moutai began to advertise in the mid-1990s! It seems that good wine can't just be placed in the alley. In 1998, China's liquor industry was severely damaged, and Moutai was not spared. In the face of the crisis, Moutai bosses personally seized sales, organized marketing teams, and launched new comprehensive marketing throughout the country. People have mixed opinions on the effects of Moutai marketing, but only from the change of marketing concepts, Moutai is worthy of appreciation. Although it was forced out, it can at least avoid repeating the "Wang Mazi" mistake.

Word of mouth marketing expert Michael Cafferky once pointed out: "Word of mouth is a low-tech method in the mind, but it resorts to all high-tech gimmicks in the market to achieve it." It can be seen that traditional marketing methods are still a part of corporate marketing. The important aspect is that word-of-mouth is not a panacea, and word-of-mouth marketing in an enterprise should organically combine the two.

Word-of-mouth marketing is getting more and more attention from marketers, but if the above problems are ignored, not only will word-of-mouth fail to play its due marketing role, it will also easily cause negative word-of-mouth communication , which will cause difficulties for corporate marketing. Therefore, in the marketing activities, marketers should pay attention to the above problems, try to avoid these problems, and correct the problems that have occurred in a timely manner, so that the marketing role of huge reputation can be truly exerted.