Word of Mouth Marketing-Communications
Word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing-communications presents a substantial challenge to strategic communications professionals, both in the realm of generating positive WOM and minimizing negative WOM. Without direct control over WOM communications or ways to necessarily anticipate it, strategic communicators are faced with challenges at actively countering it.
WOM raises a number of issues and questions for strategic communicators. How can a strategic communicator generate positive WOM? And, is it possible to communicate to consumers in a way that will foster a consumer-to-consumer, or WOM, viral marketing mechanism? Can strategic communicators close the gap in linking WOM campaigns with existing marketing-communications mixes?
Lack of Metrics
In contrast to many marketing-communications media (broadcast, print, etc.), it is difficult to measure and quantify the effectiveness of a WOM campaign. Thus, justifying budget dollars towards such campaigns can be difficult.
Potential for Negative WOM
On the other side of the fence is the fear of negative WOM affecting the strategic marketing campaigns of an organization. Amazon.com is a great example of WOM at use by an online retailer. Users can give reviews of products on the web site. The danger of this is that a highly negative review of the product will plant the seed towards negative WOM.
Giving up Control
Marketing-communications campaigns have traditionally included a certain level of control. WOM campaigns are forcing organizations to relinquish control to the consumer. This concept is very scary for strategic communicators.
In our previous session, we looked at the role of society and culture in our buying and consuming habits. The sense of community that people feel with others who share their opinions of a product or organization is very strong. Finding a way to tap into that a challenge that is facing strategic communicators.
The web, and particularly blogs, will play a large part in the overall strategic marketing-communications planning of organizations. Measuring the results of WOM is a fundamental challenge that strategic communicators will face.