Live blogging Andy Sernovitz
June 27th, 2006
As the Marketing & Membership Conference comes to a close, we’re hearing from Andy Sernovitz, CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, who was the subject of the first PI interview.
Great line from Andy: “Word of mouth isn’t lying to people.”
Three things that empower consumers:
+Mass Participation–more people are involved in the online conversation. “The first time Amazon asked you to write a review, something changed.”. (40% of consumers have reviewed something online.). The people we trust most are people like us.
+Mass Dissemination–e-mail and social media have created a whole new scale of communication in marketing. Consumer opinion is now in places it could not reach before. The mixer of the Internet has overwhelmed the editorial process. (And yes, Jamie, that’s a long o in process.)
+Permanence–Everything lives forever in Google, including the pissed off member and the meeting that sucks. Make sure the permanent record reflects the good stuff as well.
Five steps of WOM:
+Talkers-find people who want to talk about you. You are probably the talker for/about something. WOMMA member The Prostate Net recruited and trained barbers to talk to men about getting prostate exams.
+Topics-you need to give people something to talk about. Apple Computer rehires Steve Jobs in the 1990s and creates computers with colors.
“Mission statements aren’t topics.”. Great topics are portable. Blogs are useful WOM tool for two reasons: 1) good way to get topics out to talkers and 2) they help the conversation spread through links.
+Tools-The tools you can use are easy…every page of your website should have a “tell-a-friend” button. Schwag is good!
+Taking Part-The job of most marketing departments is to push ideas out. WOM must be a two-way conversation.
+Track-Use online tools to get a better understanding of the impact.
Great job Andy!
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Entry Filed under: Principled Innovation Blog, What's New?, Social Media, Innovation, Associations, Extreme Makeover, The Association Innovator
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