The rising importance of word of mouth
New research from eMarketer about the importance of word of mouth marketing. Highlights:
- 25 million US adults regularly share advice on products or services online
- 91% of US adults regularly or occasionally seek advice about products or services
- 94.1% of US adults regularly or occasionally give advice to others about products or services
"Recommendations from friends" is considered the most worthwhile form of promotion by 57% of internet users, with email newsletters a strong second at 33%.
Lesson #1: Clue to marketers -- Telemarketing is at 0.6% and web banners at 2.6%. Move your time and money to word of mouth marketing, where it actually works!
The report highlights work from BigResearch and DoubleClick.
Lesson #2: eMarketer is very talented at getting word of mouth for themselves. I heard about this in a great email newsletter they sent me. Even better, they fill their publications with free charts and graphs like the ones below - making it easy for guys like me to advertise for them. Every day, hundreds of executives are advertising eMarketer to their colleagues in presentations and blog posts. You don't get a stronger endorsement than that. And all they had to do what share some nice graphics.
What are you giving people to make them look good when they talk about you?
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Donor Power Blog said... (July 16, 2007 at 10:54 AM)
If you think direct mail is complicated and mysterious, take a look at word of mouth. And you'd be smart to take a look, because word of mouth is the single thing that influences people's spending decisions more than anything [Read More]