What’s the Secret?
One of the secrets to word of mouth is that you’re speaking face–to-face, which gives you what tons of marketers are trying to get every day: attention. Face-to-face attention competes with no other media, grabbing unadulterated mindshare.
Another secret to word of mouth is credibility. When you’re a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker, or a family member tells you about a great movie, product, or service—you believe them. They’re not being paid to pitch the item and so you give them full credibility. That’s why having a great product matters so much: If you can wow ‘em, people will tell their friends and neighbors.
In addition to face-to-face attention, audio stimulus stays with you longer, providing superior memory retrieval. In a study of two groups presented with advertising information with the brand removed, only 49 percent of people recalled advertising based on a visual cue, while 70 percent recalled advertising from a thirty-second musical cue1. Given the right context of attention, audio stimuli can be far superior to visual.
Why It Matters More Than Ever
Why should you care?
Not only is word of mouth ten times more effective than print or TV, word of mouth is more important today than at any time in the past, for four reasons:
Because of technology, word of mouth is moving faster than ever before. Text messaging, e-mail distribution lists, chat rooms, message boards, Web sites, and blogs. If you see a great movie—bam, you’re sending an e-mail to sixty-three of your friends in an instant and you have the buzz currency of being ‘in the know.’ If the movie stinks—bam, an e-mail goes out to those sixty-three friends warning them to save their money. You become the hero for saving all your good buddies $20 for a pair of tickets and popcorn. With Blackberrys, Treos, Pocket PCs, and WiFi, we don’t need to be tied to a desktop computer. We’ve got mobile communication with us for instantaneous messaging.
Now more than ever, we can spread word of mouth faster and wider. Most importantly, though, word of mouth used to travel in unique settings where a conversation could never be heard again. Now, with the Internet, a permanent history of word of mouth stays recorded forever. Bad or good, the Internet has transformed word of mouth from a single-engine dog-fighter to an F-sixteen. It’s now become fast, powerful, long-range, and dangerous if you can’t harness it. It can be your biggest asset in today’s marketing world, or it can be your biggest nightmare if you can’t control it.
But it’s so simple to say “Just start a word-of-mouth marketing campaign.” Obviously it’s not that simple do to. Flying this powerful machine requires knowledge, patience, and deliberation.
Hang on.
What is great marketing?
Aaahh, yes—identifying the holy grail.
This is the question many CEO’s and small business owners ask over and over: “How can we bring great marketing to our company and break out our brand?” A marketer’s typical response is, “Let’s look at some of the best marketers of all time and duplicate what they did.”
Follow this line and what happens next? You read articles. You interview professors. You find yourself looking for respected brands and may very well come up with Procter & Gamble as the model to examine.
You discover that Procter & Gamble tests their TV commercials rigorously in focus groups. And before producing their final commercials, they test first-draft versions (called animatics) for persuasion scores. They test intensity levels of media for these commercials.
And maybe, like many others before, you decided that you’ve discovered the secret to great marketing. They wrote the book on marketing, right? Just duplicate what Procter & Gamble does, right?
Sorry. It won’t work.
Why? Chances are you don’t have Procter & Gamble’s billions of dollars of advertising and resources at your disposal. Furthermore, Procter & Gamble hasn’t created buzz in a long while. They’ve been focused more on refining than reinventing.
If you’ve read Part One of this book, I think you’ve discovered the power of word of mouth. It’s the most powerful form of marketing on earth. Period. Great marketing is marketing that gets people telling other people about your company, your product, or your service. Word-of-mouth marketing connects with consumers, costs a whale of a lot less, and travels further— exponentially. Just recall the two comparative figures we began with, Figs. 13-1 and—2.
1. “In the ten years starting in 1994, AmEx’s TV ad spending plummeted from 80% of its total advertising budget to 35%.” - Los Angeles Times
2. DVR Penetration in markets like Dallas = 27%. In three years, it will be 50%. The Carmel Group
3. Allstate slashed its upfront spending to $10 million from $70 million two years ago. Wall Street Journal
4. “On the heels of the Vioxx/Celebrex controversy, the task to penetrate consumer consciousness—which is likely more predisposed than ever to ignore marketing messages from pharmaceutical firms—will be even more challenging.” Brian Steinberg, Wall Street Journal
5. Coca-Cola announced that it plans not to make any purchases during the TV upfront ad buying period. Yesterday Johnson & Johnson also announced plans to skip this year’s TV upfront. Coke and J&J’s move to sit out the TV upfront also reflects major advertising shifting their ad budgets away from network TV because of the changing media habits of consumers. AdAge
6. 78% of the top 133 marketers feel the potency of their television advertising has declined in the last two years. ANA/Forrester Research Study
7. There are a host of nimble, new media-christened production and distribution companies whose programming lends a degree of ownership to the advertiser. This advertainment goes beyond typical product placement and writes brands in as actual characters. So rather than not so subtly hitting the viewer with occasional product drops, the same brand(s) will consistently enter the storyline. The thinking is more background music than exclamation point, with the desired effect being achieved over 10 or 12 shows. MediaPost
Do understand the most powerful advertising technique on the Internet is showing up in organic search results (ideally first page, in the first three results).
Do understand that Wordtracker.com is currently your best tool along with Pay Per Click suggestion tools (from Google, etc) to discover which search terms get the most search volume.
Getting in organic search engine results is hard, but the best quick checklist to help you get there is the Vaughn’s list: http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm
Do understand that Pay Per Click search ads provide your next best set of Internet advertising techniques after organic search engine placement.
Do understand that text links almost always outperform banner ads as advertising techniques because they look more like content and people are used to clicking on content (text links) far more than ads.
Do understand that Internet display ads perform best with flash animation, motion, or video.
Do understand the eye reads top left to bottom right and that impacts your click-through rate depending on where your text links or display ads are on the page.
Do understand that the page upon which the consumer clicks is just as important than the ad or link that got them there.
Do understand that improving or optimizing your own pages and your own site has more impact than optimizing your advertising techniques in text links or display ads.
Don’t underestimate the importance of this sentence above.
Don’t assume that just because you built a website people will visit it.
Don’t underestimate the power of words: You, your, asking a question, amazing, discover, now are all proven “power” words that produce far higher response. See more on this down below.
Do use a stamp vs. a bulk mail endicia – Open rate on envelopes with physical stamps is 13% higher.
Do make your letter look like newsworthy content – Content gets read, not advertising.
Do attach news articles blown up to fit on 8 ?” x 11” paper as an attachment to your direct mail piece.
If you are using a card vs. letter, use 6” x 9’ stock or larger.
Do not use any “special offer inside” language on your envelope or “hey look at me” advertising techniques when using a letter envelope.
Do not use an adhesive address label unless it’s a label from Stamps.com or endicia.com.
Do not use an 8 ?” x 11” letter in B2B direct mail, but do use A4 or executive sized stationary – higher read rate and higher response rate vs. full sheet letter.
Note: this applies to anything to do with Direct marketing, Internet marketing, even memos to your boss.
Do understand that the use of certain words are power words which produce results.
Do use present tense – better response than past tense.
Do use the word “you” or “your” far more than “I” “me” or “we.”
Do use words like these in your writing or advertising techniques which produce demonstrated higher response rates:
Do understand that asking a question with the word you in it is one of the best ever advertising techniques.
Don’t, however, ask a question where the answer can easily be “no, and I don’t care.”
Do use TV as a way to legitimize your brand, launch your brand, or reposition your brand. When used prudently and selectively, it can be one of the best advertising techniques depending on your situation.
Do investigate buying “remnant” TV media and making opportunistic buys for a fraction of retail prices.
Do make sure your TV spot looks like nothing else on TV (in order to stand out).
Do make sure you have a compelling offer, and a compelling newsworthy announcement.
Do pay special attention to audio in your TV spot…recall of ads with music in the ad (not background music) produces higher recall and captures more attention.
If you have people in your TV spots, do make sure to have them with their eyes looking right in the camera…the stopping power and attention rates are higher with ads that have people looking at you directly in the eye.
Do have a response medium (website, telephone number, SMS number, etc). If you don’t, it could be one of your worst advertising techniques.
Do understand that for response, early AM and late evening produce higher response rates (if someone is up at those hours, they often have nothing else going on and are paying more attention than normal).
Do understand that the creative that you put into the costly media of TV makes all the difference in the world. A bad TV spot in good TV media can be one of the worst advertising techniques.
So: do test your TV creative on the Internet before putting it on TV…or test at small levels before putting on untested TV creative in large media buys.
Do understand one of the cardinal rules of TV creative: see and say. See the product when the words are said. P.S. don’t forget to show the actual product. See and say in TV is one of the most basic, but often forgotten TV advertising techniques.
Do understand that likeability of ads (plus the offer) produces the highest correlation to sales.
Do understand the basics of targeting, but index the cost per thousand impressions (CPM) with the index of propensity to buy your type of product/service (e.g. a TV show with an index of 180 for buying laptops @ $20 CPM is actually more expensive than a TV show with an 130 index @ $10 CPM).
Don’t always do what you like…let the numbers dictate.
Don’t accept mediocrity in your TV creative. Mediocre TV spots in costly TV media, is the most common blunder in all advertising techniques.
Do understand that Public Relations is fundamentally different than advertising. PR is not necessarily in the genre of advertising techniques, but on average PR is 6X more powerful because people pay attention to content 6X more than advertising (that’s starting at 500% higher ROI).
The four keys to PR are the following:
Test your pitch much like you would test a direct mail piece using the advertising techniques learned here. Test small, see what responds, and what doesn’t. Find out before you blast a big push which may not work.
And my shameless self-promotion: everyone should know the five most frequently written news media stories in America. These five most frequently written news stories are in my book, Buzzmarketing.
Do understand that a print ad which looks like an “ad” will fail unless you have an amazing offer (great discount, sale, limited time only). Without an offer, an ad that looks like an “ad” won’t get read.
Do make your ad look like content (use the same font style and layout as the publication) or make your ad look like no other ad in the pub (reference Infiniti print ads from 2005 and Pfizer’s Celebrex print ads from 2007).
Do understand that white space can stop people in their tracks, and produce a higher response rate. One of the greatest advertising techniques is white space.
Do understand that a photograph of a person with their eyes looking directly at you produces a higher response than a photograph of a person with eyes looking elsewhere. Perhaps the most powerful of all advertising techniques in print, or even on the Internet.
Do understand that a print ad with a “Drop Cap” gets read more than without one.
Do understand that ads with lists and bullet points get read more than ads with paragraphs.
Do understand that a photograph’s caption is extremely important…a good photograph can be the first thing a reader sees, and the caption the second thing they read. If the caption fails, they skip the rest of your ad…if the caption works, your ad gets read. Smart captioning can be of the most effective print advertising techniques.
Do understand that copy in quotations gets read 13% more than without quotations.
Do understand that ads delivering news value get read more than anything else.
Don’t ever use a reverse print ad (black background with white font) it’s hard to read and has proven repeated lower response rates…one of the worst advertising techniques.
Do understand that radio advertising works best with high frequency and proper timing.
Do understand that the first five seconds of your radio ad may be the most important…a cell phone and the radio preset button is a moment away from avoiding your ad.
Do understand that you need to say your brand name a lot more often than you would ever imagine in a radio ad (people daydream in their car), and you need to drill your brand name often.
Do understand that reads from DJ’s get more attention because they seem like content from a familiar voice versus a stranger’s voice.
Do understand that one of your most powerful advertising techniques is to produce fresh radio creative every week versus running the same radio spot for more than a week.
Do understand that if it sounds like content, people will listen…if it sounds like an ad…people won’t.
Note that word-of-mouth or buzz is created with pull, not “bought” like print advertising.
Also note that this lost art which was practiced before the advent of Television is more powerful than any other set of advertising techniques (Euro RSCG Study found it 10X more effective than TV or Print advertising).
Do understand that the root of all buzz is a seven-letter word: stories.
The crux of buzzmarketing and word-of-mouth is to give people a great story to tell, which they, in turn, can tell others…and by them telling the story it makes them interesting, fascinating, and newsworthy.
Do not confuse buzz marketing with some other services which pay people to talk about products (still a push technique). Buzz marketing is about creating a pull. Creating a story which gives people social currency. Buzz marketing is about creating a story which pulls a brand along with the story (like my own renaming of Halfway, Oregon to Half.com, Oregon).
What creates a good story can be found in my book or in the free chapter download on this site’s book page.
Buzz marketing happens when people start conversations that begin with “Hey did you hear…” or “Hey, you’re never going to believe…” and then they tell a story which pulls your brand along with that story.
Hope these advertising techniques were helpful.
If you think so, please bookmark this page.
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