Word of Mouth Marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing is a term used in the marketing and advertising industry to describe activities that companies undertake to generate personal recommendations as well as referrals for brand names, products and services.

Word-of-mouth promotion is highly valued by advertisers. It is believed that this form of communication has valuable source credibility. Research points to individuals being more inclined to believe word-of-mouth promotion than more formal forms of promotion methods because the receiver of word-of-mouth referrals may believe that the communicator is unlikely to have an ulterior motive (ie.: they are not receiving an incentive for their referrals.) Also people tend to believe people who they know. In order to promote and manage word-of-mouth communications, marketers use publicity techniques as well as viral marketing methods to achieve desired behavioral response.

A very successful word-of-mouth promotion creates buzz. Buzz generates a highly intense and interactive form of word-of-mouth referral that occurs both online and offline. Successful word-of-mouth initiatives do not follow a strictly linear process with information flowing from one individual to another rather successful models leverage subgroup connectivity and relationships by pursuing a Reed's Law hub approach to message distribution. A marketer has successfully created buzz when the interactions are so intense that the information moves in a matrix pattern rather than a linear one. The result is everyone is talking about or purchase the product or service.