A study soon to be published by the International Journal of Research and Marketing confirms it: Businesses with positive word of mouth grow faster than their competitors.
Today with the over-abundance of marketing messages, what friends and neighbors say about a product carries more weight than ever. The Internet makes such exchanges easier and more impactful than ever.
Some interesting comments from a 6/28 Financial Times article on this subject:
1. Positive word-of-mouth is more common than negative word-of-mouth
2. However, when negative word-of-mouth does get going it can spread rapidly and very destructively. (Remember what happened to the Krypotonite lock when it was revealed via an Internet video that it could be “picked” with a ballpoint pen?)
Here’s the take away from the article:
Paul Mardsen of ClickAdvisor.com says that working to cut the level of negative comment about a product has almost TRIPLE the impact on sales as the same investment made to foster positive word of mouth.
– Ken McCarthy
P.S. For over 25 years I’ve been sharing the simple but powerful things that matter in business with my clients.
If you’d like direction for your business that will work today, tomorrow and twenty years from now, visit us at the System Club.
The mathematics of positive word of mouth (PWOM) create exponential growth. PWOM is partially a function of value delivered through a solid product or service. It is, however, almost equally important to deliver a postive customer experience from first exposure to end use of the product or service. Hence, good product value + great customer service = PWOM. An interesting take on your basic fomula of Traffic + Conversion = Profit. Traffic + Conversion + Value + Customer Service = Exponentially Growing Profits.
I got a spam email from Continentals Who’s Who (it seems whoever was responsible scraped my work email address from my company website, as I’ve only been working for them for a short while). The website in question is http://www.cwwinnercircle.com. Can you guess who is the registrar for this site (along with the 15 or so clones of this site, all producing spam emails targeted at professionals)?
Hmmm……..