Shared consumer experiences can make or break your brand when it comes to WOM. See how to increase your chances of getting on your customers' good sides.
It's incredible to think that not too long ago, when I had a great experience with a new product or a comment about how a hotel might improve customer service, I took the time to research an appropriate company contact, write a letter expressing my opinion and mail it. I would even wonder, with no good way to find out, if other consumers may have had a similar experience.
Today, communicating with a brand has new meaning. The millions of conversations taking place online pose a tremendous opportunity for brand owners to engage with their target audience, resulting in invaluable brand equity. But there are right ways and wrong ways to join the conversation if you want to proliferate favorable brand perception, or turn consumer criticisms back in your favor.
Connect with contemporary consumers
Consumers discussing their opinions online tend to navigate to very specific affinity groups. Understanding these groups and how they relate to your brand is the first step towards executing an online word-of-mouth marketing campaign.
To discover where a target audience resides online, brand owners can evaluate psychographic variables, such as personality, values, attitudes, interests or lifestyles, and use the results to create social forums (websites, blogs, forums, etc.) that feature the brand prominently.
The internet is a continuously evolving social landscape, though, and it can be extremely challenging to keep up with the new environments and websites where you can reach your most receptive consumers. For this reason, outsourcing a word-of-mouth initiative is an attractive option for companies of various sizes.
A great example is OPI's word-of-mouth marketing campaign with SheSpeaks to raise awareness and excitement around Nic's Sticks nail polishes. OPI targeted 25-50-year-old women on the SheSpeaks network who indicated a strong interest in beauty products, sending them information about the new product as well as special offers. As a result the company reported that each SheSpeaks program member told an average of 10 friends about Nic's Sticks.
Avoid marketing speak
It is just as important to understand how your consumers are talking as it is to identify where they are online. For example, it is critical and ethical that a brand identify itself when entering a conversation, so there can be no accusations of subterfuge.
Also, each online community usually has its own slang, buzz words and terms, so it's important that each communication be crafted to fit in with the predetermined lingo, rather than trying to use re-purposed ad copy.
Create "social currency"
Your word-of-mouth campaign should have a compelling story, a reason for communicating with your customers online, in order to generate what we call the "social currency." This is the nugget of information that interests the consumer and entices them to pass along your brand message.
A great example of this social currency is the Oreo cookie "What's the Second Sport" integrated marketing program. The Oreo brand created a humorous and compelling campaign around the anticipated announcement of football's famous Manning brothers taking up a second sport -- the Oreo Double Stuf Racing League ("DSRL"). To build buzz around the announcement, Oreo supplemented its traditional national television media with newly created viral elements, such as teaser videos of the Mannings on major video sharing sites, the ability for consumers to vote on what the second sport was and an interactive element called Yoobles, where consumers could create an animated alter ego in the Double Stuf Racing League. It was the combination of a compelling story and smart viral elements that greatly contributed to consumers becoming engaged in conversations about the program and sharing that information with friends.