Everything’s social…what isn’t these days. We scour the Internet and our personal networks for recommendations on everything from doctors to vacation spots. Clearly, word of mouth has a value. Right? Thanks to new research conducted by McKinsey consulting we now have deeper insight into the value behind word of mouth.

Based on the research, we know that word of mouth is involved in nearly half of new product purchases. Most notable, the research breaks word of mouth into three categories: experiential, consequential and intentional. The first, experiential word of mouth accounts for 50-80 percent of conversations between consumers. These are conversations that occur between a new purchaser and an existing product owner (e.g. consumer reviews). Consequential word of mouth is marketing-induced. For instance, marketing that uses incentives to inspire user-generated content fits into this category (e.g. Pepsi Refresh Project, Amex Member’s Project, and Chase Community Giving). And lastly, intentional word of mouth is what caused the FTC to raise red-flag – paid endorsements.
Using technology, brands have the ability to enable all three forms of word of mouth. Below are some recommendations on how your company can support word of mouth between consumers.
1. Include consumer reviews and testimonials on your brand Website.
2. Solicit product feedback from new customers through satisfaction surveys (after they register their product).
3. Identify influential bloggers through social listening and ask for their opinion.
4. Identify active members of your Facebook page and empower them to be brand advocates (online and offline).
5. Aggregate positive mentions/reviews of your company/brand (e.g. press).
6. Link to communities of brand advocates (e.g. fan pages).
7. Thank consumers for their reviews – regardless where they leave them.
8. Turn negative mentions into positive mentions reaching out to consumers with solutions.
When measuring consumer engagement, it’s important to measure what people do with technology rather than the technology itself. For example, 1MM YouTube views is not as valuable of a metrics as the 10K advocates that embedded the videos on their blog. Identifying the 10K bloggers can lead to an actionable marketing strategy, but what does the 1MM YouTube views tell you? In my opinion, not as much as the actions people took with your message. From a measurement standpoint, this means value what consumers say and how they interact with your brand over the sheer volume of individuals that sit idly watching content in a newsfeed.
Kai Wright