While I was wondering what to post for my next blog, I began searching the web for ideas. I googled WOM and advertising, wondering if I would find our class blog. Instead, I found a blog site that relates exactly with what we are learning in class (and its by womma). The blogsite is called word of mouth vs. advertising. It immediately caught my attention and I began browsing the posts.
The blog was originated to answer several questions for those companies and individuals curious about WOM marketing. Questions like "How does WOM impact your advertising?", "How does your advertising impact WOM?", "Does advertising inspire or inhibit WOM?", "Does product experience replace marketing?", etc. All the blog posts are exactly what we are learning and more.
A thought that I found extremely inspiring was in the first post I read. It talked about treating your employees well, because they, in turn, will treat your customers well. If you treat your employees poorly, chances are they are not going to be happy employees. And unhappy employees will not reflect well on the company during customer interactions. In class we focus on having a product or service that is worth talking about. This blog post went further. It never occurred to me that employees of a company, especially in retail and other customer service oriented jobs, are the ones having all the interactions with the consumers. A positive interaction with the company through an employee boosts the experience for the entire product/service. How many times have I gone to Friendly's, where the icecream is not entirely terrible, but the service is obnoxious? It is the terrible service experience leading the reason as to why I refuse to go to Friendly's anymore. And I tell all my friends not to go there also. I spread negative WOM for Friendly's based entirely on all my awful experiences there: waiting an hour for an icecream cone (which doesn't take that long to scoop), or waiting forever just to be seated. In this case, it is not the product driving the NWOM, but the employees. Which is the point of the blog post. I never looked at it in that perspective, but its entirely true (and pertinent to me and my vendetta against Friendly's).
Anyway, I advise you all to check out the site. The blogs are relevant to class and funny.
And something I thought was clever: keeping in the spirit of word of mouth, the site has a "Tell a Friend" link, where you can email your friends, spreading the word about the site!
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Tags: WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication
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