BzzAgent Dave

Today we were fortunate to have the Big Bee himself, Dave Balter, CEO of BzzAgent. Dave was a big hit last summer when he came to class and he didn't disappoint this time either.

Dave shared some new aspects of his presentation including Five Rules of Word of Mouth and Four Tips for Companies Who Want WOM. The five rules are:

1. Don't sacrifice your brand for entertainment. (Dave's point was that some brands seem to be doing anything they can to get noticed even if it has really nothing to do with the brand).
2. Consumers will do what they want with your brand. (The point here being that companies have to loosen the reigns of control over the brand).
3. Buzz doesn't always equal WOM. (The point here is be careful of doing campaigns that just get people talking about the campaign itself rather than the product or service).
4. Don't lie, steal, cheat, or deceive. (Obviously this is a point about being ethical when implementing WOM initiatives).
5. The only magic pill for WOM is to make a great product. (All good WOM starts with a great product or service experience).

Dave summarized his talk by providing four tips for companies who want to have good WOM. These are:

1. Make a product worth talking about.
2. Let people experience it.
3. Give tools so they can share their views effectively.
4. Get out of their way (let people do what they do best when they have a great experience -- tell others).

Dave does a great job illustrating these points with compelling stories and examples.

There were a number of other issues we discussed but I'll leave it to my students to raise them.

Thanks Dave for a great visit!

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Tags: BzzAgent WOM word of mouth Word-of-Mouth Marketing buzz marketing viral marketing marketing communication Northeastern University