I heard it through the grapevine
December 18, 2006 | 12:00am
Christmas is here, and you don’t need a word-of-mouth (WOM) campaign to spread the news. It’s in everybody’s heart and mind. You don’t need a boom to herald its coming. It’s on everyone’s lips. And it takes hardly any effort on your part to remind people about it.
Every marketer wishes the same for his product or service – presence without too much hard labor and money to spend. Given the highly competitive business situation, the goal is to increase your share of consumers’ wallets as you work on a tight marketing and communication budget. Producing huge, glossy ads and buying expensive media time and space will require enormous financial investments with no guarantees of return.
Word-of-mouth marketing, or what some authors call viral marketing, buzz campaigns, seeding, shill marketing, guerrilla marketing or street teaming is getting to be the name of the game. It is positioning itself as a viable alternative to big-bucks mainstream ad spending. Pushers of the practice believe that it is a tool that puts a premium label on the process of getting people to talk about, and more importantly, crave your product at much-reduced budgets, which works even without you knowing it. It sets free your accessible product story via self-proliferation.
Like a bug, knowledge is multiplied through a network of inspired customers or raving fans who eagerly pass on your product from their mouths to other mouths. These brand evangelists get the word out to initial converts in the hope that the information will turn viral and quickly extend the "promotional germs" to potential supporters. Given its power, marketers and entrepreneurs are advised to recognize the benefits it can bring, and, more critically, to be familiar with its supremacy in the marketing-communication orchestra.
Undeniably, WOM can be a forceful way to bring in new customers. Just look at your individual experience. Every day you are barraged with a variety of messages – in words or in visuals – from a cacophony of so many info carriers that you don’t know which one to pick up anymore. You hardly believe the hawker at the supermarket entrance peddling a new kitchen device. You are wary about an endorser trumpeting the merits of one facial moisturizer over another.
Hence, you turn to people you trust the most – your family, friends, neighbors and colleagues. Everywhere you look, there are product or service promotions going on. With all sorts of "believe this, take this" stories invading and deluging your senses, you have learned to filter them out. You may have been repeatedly hit by an ad for a new car, but often you will consider buying the product only if a trusted friend tells you that he or she has tested it, and liked it.
Word of mouth starts with an exciting, fun, innovative personality attached to a differentiated offering. It should excite the users to the point of making them talk about it without hesitation. It should rise above the noise and clutter. It makes the craving for the product burst out of the box that allows the spread of the virus. Products such as techie gadgets, toys or services such as spas, gyms and bars can easily generate WOM, since it is easy enough for consumers to share their experience with these types of products and services with others.
Palm Pilot, for example, caused a lot of positive buzz when it was launched. It was found out later that 65 percent of buyers got wind of it from conversations with friends, or reviews by colleagues.
Dave Balter and John Butman in their collaborative work, Grapevine: The New Word-of-Mouth Marketing, discussed additional new thinking on the emerging tool:
• Everybody talks about products and services, and people talk about them all the time. WOM is not about identifying a small subgroup of highly influential or well-connected people to talk up a product or service. It’s not about mavens or bees or celebrities or people with special knowledge. It’s about everybody.
• WOM is fundamentally different from other "alternative" forms of marketing. It is the honest, genuine sharing of real opinions and information about products and services. It can be stimulated and accelerated, but it can’t be controlled. Marketing mediums are not the same as real word-of-mouth.
• WOM proliferates in unpredictable ways. It ripples out in generations. It crosses from network to network. It takes many paths, and does not move in a predictable sequence.
• WOM is product storytelling. It is not just about people passing along marketing messages. People tell stories about products, and the stories are made up of their own experiences and those of others.
• WOM does not have to be positive to be good. It is not the same as "all PR is good PR." Products are never perfect and people accept that. Negative WOM can be weirdly powerful. It can add credibility to a product. If the company responds positively to negative WOM, it can turn detractors into loyalists, and can also bring out the quiet advocates – who can be even more powerful than everyday fans.
• WOM is the basis for a new approach to marketing. It is a source of tremendous product knowledge and marketing power as a result of a closer interaction between products and customers that leads to recognition and familiarity. It’s time to close the gap between WOM and marketing-speak and get a dialogue going between the two.
What are the conditions that accelerate the grapevine? The study revealed a list of factors that include the lack of formal communication, presence of ambiguous or uncertain situations, unavailability of sanctioned channels for venting, impending change, and when there are heavy-handed efforts to shut it down.
Organizational managers and leaders can strongly influence the grapevine. This can be done by understanding the conditions that increase the scuttlebutt, respecting every employee’s desire to know, increasing their participation and influence in activities and programs, ensuring that the bad news as well as the good are shared with everyone, monitoring the gossip that goes around, and acting promptly to correct misinformation.
Internal or organizational grapevine follows "the law of the few" espoused by Malcolm Gladwell in his best-selling book The Tipping Point. He says, "If you want effective, sustainable communication in an organization, you need to reach a tiny minority of exceptional individuals who are responsible for the majority of the dialogue."
The grapevine can be a powerful tool for internal communicators. It should be noted that there is some information that people can only get from the grapevine like soft information about people’s predilections and propensities. Goman shared some tips on how the power and uniqueness of the grapevine can be harnessed:
• Spot problems early and prepare for them, as you seize opportunities.
• Build a reputation. The grapevine will boost better performers, but be harsh on others.
• Bond with co-workers. The grapevine is an embedded survival mechanism. You must learn the rules of engagement.
• Weed out cheaters and liars. The people who have been directly affected by them will expose any bad rap or ill feeling about the product or service used.
• Let off steam.
• Gain power and control. People who are connected to the grapevine gain knowledge and influence.
WOM, buzz, rumor – whatever label you use – can be managed well or mismanaged terribly. It can spread like wildfire with positive or negative impact. Just like a Christmas carol, it can go around from fiddler to fiddler and each one can either add something or take something away.
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