Self-Generating Demand: How to Use Word of Mouth to Sell Your Product

Mckinsey & Co. developed a list of ideas that can launch effective word of mouth (WOM) influence.

Design the Product to be Unique or Visible
The only innovations that are worthy of buzz are those that have something unique about them and are visible. The new Ford pickup truck probably wont get much buzz attention, but something like the new Hummer concept probably will. The innovation also has to be highly visible or has to confer status. If a lot of opinion leaders are invited to a pre-showing of a movie, it would be an example of conferred status. It gives a sense of status to the individuals. If wow is a good word to describe your product then you have probably mastered this principle.

Select and Seed the Innovators
Innovators are the ones that try an innovation before anyone else in that area of interest. As a marketer for your product you should try to identify this group of people and then do as much as possible to encourage this group to adopt your innovation.

Ration Supply
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. People have a strong desire for things that they cannot own. Therefore marketers find the use of scarcity to be a very useful tool in generating demand. Think about the craze for the Sony PS3’s. People (including me) waited in line for days to make sure they got one as soon as they came out. It became an epidemic. All the available PS3’s were sold immediately on the release date.

Use Celebrity Icons
When celebrities use something it generates excitement about the product. Enough said.

Tap the Power of Lists
There are top lists for everything. Top restaurants, top colleges, top golfing locations, and your name it. If you can get your innovation or company on a top list it will help consumers cut through the advertising clutter and find you more easily. It is also a very useful tool for buzz creation. So find some list and get on it. Well not all lists, it might not be a good idea to get on the “Worst You Name It” of the year.

Nurture the Grass Roots
And no, I don’t mean the little plants in your lawn, I mean the process of getting the adopters to get other consumers to adopt too. Try and create incentives that will encourage the adopters to spread the word about your product. Maybe you could offer and discount if they get a new person to buy your product or use your service, but whatever the case, don’t rely on letting word of mouth spread on its own. Help it along.


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Word of Mouth: Viral Marketing : How to Get People Talking About Product

“Buzz” isn’t something that just effortlessly happens. It is something that needs the active participation, careful planning, and integration. It is essential for marketers to influence the type of buzz that occurs. You can’t just sit back and hope that positive word of mouth will happen by some random chance. The term marketers use for the process of generating positive word of mouth influence is appropriately called buzz creation. There are also other terms that are used to describe this process that may be more familiar to some people. These terms include: diffusion marketing, street marketing, guerrilla marketing, and viral marketing. This process is both planned and organized in such a way that will encourage positive information to be spread about a certain brand, product, service, and etc.

Some of the most successful products obtained there success through the effective use of buzz creation. Apple regularly influences word of mouth communication to help launch its products. As the video in the previous entry talks about, the CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, used buzz creation to turn the company around. He created something new and something that would be talked about – he created “cute” computers by using a unique design and color combinations (see video for more information). One of the most important aspects of creating buzz is creating something that is very innovative and very unique.

Imagine your target market network as being like the airline transportation network. The airlines have a few main airports into which most of the flights are routed through. These main airports are called hubs. For example, a hub would be considered the New York JFK International airport. If you wanted to take a flight from San Francisco to Niagra Falls NY, you would probably have to first land at the JFK airport and then take another flight to a smaller airport in Niagra Falls. The Niagra Falls airport would be considered a node airport. Similarly, with word of mouth influence there are those individuals who are highly connected are like the hub airports, they are responsible in some way for most of the traffic, or in this case, influence. The individuals with less influence are like the node airports, they have some traffic, but usually only if they have had some influence with the main hubs. The nodes in the buzz network are similar; they have some influence on buzz, but that influence is limited, and without the “hubs” can’t reach much of the target market. Therefore, it could go without saying that the key to creating a buzz epidemic is to get essential information to highly influential / connected individuals (commonly referred to as influentials.

In my next blog entry I will be discussing specific steps that can be undertaken to create an epidemic. So check back soon! Let me know what you think and if you have any questions.

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