Essays --

As a growing phenomenon Word of Mouth has evolved as one of the most influential source of marketing. Word of mouth can simply be defined as any business action that earns a customer recommendation, it’s what companies use to gain a sense of interest by a consumer that cause them to experience and share. Word of mouth builds brands, increases sales, and builds conversations both consumer to consumer and consumer to brand. It is believed that the power of Word of mouth would only increase in the coming years as people become more interconnected through social media. Word of mouth relies fundamentally on people trusting you, as a medium of Word of Mouth, it’s basically about real people and when real people trust you and they love what you do, they are going to tell their friends. Delivering the best product in a category, providing great customer experience, and rewarding customer loyalty are all business actions that earns customer recommendations. Recommendations are important to marketers, because when a recommendation is earned it indicates preference from a customer, leads to purchase and a strong probability that the customer will tell others through word of mouth. The most effective word of mouth marketing follows five principals which are Credible, respectful, social, measurable and repeatable. Credible word of mouth is honest and authentic messages from brand to customers and from customers to customers. Respectable word of mouth is responsible and trustworthy behavior as it relates to privacy matters between brand and their consumers. Social word of mouth involves brand listening, participating, responding and engaging in conversations online and offline. Measurable word of mouth is the ability to evaluate, monitor and ... ...n an easy disclosure you’re basically free and clear. So how does a company go about building a kind of trust that would make Word of Mouth work well? First and foremost it depends on the company is the basic answer but this does require a couple fundamental and philosophical changes in how a company runs its business. They have to first stop doing things which are deceptive, treat customers well, realize that customer service is not an expense item and that customer service is the core of their Word of Mouth engine. Companies need to rethink why customers buy from them, which is simply because they are liked and so are their products. Being remarkable and earning respect is not achieved by making a bigger bottle, having a super sale or investing in a super bowl ad but to just gain a character that consumers adore and would like to tell the world about.