Draft Table of Contents
Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Comments, questions, suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
What’s missing, for you?
What’s unclear?
What made you say, “I can’t wait.”?
Prologue:
The Calf-Path Poem
Acknowledgments
Why this book is different
This is the first and only systematic word-of-mouth marketing system
It gives the guiding principles, not a 1000 page catalogue of all the new media
What’s new in the 2nd Edition
In between the 1st and 2nd Editions, we had the revolution I predicted, but way faster
The Copernican Revolution in Marketing
Why your product can no longer be the center of the Universe
You no longer have a choice about WOMM.
While marketers were reading the newspaper and watching TV, The Customer Has Hijacked Marketing.
You couldn’t have seen it coming. Not to the degree and extent it has.
You can’t control it.
You have to join it.
Why the “old media,” intrusive, exposure models are failing
Why 77% of TiVo owners skip ads.
Newspapers losing readership.
Traditional Media falling apart
Business as UNusual. Why the New Media Explosion won’t let you do business as usual.
How new media is fundamentally different.
Requires relinquishing control
The new attitudes of the Net Generation
You can no longer control information.
The New, New Marketing
The profound differences in the marketplace, even in the last five years
New attitudes, new communication methods, new ways of relating and continuing rejection of the old marketing methods
Net Promoter Score
WOM terminology — a whole new way of talking and thinking.
Web 2.0
You need to change your — and your company’s — way of looking at things
WOM is not a set of tricks and techniques to be added to traditional marketing
It’s a whole new mindset because marketing is a different game, with different rules, in a different arena, and completely different players and fans.
If you don’t know anything about marketing, you probably have an advantage
It’s no longer about controlling information and directly persuading
It is about acknowledging that the customer has control, and showing the easier path.
You can guide, but you can’t manipulate anymore
The Systematic Approach to WOM
In the world of overload, the simplifier is king
Your customers do not need information.
Give them what they really need
They have too much, and they get more, courtesy of the search engines, e-mail, blogs, etc.
They are overloaded, just like you.
You don’t need lists of word-of-mouth techniques.
You need what they need: ease and simplicity
They need clarification, simplification, “ezification,” “funification”
You do it by listing all the decisions, then finding and eliminating the bottlenecks
Word of mouth is your primary tool because…
I’m going to show you how to cut through the hundreds of word-of-mouth techniques to arrive at a simple approach
Dominating Your Market by Ezifying the Customer Decision Cycle
Decision Ezification
Why Decision Speed Determines Product Success
Why Speed Equals Multiplied Sales
The Secret to Shortening the Customer’s Decision Cycle
Make every decision in the decision process easy, simple, fun and fast.
How to use Word of Mouth to Ezify the Decision Process
You have to understand it to sort out the 100s of tools
Everyone now agrees that word of mouth is the most powerful force in the marketplace
But almost no one understands just how powerful it really is
Why word of mouth is the ultimate method for making decisions easy, simple, fun and fast
The Decision Process
How Word of Mouth Works in Different Parts of the Adoption Cycle
The Decision Matrix™
Why WOM is 1000x more powerful than all of traditional marketing combined, and travels much faster
What it really is
The Hidden Advantage: Experience Delivery
Other Reasons Why Word of Mouth Is a Powerful Persuader
1000-5000X more powerful than conventional marketing. Really. And, I’ll prove it.
Intrinsic vs. extrinsic WOM
What Malcom Gladwell and every other author missed.
The Nine Levels of Word of Mouth
The Minus Levels
The Plus Levels
Word of Mouth in the Real World
The Five Ms:
Message
Media
Mavens
Motivation
Measurement
The Content:
Design your story — What is WOMworthy, remarkable, extraordinary about your product, brand. In a story. Why?
It’s more important to be different than better. Lessons from Patch Adams
Why will people talk about it?
Why is it unusual?
What’s unusual about its history, how you do business, your philosophy, principles, your founder’s vision?
What’s the story about how you treat people?
Why should people trust you?
Design your incentives:
Why will people tell the above story?
What’s contagious about it?
Why will it make people look good in telling it?
How will their friends benefit from the story?
Manage your influencers
Identify your influencers and invite their involvement: The experts, product advocates, evangelists, etc.
Build/identify your community.
Give them an amazing “insiders” experience, input, knowledge.
Develop WOM channels (materials and events) that spread the word from the above.
Monitor, track, evaluate, tune, readjust.
Delivering the Message
Sources of Word of Mouth
The Power of Experts
Delivery of Word of Mouth
Champions
Why Traditional Media Lose Effectiveness
How to Accelerate Experience Gathering
Above All, You Need a “Story”
The Science of Memes
Electronic WOM
Web 2.0
Interactive Web sites where customers supply the material (Facebook, MySpace, Craigslist, eBay, YouTube, Flickr, TripAdvisor, and so on, not to mention blogs, podcasts and amateur video).
The New Media
Blogging, Podcasts, Social networking, web aggregators (Digg, etc.), Social bookmarking, Del.icio.us, Diigo, Rating services, etc., etc., etc…
WOM by texting, picture calls, VOIP, Webinars, screencasts, YouTube and other newer methodologies
CGM (consumer generated media) e.g., blogs, chat groups, list groups. Consumer generated advertising. IPod customers commercial. George Master.
[Much more to be added here, especially what’s in it for the reader, how to approach this overwhelming area, etc.]
Harnessing Word of Mouth
The Six-Step Process
The Process in Detail
Ways to Harness Word of Mouth
Internal Word-of-Mouth
Viral Marketing
How to Spread Ideas not Like the Plague but like an atom bomb
The mythology and Siren Songs of Viral Marketing
Why viral isn’t such a good idea most of the time
Viral Marketing on the Internet
Word-of-Mouth on the Internet
Non-Internet Viral Marketing
Constructing a Word-of-Mouth
Campaign
The “Ultimate” Word-of-Mouth Program
How I First Harnessed Word-of-Mouth
How to construct a WOMworthy message
Word of Mouth, the “Tried and True” Way
(Almost) Everything I Know about Marketing I Learned in My Father’s Drugstore, or Irving Silverman’s Rules of Marketing
Specific Steps in Creating a Word-of-Mouth Campaign
Campaign Methods That Work Best
Which Word-of-Mouth Methods Work Best for What?
Word-of-Mouth Checklist
The Word-of-Mouth Toolkit
Negative Word of Mouth
How to monitor it
How to turn it to your advantage
WOMM in special circumstances
WOMM for large companies
WOMM for smaller companies
WOMM for small business
WOMM for professional practices — physicians, accountants, lawyers, consultants.
WOMM for tradespeople — plumbers, other repair persons, etc..
WOMM in Business to Business marketing
For High-Ticket Items
For Services, other intangibles such as ideas
Tips, Techniques and Suggestions
The right way to get and use testimonials
Using Experts
Using Seminars, Workshops, and Speeches
“Canned” Word of Mouth
Referral Selling
Using WOMM in the Traditional Media, when appropriate
Salespeople
How to light the fire, fan the flames and start the Stampede
WOM measurement
Your boss is going to be very upset about this
The difference between research and measurement
Why you can’t measure WOM with traditional control group research – the Silverman Uncertainty Principle. Don’t get caught by the hype.
Researching Word of Mouth
What Do People Talk About?
How to Research Word of Mouth
Other Research Designs
How to Analyze Word-of-Mouth Sessions
Word of mouth fraud and other shady practices
“When people realize that WOM is 1000x as powerful as all of conventional marketing combined, every sleazeball in the world will come out of the woodwork and ruin this medium.” Who said it, why, and what happened.
Warning to scammers, spammers, etc.
How to fight the fraud
Comment spamming, phony reviews, made-up testimonials, etc.
Appendices:
Marketing to algorithms ● Electronic and automatic WOM — no mouths or ears involved ● How to Conduct Employee Research ● Tom Peters and others on Word of Mouth
Case Studies
Recommended Reading
