Unofficially, word of mouth marketing has been around for a long time, but only in the last few years has it been so formally recognized and widely embraced as a bona fide discipline and tool of our trade.
Given such sudden appeal, it’s understandable that a relatively new association of the same name is experiencing a similar degree of popularity.
Founded in late 2004, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) is the official trade association for the word of mouth marketing industry.
WOMMA’s mission is to promote and improve word of mouth marketing by:
· Protecting consumers and the industry with strong ethical guidelines
· Promoting WOM as an effective marketing tool
· Setting standards to encourage its use
What is Word of Mouth Marketing?
Word of mouth is “a pre-existing phenomenon that marketers are only now learning how to harness, amplify, and improve. Word of mouth marketing isn’t about creating word of mouth — it’s learning how to make it work within a marketing objective,” says WOMMA on its Web site, adding…
That said, word of mouth can be encouraged and facilitated. Companies can work hard to make people happier, they can listen to consumers, they can make it easier for them to tell their friends, and they can make certain that influential individuals know about the good qualities of a product or service.
Word of mouth marketing empowers people to share their experiences. It’s harnessing the voice of the customer for the good of the brand. And it’s acknowledging that the unsatisfied customer is equally powerful.
BzzAgent
Word of mouth marketing is, in fact, what BzzAgent, a company I’ve become more than a little familiar with lately, has to offer its clients. In a nutshell, what BzzAgent does is conduct word of mouth marketing campaigns on behalf of its clients by recruiting an army of – you guessed it – BzzAgents, everyday people like you and me who are willing to voluntarily spread word of mouth (Bzz) in exchange for free product samples.
Yes, I’m here to tell you that I’m a BzzAgent.
Which, in fact, is the very first rule in The BzzAgent Code of Conduct: Be open.
BzzAgent’s Welcome Kit says a BzzAgent “is free to talk about BzzAgent….”
Be proud to be a BzzAgent. When Bzzing others, you must first let them know that you’re involved with BzzAgent, and that you’ve chosen to volunteer your time to share your opinion. If you like a product or service, it doesn’t matter where you found out about it, so don’t feel as though you need to be anonymous or stealthy. Just be open, honest and let your opinion count.
It’s easy to become a BzzAgent. You register online, sharing some of your likes and dislikes with the so-called Central Hive. The more you divulge about yourself, the easier it is for the company to determine your interest level and compatibility with upcoming campaigns. After I signed up a couple months ago and participated in about a half-dozen polls and surveys (each one took only about a minute or so to complete), BzzAgent had me figured out well enough to deem me eligible for The Atkins Advantage Bars BzzCampaign.
My First BzzCampaign
Perfect. Given that I had been training to run the Boston Marathon, the timing couldn’t have been better. (And because I’ve always relied on PowerBar, Atkins’ competition, for my quick hunger and energy fix, they really couldn’t have had a more qualified taste-tester.)
A few days after joining the campaign, I received my BzzKit, a big, brown box containing all kinds of literature about both BzzAgent and, of course, Atkins Advantage Bars, not to mention a box of the bars themselves in a variety of flavors — Peanut Butter Granola, Chocolate Chip Granola and Carmel Fudge Brownie.
After getting to know the product, my mission (which I had already accepted), was to perform what BzzAgent calls BzzActivity and report back on such Bzz by filing a short BzzReport. BzzAgent even went so far as to suggest a number of different ways I could spread the good word, such as sharing my bars and coupons with others, asking for the Atkins Advantage Bars at the store, leaving them around in places where people congregate (talk about a random act of kindness!) and even creating my own unique Bzz, which you could say I’m doing right here and now on A New Marketing Commentator.
What’s more, for each instance of BzzActivity I reported, I would earn a number of points which could be redeemed for BzzRewards, such as a travel mug, tote bag or shower radio — pretty cool tchotchkes, if you ask me.
Note: This is part one of a two-part article on the author’s experience with word of mouth marketing and the company, BzzAgent. Later on this week, part two will be posted here on A New Marketing Commentator.
To learn more about the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, click here.
To learn more about BzzAgent (which even has a free program for qualified nonprofit organizations), click here.
Tags: word of mouth marketing Word of Mouth Marketing Association BzzAgent Bob Cargill Atkins Advantage Bars word of mouth direct marketing marketing advertising public relations
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