I just wrapped up 2 exciting action-packed days of analyzing data from a survey. Between walking around bleary-eyed with Excel speadsheets imprinted on my retinas, I noticed something.
The concept of the survey was for people to answer (open-response) what their top preferences were in defined business categories in a certain geographic area.
While most respondants gave a clear answer, there were several of these…
–”that place over on main street”
–”that restaurant over on Samsville Road”
–etc
And even out of those respondants who could name a business…several were misspelled, not exactly the right name, or corrupted in some other way.
Remember, these people are saying this business is their “favorite”. They are self-professed “fans” of this establishment. And yet, some of them can’t properly tell me what it is.
These are the same people that are now being recruited by businesses to be “buzz marketers”, “viral marketers”, “citizen marketers” and whatever other name we can come up with.
Back in the day, if you hired a “spokesperson” and they couldn’t get your name right in the commercials, you’d have fired them. Now you’ve got people you’re encouraging to create marketing content about your business and to spread it. And you can’t fire them. How do you make sure they’re sending the message you want them to?
You can’t. Word of mouth has always been corruptable and always will be. Try to provide the tools that your self-professed fans need to spread the message. The best you can do is to have a strong brand strategy to make sure that your base knows “the story”….and that they at least get your name right.
tags:: marketing – viral – buzz – branding
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#1 by Monica Powers on February 6, 2009 - 22:30
Great insights…sometimes marketers expect customers to act and think as they do, with the benefit of having all the facts and the ability to articulate exactly what they want and need, but humans just don’t operate that way. I think it’s smarter sometimes to go with the flow of a consumer’s natural behavior (spontaneous word of mouth) than to expect them to act unnaturally (remembering and repeating canned messages on a brand’s behalf).