There are many common marketing methods,
and the most appealing is word of mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth marketing is a
kind of marketing method that is widely spread in people's mouths or in the
market. It attracts more customers mainly through recognition and praise of
product brands.
Some products were not noticed at the
beginning of the sale. But as time went by, it became popular and widely spread
under the public's evaluation.
Let's look at an example of Chipotle.
Casual dining chain Chipotle has somewhat distinguished itself being a national chain that sources its ingredients locally. That said, “ingredients sourced locally” isn't necessary something that is going to blow up anyone's Facebook feed.
In order to spearhead word of mouth, Chipotle released an online video called ‘The Scarecrow’, depicting a dystopian world in which a scarecrow is forced to work in a fictional factory but eventually rebels to run his own. The video also happened to be a trailer for an accompanying iOS app that allowed players to earn codes for free Chipotle menu items.
The video and app combined have generated over 614 million media impressions, according to Cision, making it a major WOMM win for Chipotle. While local sourcing isn’t inherently newsworthy, the Chipotle marketing team made it newsworthy through a combination of art, storytelling, and a targeted media blitz.
So why does word-of-mouth marketing have
such great charm?
As stated in "Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies", there are three reasons for
the success of word-of-mouth marketing.
- It’s believable.
- It’s self-reinforcing.
- It’s self-spreading.
Therefore, word of mouth marketing is also
known as viral marketing. The core content of word-of-mouth marketing is the
virion that can “infect” the target clients – the event. The power of the
virion directly affects the effect of marketing communication.
Planning viral marketing is not easy, but
all the viral marketing that has taken place follows a certain pattern. Just as
many human behaviors have a fixed pattern. We have too many things to encounter
every day, and it is impossible to analyze everyone and everything seriously.
We don't have the time and energy to do so much. For example, there is a lot of
news on Twitter that caused public anger. How many people really seriously
analyze the background and reasons? More people just forward it or watch it.
In this era of information explosion,
consumers are highly immune to advertising and even news. Only novel content
can attract the attention of the public and cause discussion. For example, a
topic that has caused public debate is widely spread, and it has been highly
praised by the public. But then if other companies make similar behaviors,
almost no one will pay attention to them. Because everyone is only interested
in novelty, fortuitous, and first-time things.
Look at the 5T principle of word-of-mouth
marketing – this is the discussion in Andy Sernovitz's book “Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking”, which gives a very clear
word-of-mouth marketing analysis framework through the English letters that
begin with five Ts. steps.
- Talkers: Talkers are the starting point of word of mouth marketing.
- Topics: Give people a reason to talk about them.
- Tools: How to help information spread faster.
- TakingPart: TakingPart means "participating in discussions about topics that people care about."
- Tracking: How do you find comments? How do you find customer voices?
Let every customer know the "virtue" of their business is the dream of business operators. But is the formation of word of mouth a pure accident? Many cases show that the explosive demand created by word-of-mouth marketing is by no means an accident. Enterprises can fully predict the spread of word-of-mouth advertising by analyzing the interaction between consumers, making it networked, knowledgeable, and globalized. This requires great wisdom in our marketing.
What other successful word-of-mouth marketing cases do you know? Which aspect do you think should be paid attention to in a good word-of-mouth marketing?
Please let me know in the comments below!
It sounds like Chipotle found a really unique way of talking within the groundswell! One of the things we talked about in class was finding unique ways to engage with people in the groundswell. Certainly a game is a great way to do that!
ReplyDelete‘the Chipotle marketing team made it newsworthy through a combination of art, storytelling, and a targeted media blitz.’ I think this is one of the reasons why Chipotle has had great success in word-of-mouth marketing. However, some companies have not used the media for publicity and there has been a huge reputation for word-of-mouth marketing. 3M is a typical company that uses word-of-mouth marketing. The company has a wide coverage and its marketing model is a bit like recommending between friends and companies. As a result, they are not high in customer increments, but they are high on loyal customers.
ReplyDeleteYour Chipotle example is a great example of word of mouth marketing. People will likely see this video and share it with their friends, sparking a conversation between them. The inclusion of the game in the app also gets people to go to Chipotle and redeem their rewards. This gets people constantly thinking about the restaurant and gets them coming back for more. Great post!
ReplyDelete