Word of Mouth Marketing

Word of Mouth Marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing refers to the company’s efforts to enable consumers to spread their product information and brands through exchanges between friends and family . This marketing method is characterized by a high success rate and strong credibility. This marketing method, which uses word of mouth as a channel, is called word of mouth marketing. Analyzing from the practical level of corporate marketing , word-of-mouth marketing is a market in which companies use various effective means to trigger corporate customers to talk and communicate about their products, services, and the overall corporate image, and to encourage customers to introduce and recommend to their surrounding populations Marketing methods and processes.

It is the dream of business operators to enable every customer to extol the “virtue” of their business. But is the formation of word-of-mouth all purely accidental and totally spontaneous? McKinsey marketing expert management company in London, the hot-Dai (Renee Dye) and her colleagues analyzed 50 studies after sales cases found that word of mouth advertising manufacture explosive demand, and by no means accidental coincidence, but there are a few rules to follow . Enterprises can fully predict the spread of word-of-mouth advertising by analyzing the interaction and interaction between consumers, making it networked, knowledgeable, and global . This requires our marketing to pay great wisdom.

“The wine is not afraid of the alleys.” The key is that the wine should be fragrant. Without satisfactory quality and service to customers, good word of mouth can only be empty talk. Some companies do not focus on improving the core competitiveness of their products, and just blindly carry out overwhelming advertising and a large number of promotional activities, but they often fail to achieve good results. Some companies, although they have had a good reputation before, stand still, ignore the improvement of product and service quality, and can only be eliminated by fierce market competition.

“Wang Mazi in the north and Zhang Xiaoquan in the south.” The “Wang Mazi” knife and scissors factory was established as early as eight years in the Qing Dynasty (1651) at Caishikou, Beijing. It is a well-known Chinese brand . For hundreds of years, Wang Mazi knife and scissors products have been known to the people for their sharp edges and durability. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, “Wang Mazi” reached its historical peak and once set a record of selling 70,000 kitchen knives and 400,000 scissors a month. However, starting in 1995, Wang Mazi began to lose money for years, and eventually applied to the court for bankruptcy 352 years after its establishment.

“Wang Mazi” has a good reputation among consumers as an old name, but why was it abandoned by consumers in the end? The problem lies in the “Wang Mazi” scissors factory’s steadfast self-containedness and resilience. The products of “Wang Mazi” have always used the iron-clamped steel process. The made knives are easy to use and durable. However, with the advent of stainless steel knives and scissors, the products of “Wang Mazi” have gradually exposed their shortcomings: Easy to rust, old-fashioned appearance, low grade. Faced with the impact of new products, “Wang Mazi” has continued to use the techniques and shapes of decades ago, and has not actively developed a new Wang Mazi that suits the market demand. It is natural to lose the favor of consumers.

With the development of the market economy , the improvement of people ’s knowledge level and the increase in consumer experience, consumers have become more and more rational, and they are more inclined to learn about the product from the people around them, avoiding direct experience of the risks and Cost, therefore, word of mouth marketing has also become more important. Some companies use the so-called “actual effect” to propagate. They have invited many celebrities, but they have no “celebrity effect”. They have invited many customers to “show their opinions”, but they give people the suspicion of “trust”. On the contrary, some companies do not shy away from the shortcomings of their products in the process of publicity, and realistically promote the functions of the products, but they can win the trust of customers and bring a good reputation.

Marketing ethics is the premise of corporate word of mouth marketing. Enterprises should first ensure the objectivity and authenticity of their publicity, and not overstate their products and services. Otherwise, it is likely to bring about negative word of mouth .

At the beginning of 2003, SARS had just begun to appear in Guangdong. Just when people did not understand what this highly contagious disease was, a message appeared on the Internet: this disease was some kind of bird flu, and a certain company produced it. A medicine is a potent medicine for treating and preventing this bird flu. For a while, “Luoyang Paper Expensive”, the company ’s special-effect medicines were in short supply and even out of stock . In the case that the health department has not confirmed the virus, this phenomenon has attracted the attention of government departments and the media. After investigation, it turned out that this company Gu Ren posted false information on the Internet to use the panic of the masses to promote sales the goal of. Under the question of the media and the public, the company has repeatedly denied its wrongdoing, even attempting to buy advertising by using advertising as a bait. In the end, the top pharmaceutical company in the world was severely punished by the government, and more importantly, its reputation for years of hard work in China was ruined.

Many companies in the marketing process often understand marketing as one-sided marketing , word-of-mouth marketing within the company is easily overlooked. In fact, if the employees of the enterprise are working for the enterprise with dissatisfaction, the effect is conceivable. And when these employees always complain when talking to friends about their business, their negative word of mouth as a source of information is far more effective than the average consumer. Moreover, this kind of resistance to the enterprise will definitely affect the normal production of the enterprise.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, a well-known accounting firm, experienced a severe “collective idle” storm for Chinese employees in 2004. In such a multinational company that ranks first among the world’s four largest accounting firms , how can there be “collective slowdown”?

The unreasonable salary system is the main reason for this turbulence. In the accounting and auditing industry, employees’ income mainly comes from basic wages and overtime income. On the issue of overtime wages , PwC’s consistent system is: junior employees pay overtime wages according to rules without year-end dividends , and management of senior employees and managers They do not pay overtime wages, but give year-end dividends as compensation. According to this system, although senior employees who do not belong to the managerial level often have to work overtime, they do not receive overtime wages. As a result, the salaries of senior employees are not as high as those of junior employees, which makes senior employees feel that their pay is not directly proportional to what they receive. At the same time, dozens of senior executives transferred from Hong Kong by the company are holding high salaries, which is in stark contrast to mainland employees, and the management culture brought by senior executives in Hong Kong makes them feel uncomfortable. The long-term conflict finally led to a crisis within the company.

Although the company has adjusted the overtime wage system after the incident of idle work, the actual wages of senior employees are still lower than their due wages. Although the storm was finally resolved with the compromise of all parties, the related business will inevitably be postponed and the number of orders will be affected in the short term. More importantly, PwC’s good reputation for many years of hard work may suffer serious losses in China.

PwC’s “work slowdown” reflects that even large companies with modern business ideas tend to mishandle internal employees’ dissatisfaction and cause fires in the backyard, which will seriously affect the company’s social reputation. Therefore, enterprises should pay full attention to internal word-of-mouth marketing, make employees truly recognize and integrate into the corporate culture, and sincerely carry out positive word-of-mouth communication for the enterprise . The sincerity of employees is often more convincing than the praise of ordinary word-of-mouth communicators.

Word-of-mouth is a double-edged sword, which can not only bring word-of-mouth effects to enterprises, but also negatively affect the spread of negative word-of-mouth. Modern enterprises, even some large enterprises, tend to ignore the seriousness of negative word-of-mouth communication . Without a set of mechanisms to deal with crises in a timely and correct manner, the crisis of the enterprise is often deepened.

In 1999, two users in Texas in the United States accused Toshiba of a notebook computer of a disk loop problem, which could cause damage to the stored data, so they initiated a joint lawsuit against Toshiba. To avoid the risk of high compensation, Toshiba agreed to “private” and paid a total of US $ 1.05 billion in compensation for US users. The news was released on the Internet by a returnee six months later, and at this time has caused dissatisfaction among Chinese consumers. However, this matter did not attract enough attention from Toshiba Corporation. When Chinese consumers also requested compensation, they were rejected by Toshiba Corporation and were subsequently jointly sued by the Chinese consumers to court. Toshiba ‘s “double standards” caused a stir in China, and Toshiba’s original good image plummeted. The Toshiba notebook computer incident has caused Toshiba’s sales to experience a cold winter. According to statistics released by International Data Corporation on December 19, 2000, the sales situation of Toshiba notebook computers in the increasingly prosperous personal computer market in mainland China this year has declined sharply. Sales in the second quarter were only 17,697 units, a decrease of 432 units over the first quarter, and the market share in the second quarter also dropped from 19.4% in the first quarter to 15.4%.

In China, the most common method used by many companies in times of crisis is to lock their doors, refuse all interviews, and try to deceive consumers by various means. Even many internal employees of the company do not know what happened. The result of this “covering the ugliness” can only be counterproductive, making the image and reputation of the company more questionable by consumers.

Many companies now blindly use marketing methods such as advertising, sales promotion, and business promotion . The development of the Internet and information technology has exacerbated this behavior, but the effect is not obvious. As a result, some companies hold the mentality of “the wine is not afraid of the alleys” and are blindly immersed in the production of products, excluding other marketing methods such as advertising and sales, so they will go to the other extreme. Enterprise marketing should be based on the characteristics of their own products. Starbucks ‘ word-of-mouth marketing strategy may not be suitable for other enterprises.

In the past, when referring to Maotai, people would think of “national wine” and “national banquet”, thinking that this is a noble wine that only big men can drink. Moutai always seems to be very reluctant to take off the mysterious veil on his body. “The wine is not afraid of the alleys.” As an advanced product under the planned economy , Moutai never needs to consider whether his wine can be sold. However, under the tide of the market economy, Maotai gradually lost its dominant position and was facing a strong impact from liquor brands such as Wuliangye and Langjiu. Finally, Moutai began to advertise in the mid-1990s! It seems that good wine can’t just be placed in the alley. In 1998, China’s liquor industry was severely damaged, and Moutai was not spared. In the face of the crisis, Moutai bosses personally seized sales, organized marketing teams, and launched new comprehensive marketing throughout the country. People have mixed opinions on the effects of Moutai marketing, but only from the change of marketing concepts, Moutai is worthy of appreciation. Although it was forced out, it can at least avoid repeating the “Wang Mazi” mistake.

Word of mouth marketing expert Michael Cafferky once pointed out: “Word of mouth is a low-tech method in the mind, but it resorts to all high-tech gimmicks in the market to achieve it.” It can be seen that traditional marketing methods are still a part of corporate marketing. The important aspect is that word-of-mouth is not a panacea, and word-of-mouth marketing in an enterprise should organically combine the two.

Word-of-mouth marketing is getting more and more attention from marketers, but if the above problems are ignored, not only will word-of-mouth fail to play its due marketing role, it will also easily cause negative word-of-mouth communication , which will cause difficulties for corporate marketing. Therefore, in the marketing activities, marketers should pay attention to the above problems, try to avoid these problems, and correct the problems that have occurred in a timely manner, so that the marketing role of huge reputation can be truly exerted.