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22 Responses to “Notes from the Trenches – Share Your Story & Win a Trip to WOMM-U!”

1. Janine Swenson Says:
   April 17th, 2009 at 5:03 pm

   My Master’s thesis was on Humorous email as a positive form of word of mouth advertising (2006) it was great research for me and was completed before the current age of social networking was ushered in. Number 1 learning experience - I’m pretty innovative and friends and people you know and respect will be the reason WOM works.

2. Robert Fields Says:
   April 17th, 2009 at 6:58 pm

   Our office is currently in the midst of a charitable campaign in association with the Salvation Army’s National Food Drive. Our social marketing concept focuses on the “Teenager” demographics and their active involvement within the community. Specifically, the social marketing campaign revolves around the Twitter and its use to energize the youth to get involved and to make a difference. The “hook” for this word-of-mouth promotion is provided through a partnership with a local radio station, and the grand prizes for the lucky winners who make a contribution to the program are Taylor Swift concert tickets. Throughout this campaign, it has been refreshing to experience the power of social marketing at its most simplistic level and to be rewarded by an outpouring of teenager involvement for someone other than themselves. Therefore, NEVER underestimate the power of our youth!

3. Tom G Says:
   April 17th, 2009 at 7:47 pm

   The greatest word-of-mouth success story I’ve been associated with is the success of the Santana - “Supernatural” album which has sold over 25 million albums to date.

   I was on the sales and marketing team for Arista Records when the album was released. Expectations were not huge. This was a new album from an artist who had not enjoyed commercial sales success in years.

   Somewhere along the way, through the combined efforts of the sales, marketing, and promotion teams - the story became the STORY. People were talking about the album. People had to have the album just to keep up with the conversation at dinner parties.

   We received a lot of kudos for that one. But, honestly, after the first 2 million - it was ALL WOM. We just pressed ‘em up and sold ‘em!

4. Kemeny_x Says:
   April 17th, 2009 at 11:20 pm

   Back in 2007 starting out our thesis project, to design urban plush toys and a series of street art inspired characters, money was something we didn’t have, and we needed to get our toys out to the world. My role was to figure out a way to get known. I had been playing around with Youtube and Flickr for a while, but never really knew what kind of gold mind I was working with. One day we had a brilliant idea: “hey! Lets use Flickr to post photos of the plush toys and lets spend a few hours a day making new friends” - amazingly enough we started getting hundreds of page views and massive amounts of comments on our pictures. This opened up a whole new world. The Brocoli project has been up and running ever since. This was a great way to discover what social media really means, making friends and sharing your world. Thanks to this and other efforts I was able to land a job in an Internet marketing firm here in Chile doing what I love the most. Surfing the web and thinking of ways to make it ours, the user. Here’s a link just if you’re interested: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brocoli/

5. Matt J McDonald Says:
   April 20th, 2009 at 12:52 pm

   When I was a senior at Penn State, the football tickets sold out in the shortest time in school history. As a result a lot of seniors, myself included, were left without tickets. Football is something of a religion at PSU, and not being able to see the games in your senior year is a big deal.

   Keeping in mind that Beaver Stadium holds 107,000 people and there are only 21,000 student tickets for a student population of over 40,000, I started an online petition for the school to release some of the alumni tickets to seniors.

   I posted a link on my instant messenger away message and in my (very early) Facebook profile, and IM’ed and Emailed some of my close friends. Withing 5 hours we had over 1,000 signatures and in the end we ended up with around 6,000. We got the attention of the local newspaper and the school, but unfortunately they didn’t make any more tickets available.

   Regardless of the outcome, I think it was pretty impressive to mobilize that many students over summer break, when you don’t see or talk to as many of your classmates that often. My number one takeaway for WOM is that it really has to matter to the audience you’re trying to reach. You can’t bludgeon people into caring about your cause, but you can take their emotion and energy and focus it in a certain direction.

6. Gypsy Says:
   April 20th, 2009 at 6:03 pm

   i hope to be able to say i STARTED the best womm campaign… we’re raising 1 million supporters and 1 million dollars this year in a facebook group called ‘become a slumschool millionaire’
   please join… and hey - i hope i get to attend your conference! pick me!

7. Deena Livshits Says:
   April 20th, 2009 at 9:15 pm

   On October 3, 2007 I was blessed with twin baby girls. Born 10 weeks early, they were quickly brought to the NICU. My older daughter, Rory, was healthy and came home after 6 weeks in the hospital. Her twin sister, Sasha, was not so lucky. Sasha was never able to breathe on her own. She remained in the hospital for 8 long months, and on May 14th, 2008, she passed away. Each year, the March of Dimes organizes fundraising walks all over the country. This year, I will participate in my first walk. When I signed up for the walk, I quickly utilized Facebook as my “word of mouth” to solicit donations. I updated my status daily with the contributions of friends and family and cross posted the donations on the donor’s page. I asked each of my friends to donate $18, the numerical value of the word “life”, and, with one week to go, I have raised over $1,000, primarily on Facebook. This was a great tool and a very easy way to get my message across! GO TEAM SASHA!!!! marchforbabies.com/deenaliv

8. Dave Says:
   April 20th, 2009 at 10:49 pm

   With one client we created a viral marketing video (2007) that featured some pretty cool, new-age art. Their logo was at the beginning and end of the video. The video was really great - it got over 2 million views on YouTube and was featured by a number of prominent news sources. However, we couldn’t measure a darn thing. Next time, we’ll be sure to add some type of promo code so we can track how many sales / leads we get from the video.

9. Cassaundra StJohn Says:
   April 21st, 2009 at 3:06 am

   The best way to do this is actually take on the persona of a bona fide customer for your product. Before I decide to take on a current potential client I am actually going through the process of their weightloss clinic and blogging about it-good, badand indifferent. Since the program has worked so far-there is no “selling” needed. I just post my day one and current pic and you see the fat melt off-day one is NOT pretty but it’s true and believable and the fact that I show my fat picture spreads the word and gets total buy-in!

10. Kendra Ramirez Says:
    April 21st, 2009 at 9:17 am

    I tell my word of mouth story as often as I can. Back in December a gentleman had heard about my company through a mutual connection in Linkedin. He shows up to my class on social networking for business development. We always go around the room and introduce ourselves and what we do. He tells us the he owns a non profit called Miracles for Life. After class I asked him to tell me more about his organization. They promote donor awareness and help children after post organ transplants. I tell him about my brother in law who is on a liver transplant list. He in turn tells me that he has had two liver transplants and is the oldest living liver transplant recipient in the United States. By this time we are both in tears. He tells me that he knows the Chief Surgeon and Head of Transplant Unit in Louisville, KY. Guess where my brother in law lives? Yes, Louisville, KY. Within weeks my brother in law was interviewed and tested and received a liver 5 weeks ago. He is doing great. We are very blessed and glad that the gentlemen heard about us through word of mouth.

11. Diana Turowski Says:
    April 21st, 2009 at 9:35 am

    A lesson that falls under “What I Know Now, That I Wish I Knew Then…”

    Any time you leave your computer, SIGN OUT.

    I’m somewhat of a prankster at work, but people have taken their revenge by using my email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc… posting funny, yet embarassing items that I generally wouldn’t post (ie, oh my boogers hurt). But the good side is that those who follow me have found them interesting, so they watch for my posts more often!

12. Mauricio Montenegro Says:
    April 21st, 2009 at 9:37 pm

    The experience: Generate WOM without being sure about how to do it and how to measure…but it worked! In 2002 one of our clients dedicated to mortgages in Mexico (I used to work in a small advertising agency)was practically out of budget to invest in an advertising campaign. He had only some thousands of dollars and we could not find how to establish a good campaign with such a small budget.

    We recommended to him to provoque some buzz by training and hiring 2 actresses to go to the Bingo, coffee shops and other places where they can be heared by other people, and speak about how one of them had made possible her dream to buy a house with the great mortgage and service of our client’s company.

    Our client liked the idea, and we started to prepare the scene: we train the actresses, we wrote the script…and It worked!

    Our client received around 50 calls in 3 weeks about people asking for information. When he asked to the people how they find him a big number of them answered that they heard a conversation in X place and they asked for the contact information to the person telling the story because she was really satisfied with the service and result.

    The biggest learning? That I can still be surprised by the power of communication in its more basic levels…

13. Derrick Daye Says:
    April 21st, 2009 at 10:46 pm

    It was early 1997 - yes, 1997. I launched Airvibes, a site for radio, television and film professionals. After registering you could choose to network with other members of your industry or all three. With a click an email introduction was made between you and one member from each industry you chose to network in. It was a highly popular feature. The networking led to several reported jobs and good will. As so often is the case the learning experience came from the unexpected realization that it was this method of connecting people that was the real hero of the day - not the job boards, interviews and other web 1.0 attractions that anchored the strategy.

14. David Spitz Says:
    April 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 am

    In the short life of my new start-up, Aftershot (we created the world’s first effective after-party recovery drink), I’ve arrived at an unchallengeable conclusion: WOMM works all the time, works every time. I was introduced to the concept of WOMM by fellow University of Chicago b-school grad Ted Wright. Learning from Ted and hs team at Fizz I have been able to put WOMM into practice. My story is simple: I tell a neighbor “next time you party hard, take an AfterShot before going to bed (I gave him a free case) and you’ll wake up fine the next morning” A week later, I get a phone call from my neighbor’s daughter (had never met her before) “I love AfterShot and so does my friend, professional beach volleyball player Al-b Hannemann; he wants you to come to Cancun with us in 2 weeks for a huge volleyball event he is organizing” Two weeks later, I found myself in the beautiful beaches of Cancun, surrounded by 12 professional beach volleyball players, all party animals, all begging me for AfterShot to keep them alive as they partied their week away. If that wasn’t enough, there were 120 amateur beach volleyball players emulating everything their pro-idols did, including drinking tequila after tequila and taking their AfterShot before going to bed. By the time the week was over, I had 130 new customers who absolutely LOVED our product. To top things off, I’m now great friends with the elite of this “play-hard, party-hard” crew (including Olympic gold medalist Phil Dalhausser and rising stars Matt Olson and Dane Jensen) who tell all their friends and fans about the great experience they had with AfterShot in the Mexican beaches, and now in the comfort of their homes…and even on tour!

    So what did I learn? First and foremost, people try things their friends tell them to try and secondly, WOMM grants you access to people and communities that are a) not easily accessible through other means b) take your product to markets that are ideal for your brand before you even realize it. All we do is WOMM…and we will continue to do it until there’s no one else to talk to because we have seen how effectively it works!

15. Erin Gifford Says:
    April 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    Great giveaway, Kaitlyn!

    While at AOL I handled the launch of new online coupon service, Shortcuts.com. While I started out with traditional media relations to spread the word, I quickly learned that frugal mom bloggers were the folks I needed to hit, and in many cases were more influential in garnering new users than placements in top-tier print media.

    I also quickly learned that the mom bloggers weren’t just going to write about the service. I needed to tie the service into what they were already writing about, and that was grocery deals. So, to get the moms to write about Shortcuts.com, I’d match up the online coupons with what was on sale that week at the participating grocery stores and send it out to the mom bloggers who wrote about sales at those stores. It definitely led to an increase in WOM about Shortcuts.com among coupon-clipping moms in the blogosphere.

    I knew I needed to be more than just a PR person to them too, and even started my own coupon-focused blog at http://www.CouponCravings.com to match up coupons with deals. I became a peer and a respected fellow mom blogger in the space. Today I have more than 11K subscribers to my blog and am even able to use it at times to talk about Shortcuts.com.

    Really my number one learning was that you need to tailor your approach to each blogger and what they are writing about. I clearly wouldn’t have been nearly as successful if I’d just sent out the press release to a bunch of mom bloggers who write about coupons. I tailored each pitch to each mom and to each store they covered. I then also hopped on Twitter and continued the conversation with each mom blogger from there.

16. Matt Reyes Says:
    April 22nd, 2009 at 3:08 pm

    My greatest WOM experience occurred when I headed up the organization to bring the Dalai Lama to the University of Texas. Tickets were to go on sale at 6 in the morning, but turned into an all-night interaction of students getting together to discuss philosophy and good times with people that they didn’t even know. Talk about purpose-based WOM…when peace and interaction is part of the event that the Dalai Lama is speaking.

    The best thing I learned from this is to cultivate the most avid supporters with the best information and environment that really creates social currency. The social currency in this case: friendship.

17. Clint Schaff Says:
    April 22nd, 2009 at 7:08 pm

    The best social media/WOM program I’ve been involved with was at M80 (www.m80im.com) and was for client company Cisco. The team put in place a great program involving Twitter (before everyone was), blogger outreach and a whole lot of listening. One key learning is that a great way to build relationships with bloggers and other influencers is to join their conversations and contribute valuable insights, materials, etc.

18. Eric Says:
    April 22nd, 2009 at 11:07 pm

    Best program + experience right now is creating social media strategy for Artomatic.

    Artomatic is a DC arts showcase - May 29-July 5 - above Navy Yard Metro.

    http://blog.artomatic.org includes our Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, MySpace + YouTube.

    We coordinate this all with our web, PR + email strategy. Our networks have strong activity + high stats so it’s an ideal market to use + test social media.

19. Helen Says:
    April 23rd, 2009 at 11:00 am

    One of my favorite experiences with social media is a new client of mine that truly epitomizes the idea of building a community first on a social web platform, in this case Facebook, then leveraging the fan base to meet marketing goals. For http://www.facebook.com/fibro360 we created a page first and foremost for people to connect over their fibromyalgia sponsored by my client. In one month the page has grown to over 1,000 fans averaging almost 60 wall posts a week.

    The main take-away is social media or the social web is about the conversation and connecting first. Once the community is there, then sprinkle in the marketing goals to a receptive audience.

20. Lauren Cook Says:
    April 24th, 2009 at 2:32 pm

    The best WOM marketing campaign I’ve been involved with happened recently and gained traction thanks to one of the biggest events of our nation’s history - the Inauguration of President Obama.

    I was working with a small company out of Boulder, CO that was producing baby onesie’s with the phrase, “I Am Generation O” printed across the chest.

    The minute we began blog outreach two days before the Inauguration, it was clear that many families felt an emotional and political connection to “Generation O.” Many bloggers and readers commented on the hope they felt for their small children growing up in a new era under Barack.

    Regardless of political affiliation, I learned that successfully pulling off a WOM marketing campaign is based upon three factors: 1) emotion 2) community and 3) damn good timing.

    Another lesson from the campaign: Make sure your client can deliver their product en masse once buzz reaches millions of consumers online!

21. And the winner is… Says:
    April 27th, 2009 at 6:35 pm

    [...] Thank you to everyone who participated. There were truly some great entries. Congrats to Robert Fields who wrote about a WOM campaign he is currently working on with the Salvation Army’s National Food Drive to push teen involvement within the community. You can read his entry and check out others in Kaitlyn’s post here. [...]

22. Jenny from Ticket Center Says:
    August 4th, 2010 at 10:52 am

    I really enjoy reading your post Kaitlyn.

    As a marketing consult I thought it was a great idea to continue promoting (WOMMA)the Word of Mouth Marketing Association by sharing stories & rewarding it by winning a Trip to WOMM-U!

    I know the importance of WOM since I use Facebook as one of my tools to promote different events.

    I hope you will be continuing promoting the WOMMA this year as well.