Word of Mouth Marketing--Part III

From Andy Sernovitz's Word of Mouth Marketing, last week we covered the first two Ts of womm: Talkers and Topics. Today we look at three through five.

3. Tools. How can you make the message travel farther and faster? Key concepts here are "speed and portability." Because the Internet can spread word so quickly, Sernovitz gives many specific ideas for better online usage for womm. These include such things as more effective use of emails, websites, blogs, social communities, reviews, and message boards.

Overall, what hit me most about #3 was the reminder of spreading the word--any word--farther. Doesn't have to be on the Internet. It may mean rethinking any bit of marketing we do. For example, if you send out postcards via regular mail to a mailing list about your latest book, that's a one-to-one ratio, right? Sender sends to one receiver. That receiver may read it, then throw it away. What might be included in the text of that postcard that would prompt the receiver to give it to a friend? Or if you send out an e-newsletter to subscribers, obviously any email is able to be forwarded, but is there anything on that newsletter prompting receivers to forward it? And, as Sernovitz notes, if the newsletter or any marketing email is forwarded, make sure it'll make sense to the second recipient, who may not have heard of you. A quick blurb about your company or your writing or whatever would be helpful.

Sernovitz also advocates giving away free product as a good marketing tool. I agree. I think if we authors believe in our books, one of the best things we can do is get copies into the hands of new readers. If you give away one, that's a one-to-one ratio. If you give away two, that person will pass the second to a friend.

When Crimson Eve, third in the Kanner Lake series, went on the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance blog tour, I included "give-away" copy in the information text I sent to CFBA. That text invited anyone who knows someone who's never read one of my suspense novels to send that person's name, street address and email address to my assistant, and that person would receive a free copy of Crimson Eve. First 100 responders got a book sent out. I promised I would not spam the recipients, only using the email address once to let them know So-and-So friend had requested that he/she receive a book, and it was on its way. (Of course, in that email was my typical Seatbelt Suspense signature and links to my website and blog.) I had 100 responses in no time. This cost some money, but it was worth the "seeding." The copies were provided by my publisher. I paid the postage and my assistant's time in mailing.

4. Taking Part. Key concept--Womm is "as much about customer service as it is about marketing." Online conversations--positive or negative--can spread quickly. Sernovitz says there are two risks in not taking part in these conversations: "word of mouth dies" or "goes negative." ISearch engines make it easy to see who's talking about you online. Google Alerts is one I use. It sends me an email telling me if anyone has mentioned me in a blog post. Don't be shy when this happens, Sernovitz says. Take time to visit the blog and say thank you if someone spoke well of your product. "Fixing problems is the most powerful marketing you can do," he says. "A formerly unhappy customer who is made happy tells 1o people." It's a little hard for an author to "fix" it when someone posts a negative review of your book. It's not like we sold someone a broken widget and can just replace it for free. But given that "unhappy customer turned happy" statement is a "key rule of thumb" for womm, it does make me think. What can I do in that situation. Is there a way in which I can take part in the conversation to make it more positive? Worth thinking about.

5. Tracking--Measuring and understanding what people are saying about you. When you track womm, you can assess such things as who is talking, what tools they are using, and what topics are working for you. Among other things Sernovitz advocates using search engines and encouraging feedback. The last one is interesting to me. Makes my mind start turning. How can I better encourage feedback on my products?

A helpful blog listed for measuring womm: Word of Mouth Marketing Association's Research Blog.

I'm coming down to the wire on a deadline at the moment. But in my spare moments (with what brain power I have left), I've been pondering Andy Sernovitz's many ideas in his book. I want to fill out the Five T form and put myself on a plan of action. (That, of course, is more than just a few minutes of filling out a piece of paper. Takes some thought.) I'm glad I read this book. It's got me fired up to open up my mind and think conceptually, as well as given me practical, specific things I can do right away.

Please continue to leave your comments today. Tomorrow I'll announce the three winners of the random drawing for a copy of Word of Mouth Marketing.

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Read Winners (Final post)

Word of Mouth Marketing--Part II

According to Andy Sernovitz in Word of Mouth Marketing, the Five Ts of womm are:

Talkers
Topics
Tools
Taking Part
Tracking

Talkers: Who are the people who want to talk about you and your stuff? The immediate thought is--your customers. Yes, some customers may be good talkers. But Sernovitz makes an interesting point: your talkers can also be "super-eager fans who will never buy a product." He mentions the opening of Wynn Las Vegas. Before the official opening, the hotel invited in cabbies for free rooms and the run of the place. Cabbies aren't likely customers. But as they drive tourists around, which hotel do you think they were talking about?

Turns out this is exactly what I did with my recent reaching out to the Big Honkin' Chickens Club. This unofficial club has been around a long time, full of folks who call themselves chickens when it comes to reading suspense. Which means when I moved to writing suspense only, they wouldn't read my stuff. But they'll talk about it. They'll tell others about me. I decided to make it easier for them to talk (second half of Sernovitz's definition of womm). I came up with a cute BHCC logo and put it on merchandise like a keychain, magnet, mousepad, bag and T-shirt. All the merchandise also includes my Seatbelt Suspense trademark and website address. I gave them an easy html copy and paste way to post the BHCC logo on their own sites. I gave them a page complete with a guestbook on my web site. I came up with a system for rating my novels' "scare factor," using the logo and daring BHCC members to try one. A three-chicken read may really be too much, but a one-chicken read? Why not try it? It's fun for the BHCC folks, because they're doggone proud of their membership. And if decide to carry around a BHCC keychain, that's marketing for me.

Look beyond your core customers. Who else might talk about you? Sernovitz lists seven kinds of people to consider and three traits they might possess. He includes a "Talker Profile" worksheet for thinking through this process. And he lists ways to make these people happy, which will keep them talking.

Topics--what will they talk about? Sernovitz notes that the message needs to be a single idea and very short. No lists. No using "and." He lists characteristics that make a good topic and spends a lot of pages giving you ideas for how to come up with topics. One characteristic he mentions: They are organic--arising naturally from the "exceptional qualities that make your stuff stand out." So ya gotta include factors in your stuff that lead to a good message. Gateway could just make computers. Somebody had to think--"Let's put them in cow boxes."

If you're a novelist, what can you do? For my Kanner Lake series, I created Scenes and Beans, the character blog. Scenes and Beans is also a blog in the novels themselves, written by the regular customers of Java Joint, the coffee shop in Kanner Lake. I held auditions for aspiring novelists who wanted to write as the characters before the first book, Violet Dawn, hit the stands. Their posts would be written in real time, according to what was happening in the novels. Auditioners got free pre-release reads of Violet Dawn so they could study the characters. By the time Violet Dawn was released, all those writers who won parts were talking to their friends about the blog and series. They had a stake in the series. They had their own "Original Scenes and Beans writer" logo to put on their blogs. I sent them press releases, which allowed them to fill in their own names and information, that they could send to their local papers. Some did--and had articles printed about them in their papers. And, of course, those articles mentioned Violet Dawn and the Kanner Lake series. My womm topic: The blog in the novels is real.

I wanted Scenes and Beans to continue running strong after these initial writers had fulfilled their six-month commitment to write for the blog. It didn't hit the success I wanted it to. But that initial word of mouth for Violet Dawn really helped. The last book of that series, Amber Morn, was dedicated to all those initial Scenes and Beans writers.

So--now with Amber Morn's release, the Kanner Lake series is over. What am I going to do for my next novel, Dark Pursuit? Don't know. But you can bet I'm thinking about it.

These examples are a couple from my own experience. Sernovitz has many examples of womm topics in his book. The examples are great 'cause they get you thinking about what you could do. Sometimes the thinking has to be out of the box. Or maybe in a cow box.

Part III Monday--the next Three Ts.

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Read Part III

Word of Mouth Marketing--Part I

I'm going to have to strike a difficult balance here. I want to give you enough specifics from Andy Sernovitz's Word of Mouth Marketing to get us all thinking. But I'm not gonna give away all his secrets. And he has plenty. As I mentioned yesterday, his steps for womm got my mind working right away. (Which is amazing, because right now my peabrain is quite on overload with a deadline approaching.) Bottom line, I think you ought to buy this book--if you don't win one of the three free copies here (commenter's name randomly drawn).

WOMM was written for any kind of company or service or product. Including us struggling folks in the publishing biz. The book is divided into two parts, the first presenting the author's philosophy of the subject--"The Essential Concepts." In a comment to yesterday's post, Becky said: "... with a book like this circulating, many will duplicate the successes and adapt the principles. Seems there needs to be a twist that sets one apart from all the others doing what someone else has already done."

My take on WOMM: that "twist" is intrinsic to its philosophy. At the heart of word of mouth marketing is a good topic to talk about. Sernovitz defines womm as "giving people a reason to talk about your stuff, and making it easier for that conversation to take place." Your stuff, of course, is what you do. It needs to be a good product to begin with. In my case, my stuff is the suspense novels I write. Making it easier for that conversation to take place arises out of who you are as a company or product maker. It's your unique personality at work to create conversation. Since my stuff and my personality form a different combination from other people's, my best ideas for womm will not look like everyone else's. Many of the same vehicles of communication may be the same, but the message will not.

"Long-term, sustainable word of mouth comes when a business becomes truly immersed in the word of mouth philosophy," says Sernovitz. "Your brand becomes fundamentally talkworthy as you reach inside your company and change how you think about business and your relationship with your customers." As we create products we need to think in terms of also creating a "buzzworthy experience" for those who use our products.

It's important not to confuse the brand with the message. Your brand--rather simply stated, but it's not our topic here--is your unique product and how it's viewed by customers. The message is the topic of conversation you provide customers. Getting back to Sernovitz's definition of womm, his book, then, provides step-by-step specifics to help you determine what your message will be and how it can be helped along.

For example, Sernovitz mentions Steve Jobs, who returned to Apple in 1996 to revive the company. "Did he talk about great software? Stable operation systems? No. Jobs's great marketing insight was ... pink and purple computers." The products were good, the brand was building. But what people talked about were the cool colors. Or think of Saturn. The cars are supposed to be pretty good stuff. But what people talk about is the buying experience. No wrangling, no hassle. In the car biz, that's talkworthy. How about Gateway computers--what's message-worthy there? Those crazy cow boxes.

One of my favorites (not mentioned in the book) is despair.com. That insanely cynical company takes motivational sayings and turns them on their sticky sweet heads. They throw these statements of despair on calendars and posters and T-shirts. The products themselves are worth talking about. But the company's "customer disservice" is the main topic of conversation. All emails from that company, in keeping with the despair spirit, are designed to remind the customer how very unimportant he is, even as his order is being filled. When I want a good laugh, I go to despair.com. And I tell a lot of people about it. (I just did it again.)

As you can see, your message needs to be unique, different, unexpected, humorous--something that makes people want to tell someone else about it.

Sernovitz notes, too, that womm should always be honest. No lying, no manipulation. Integrity is essential.

Also--you gotta be willing to take some risks. Some word of mouth messages may really take off. Others may not. Some may do okay. You've got to be willing to put it out there and see what happens. The good news is, womm is way cheaper than formal advertising. Sometimes it doesn't cost at all.

Tomorrow: Sernovitz's Five Ts of word of mouth marketing.

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Read Part II

Word of Mouth Marketing

You know me, always looking for new marketing ideas. I've found some good ones in Word of Mouth Marketing, by Andy Sernovitz. Tomorrow I will start a short series of posts on this book. Andy has given me permission to quote from the book for these posts. Surely he is pleased to know I discovered his book from--what else? word of mouth. And, of course, now I'm continuing that WOM chain by telling you about it. Amazon.com recommended the book to me based on my previous purchases of books on marketing. So I clicked over, looked at the book and immediately bought it. To date Word of Mouth Marketing has been reviewed by 92 people and has a four and a half star rating. Andy has sent me three copies to give away during these posts. If you're interested in a copy, leave a comment each day. Names will be randomly drawn.

First, the book flap description:

Who Is Talking About You?

Master the art of word of mouth marketing with this fun, practical, hands-on guide. With straightforward advice and humor, marketing expert Andy Sernovitz will show you how the world’s most respected and profitable companies get their best customers for free through the power of word of mouth.

Learn the five essential steps that make word of mouth work and everything you need to get started using them.

Understand the real purpose of blogs, communities, viral email, evangelists, and buzz—when to use them and how simple it is to make them work.

Learn what sparks the irrepressible enthusiasm of Apple and TiVo fans. Understand why everyone is talking about a certain restaurant, car, band, or dry cleaner—and why other businesses and products are ignored. Discover why some products become huge successes without a penny of promotion—and why some multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns fail to get noticed.

Open your eyes to a new way of doing business—that honest marketing makes more money, because customers who trust you will talk about you. Learn how to be the remarkable company that people want to share with their friends.

Being jacket copy, the description above can speak only in general terms. But this book gets downright specific. I started getting marketing ideas right away as I read it. And this book is not only about the Internet. According to the author, only 20% of word of mouth marketing happens online. So if you're focused only on web sites, e-newsletters and blogs, think again.

Andy Sernovitz is CEO of GasPedal, a word of mouth marketing consulting firm. He's a professional speaker and teaches Word of Mouth Marketing at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He was a founder and CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, and recently left that post to pursue other endeavors in marketing. Plus he says he's seen the Grateful Dead 25 times. Guy's gotta be great, right? Andy's blog.

Tomorrow--Part I as we peek into this book. If you'd like a chance for a free copy, start leaving your comments now. You might answer the question: What's one thing you would like to learn from this book?

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Read Part I