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Recap of WOMMA Summit 2010

23
November
2010

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association held its annual Summit last week and attendees learned all about the best practices and new trends in social media and word of mouth marketing.

Ryan Moss
Lead Strategist

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) annual Summit held in Las Vegas, along with two of my colleagues (George Assimakopoulos & Robin Dvorak). This was the second time I attended the WOMMA Summit and my third in person WOMMA event and I have to say that every event has been extremely valuable for both educational and networking purposes. This years summit was particularly interesting as a lot of the break-out sessions focused on social media with individual topics ranging from how to use social media with B2B Marketing, how to select a social media monitoring vendor and key performance indicators (KPIs) in social media. I learned a lot of valuable information while attending these sessions and courtesy of Interscope Records I was able to hear the new Dr. Dre single, which I recommend to those who like rap music, although just a heads up that the song does feature some profanity.

The information shared during the break-out sessions and key note speakers was extremely informative and beneficial. As a result I ended up filling up quite a few pages with notes and takeaways. I’ve highlighted some of the more important takeaways below.

  • Recent surveys have shown that most marketers want to use social media to showcase “thought leadership” while also generating leads and receiving customer feedback – “Getting Social with B2B Marketing” from IBM
  • Automated tools are very helpful, but it is important to manually review the results as no tool is perfect and you’ll like find a few things that should be changed- “Key Performance Indicators in Social Media” from Golin Harris
  • A great way to engage your customers is by asking them to submit relevant stories about their experiences with your products- “Connecting Manufacturing Businesses with Customers through Social Media” from Briggs & Stratton
  • Almost every promotional campaign requires a multi-channel approach that utilizes a variety of platforms and/or tactics such as Facebook, Twitter, Email Marketing, Website Promotion, etc- “Acquiring Customers & Increasing Engagement through Social Media” from Interscope Records

The WOMMA Summit was a fantastic event to attend as it provided both the educational component as well as significant opportunities to network with other attendees, not to mention it was held in Las Vegas which is always a good thing. I’m already looking forward to seeing what the team at WOMMA will put together for next year’s event.

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EyeTraffic Media Launches JumpReach Basic Online Viral Marketing Service

30
September
2009

Turnkey, Web-based Word-of-Mouth Marketing Solution Makes Setting Up and Managing Referral Programs Easy for Marketers

Washington, DC, October 1, 2009 – Interactive marketing consulting firm EyeTraffic Media, announced today the launch of JumpReach™ Basic online viral marketing service. JumpReach Basic is a turnkey, web-based word-of-mouth marketing campaign tool for increasing lead generation and audience acquisition through referrals. At only $99 per month, the affordable marketing tool for marketers of online publications, non-profit associations and political campaigns makes setting up a special offering that customers can share with their friends a snap. Using JumpReach Basic, customers can easily refer a product, event or subscription to unlimited contacts from their Google, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, Outlook, and LinkedIn accounts.

Unlike typical email refer-a-friend links that only allow forwarding of generic email content to a few email addresses, referrers use the JumpReach contact importer to access their address books and send unlimited personalized invite emails with the marketer’s specific promotion or offering. JumpReach’s administration portal allows marketers to manage their campaigns, track referrals and recipients’ actions and export reports. 

WOMMA, the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association, recently used JumpReach Basic to promote an educational webinar for their membership. 

"As an organization, spreading WOM and empowering individuals to share our content is integrated into our daily engagement efforts, said Steve Ziemba, Social Media Director at WOMMA. “JumpReach Basic enabled us to quickly and easily create a referral campaign specifically for our recent webinar, our existing marketing efforts, and in our emails and website.” Ziemba added, “With JumpReach Basic’s analytics, we could see the real-time results of the campaign and how many referrals it generated.”

JumpReach Basic links or “share buttons” work with existing email marketing programs, websites and advertising campaigns. Using JumpReach’s campaign wizard, marketers can create the content for their offering and a campaign landing page without any coding. JumpReach manages secure, CAN-SPAM compliant sending of emails.

See JumpReach in action at www.jumpreach.com/share, where you can earn a free month of service by referring your friends.

 

About JumpReach

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., JumpReach, LLC is a provider of interactive social media marketing solutions for online marketers. The company’s primary product, JumpReach™

online viral marketing campaign service, leverages a business’s biggest asset – its own, existing audience. By giving current audiences the ability to share specific information or offers with their social networks, marketers can more effectively drive traffic to their websites and generate new leads. JumpReach campaigns work with existing email marketing systems and websites and provide real-time measurements of campaign performance. JumpReach is a wholly owned subsidiary of EyeTraffic Media, LLC. For more information, visit www.jumpreach.com.

About EyeTraffic Media

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., EyeTraffic Media is a performance-driven interactive marketing consulting firm that provides unsurpassed campaign management solutions for companies and organizations seeking to more effectively connect with their target audiences. EyeTraffic boosts lead generation and customer acquisition by leveraging our expertise in search engine marketing, online media buying, email and social media, mobile marketing and web analytics. Acting as a seamless extension of your marketing team, we build, manage, track and analyze interactive marketing campaigns and programs that generate measurable results. For more information, go to www.eyetraffic.com.

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Retailers Trying To Use Word of Mouth Marketing

25
August
2009

Retailers are hoping to utilize the power of viral marketing to help them reach new potential customers.

Ryan Moss
Media Coordinator

Retailers have been using email marketing for quite some time now to keep their existing customers informed and hopefully attract new customers. Now more and more retailers are adding "share" or "forward to a friend" options to their emails, hoping that their existing subscribers will help them bring in new ones.

Retailers have been using to two different techniques to encourage word of mouth marketing. The first is adding a "forward to a friend" (FTAF) button, which according to data from Smith Harmon, has been adopted by 41% of retailers surveyed. The other option, which is less popular right now, is adding a "share with your social network" (SWYN) option. Of those surveyed, only 6% said they provide this option. The study also showed that 7% of retailers offered both options while 46% offered neither option.

FTAF is clearly the more popular option right now, but many people believe that SWYN is on the rise. Within SWYN there are several different social networks that retailers make available. As seen in the chart below, the most popular one by far is Facebook.

Adding these functions to your emails is a tremendous idea and is something that should be done by all companies and organizations, not just retailers. When finding either a forward to a friend or a share with your social network tool to incorporate with your email newsletters, there are several different options out there including our own tool, JumpReach. Our solution provides robust analytics that allow you to see the detailed results of your sharing campaign and it also makes it easy for your existing subscribers to forward your message by allowing them to access their address book for Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Outlook and LinkedIn to select which contacts they want to share with. In conjunction with our JumpReach solution, we offer a FREE Assessment in which one of our Product Specialists will discuss how your business can enjoy the benefits of viral marketing.

106065 Retailers Trying To Use Word of Mouth Marketing

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Week 4: Utilizing Social Media and the Word-of-Mouth Fallacy – Part 2

10
July
2009

Realizing that word-of-mouth marketing can’t be controlled, only effectively harranessed through the strategic use of tools like social media.

Blake Bowyer
Media Program Analyst

| Read Part 1 |

Ask yourself this: When was the last time you bought a product or used a service after hearing about it from a traditional medium like TV commercial or magazine ad? From another perspective, how do you think clients – from the cellular-deprived consumer who dropped a phone in the toilet to the airline looking to upgrade its fleet – make decisions and find out about you? 

With the scales tipping in favor of new and social media, word-of-mouth is more prevalent and influential than ever. Not only is this message powerful because it’s passed efficiently via social media from trusted sources, but also because the amount of time consumers spend on social media continues to increase. For supporting research and data, check out the Nielsen report “Social Networking’s New Global Footprint" (Note: opens as a PDF).

80% of EyeTraffic Media’s new clients come from referrals, which is basically word-of-mouth. How do we accomplish that? By providing effective, measurable results through the implementation of tactical interactive marketing campaigns, including helping our clients use social media in their favor. That statement isn’t to pat ourselves on the back, but notice that nowhere does it say “by using word-of-mouth marketing”. 

We GENERATE word-of-mouth by providing exceptional marketing solutions for clients. That is, our services are remarkable; our past and current clients are compelled to talk about them. That’s how we, a marketing consultancy executing the lion’s share of our tactics through new media, make word-of-mouth work in our favor.

Abandon the mindset of “using” word-of-mouth. Word-of-mouth is an outcome, not a tactic in itself. This type of buzz can be induced by fantastic products, extraordinary service, innovative methods, controversial practices, and a myriad of other reasons people start talking. Of course, word-of-mouth can be negative as well, but don’t let that scare you. From our standpoint, the best marketing advice strangely comes from Bonnie Raitt: give ‘em something (good) to talk about.

In this two-post entry, hopefully you’ve learned a bit about social media. But finding information on social media is like drinking from a fire hydrant. Thankfully, you can continue your social media immersion in t-minus 12 days on July 22 @ 12 EST/ 9 PST when EyeTraffic Media and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) join forces for a webinar – Measuring Social Media Effectively. This 1-hour session will focus on just that: measuring your social media efforts. In the crowded landscape of social media, it’s easy to join the conversation but difficult to know if all the chatter is adding up. Best of all, the webinar is FREE. Bring your thinking cap, questions, and find out how you can take your social media understanding to a measurable level. Click the badge below to register.

ETMWOMMALOGO 1 Week 4: Utilizing Social Media and the Word of Mouth Fallacy Part 2

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Week 4: Utilizing Social Media and the Word-of-Mouth Fallacy – Part 1

9
July
2009

Why marketers can’t “use” word-of-mouth and why they shouldn’t want to.

Blake Bowyer
Media Program Analyst

Every so often you’ll come across a Web site or textbook that lists “word-of-mouth” as a tactic in the marketer’s arsenal. At first thought, it doesn’t seem crazy; word-of-mouth marketing is often an important consideration in spreading a company’s message, gaining customer referrals, and building goodwill. 

Word-of-mouth is at the essence of social media. Twitter, Facebook, and the blogosphere are basically hyper-efficient platforms for making word-of-mouth happen. Social media are the striking surface for the match and you’re more likely to start a fire by using them in concert (unless you’re able to get a spark from the sole of a shoe – but I wouldn’t count on that on a desert island). In short, social media have bestowed upon marketers a way to potentially facilitate buzz with the click of a mouse.

But …

Here’s the thing: word-of-mouth marketing is still the “effect” in this casual relationship. All word-of-mouth starts with a noteworthy product/service experience or a piece of wise or salacious information. Now, since it’s unlikely you’re working with the very latter, think about what makes your company, what it provides, or what it says worth telling others about. 

And that’s where the crux exists and we must make a crucial distinction. This means the value your company provides must extend past the person it serves directly. The value must be worth spreading. After all, the spreaders – or as Seth Godin calls them, “sneezers” – are putting their reputations as sages on the line to vouch for you or your company. Ask this: What companies do you trust enough to do that?

That being said, social media have made it both easier and harder for you to give the spreaders a message in the right format and clarity to share it with social networks. For example, a positive experience at Great Clips might not be so easy (or remotely interesting) to express on Facebook. However, if Great Clips set up a Twitter account for the freshly shorn to anonymously tweet about their experiences or take an in-salon satisfaction survey that publishes results in real-time, it would be more compelling. Now, to use that to the company’s advantage, Great Clips must satisfy its customers. Though, isn’t that the idea anyway?

Come back tomorrow for Part 2 to learn more about word-of-mouth and its love/hate relationship with social media. In the meantime, click HERE to see a success story with social media coming from an unexpected source: Priceline. One highlight – after customers secure a hotel, flight, or rental car via the "Name Your Own Price" option, they can brag about their bidding prowess on an automatically-generated deal tweet. Check it out:

TwitterBlakeJBowyerIjustgota25st 3 Week 4: Utilizing Social Media and the Word of Mouth Fallacy Part 1

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