Excerpt from "The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing"

the most important way of increasing sales and dominating a market has never, to my knowledge, ever been written about: Increase the speed with which decisions are made.

To make the decision easier, think of your sales people, product materials, presentations, seminars, press releases, hot lines - in fact, every aspect of your marketing program - not as sales communications, but as a Decision Acceleration System for your customers and prospects.
To turn your marketing into a Decision Acceleration System, make the product:
Benefits, claims, and promises obvious and compelling
Information clear, balanced, and credible
Comparisons reveal meaningful differences
Trial easy
Evaluations crystal clear and simple
Guarantees ironclad and generous
Testimonials and other word-of-mouth marketing relevant and believable
Delivery, training, and support superior

You need to structure the decision process for customers, and guide them through the twists and turns. Without active guidance, they will falter and flounder, and drown in a sea of information.

Word of mouth is communication about products and services between people who are perceived to be independent of the company providing the product or service, in a medium perceived to be independent of the company.

a satisfied customer is likely to tell approximately three people, whereas a dissatisfied customer is likely to tell approximately eleven people. This often because the positive experiences are expected and soon forgotten, but the unresolved negatives get people angry and frustrated, ... unexpected extraordinary service also causes strong positive word of mouth.

lack of positive experience with a product is usually the single greatest factor holding it back from greater and faster acceptance.

The decision process takes place in five broad stages:
1. Deciding to decide: Going from disinterested status quo to active investigation.
2. Selecting among options: a. identifying options, b. studying options, c. weighing options
3. Trial: observing the product in use and evaluating its performance.
4. Purchase/Implementation/Ongoing usage: becoming a customer
5. Expanding use and recommending: moving beyond intended use and becoming a product advocate.

The adoption cycle is usually broken down into five kinds of people: 1. Innovators, 2. Early adopters, 3. Middle majority, 4. Late adopters, 5. Laggards. These five "types" describe how people break out into recognizable patterns when faced with a decision in the marketplace.

Often, demos and trials tend to make the customer want to try other products as well, increasing the time it takes for a commitment.

When people are listening to an abstract product description, their critical faculties are in high gear. But when they are listening to a story, there is a much lower level of vigilance and critical thinking.

The lesson here is to not only spread ideas through word of mouth, but also build into those ideas reasons for people to convince others of the value of not only accepting the idea but of also passing it along and convincing others.

there was a short questionnaire for each of the technical service calls, asking not only about the specific service, but also about the person who answered my call.

Researching word-of-mouth:
. What are the users willing to tell the nonusers?
. Exactly how do your customers describe your product?
. What are the things they need to know, but are unwilling to ask?
. What happens when these issues are raised?
. Exactly what do your prospects have to know in order to trigger purchase?
. Exactly how do your customers answer the objections, concerns, and qualms of your prospects?
. How do your customers persuade their friends to use your product?
. How do your customers suggest they initially get to know (try) your product?
. What warnings, safeguards, tips, and suggestions do your customers suggest to your prospects?
. Are your sales messages, positioning, and important facts about your product getting through and surviving word of mouth?

Then ask, "How will they best learn these things?" You can't just tell them, because telling is not teaching, and teaching is not learning.

In a word-of-mouth session, participants learn a lot, but there is no follow-up their learning. They have no way to reinforce their learning, to put their experiences in context, to correct mistakes, and to explore other issues.

If people have better things to talk about than your product or service, that's what they will talk about.

Especially cater to those who are major potential sources of word of mouth. It doesn't matter if you lose money on them; it is the word-of-mouth stream, and thereby the revenue stream they create, that is important. These first customers are the early adopters of the product or service. Their direct revenues may not be particularly great in and of themselves. But these first customers might lead to hundreds or thousands of other customers eventually.

The best way to get someone to do something is to ask them. But don't ask them to do you a favor, ask them to do their friends a favor by recommending you. Most direct requests read like this: "Please tell your friends about our wonderful service."

Never answer a question coming from a desire to show how smart you are. Answer the question, but come from a desire to help the customer make the best decision. Make him feel smart for asking the question.

If you can suggest something better, without pressuring them, they will probably be grateful... "We've been selling a lot of X lately, and people have been coming back for more. I'm curious, have you tried it, and what do you think?"

Don't approach marketing as something you do to the customer. It is something you do for the customer.