Customer Reviews

The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing: How to Trigger Exponential Sales Through Runaway Word of Mouth

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm a graduate from Wharton and a professional marketing consultant. When I first began doing marketing professionally, I longed for an integrated theory to guide me in whatever marketing challenge I would encounter. I started by turning to some very general marketing books ("The Portable MBA in Marketing" was one), but was quickly turned off by the stodgy tone of these books and the excess of information that beared almost no relevancy to everday marketing challenges! It seems the only thing classical marketing was albe to suggest was to find out as much as you can about the customer and then profile him, segment him, test out concepts on him, and keep doing this until you've found something that works.

That approach seemed too brute force to me, so I continued looking around for my grand unified theory. Not at all thinking I'd found my golden chalice, I noticed George Silverman's "Word-of-Mouth Advertising" in the bookstore and was intrigued by the prospect of sysmetically generating word of mouth.

After reading it, I realized I'd finally found my theory. In fact, what I considered my ultimate marketing theory was only the foundation for this book! Silverman then went on to use these ideas to discuss how to create systematic word-of-mouth campaigns! The grand theory, by the way, is simply modeling the customer buying process--not a huge innovation at first glance, but when presented by Silverman it becomes clear just how overlooked an idea it is. I've seen the customer buying process in marketing textbooks before, but it was never presented as the foundation for all marketing everything as, in my opinion now, it should have been.

The remainder of the book discusses how word of mouth works, the different levels of word of mouth, and plenty of other ideas. It tells you why people spread word-of-mouth (basically being so over-satisfied with a product/service that they feel compelled to talk about it) and how to help them do it (give them tools to quickly contact their friends).

In the end, this book makes me feel like a better professional because now I have an intellectual basis for approaching all my projects, rather than just "instints", "intuition" or other pools of ideas whose reliability and accuracy is somewhat flimsy.

I hate to say it since I'm basically talking to competitors here, but if you're in marketing, you pretty much need to buy this book.

There are several good books on word of mouth and viral marketing (and I read everything on the topic), but none like this - written by a master implementer. Silverman reveals previously secret techniques he personally implemented for his clients in dozens of competitive wars. And because he's done it all first hand, he's able to illustrate every principle with fascinating real-world marketing examples. No one knows where word of mouth fits into the sales and advertising cycle better than Silverman. He's at the forefront of turning the whole field into a technology and a new media - treating word of mouth as something you can massively cause, not just a side-effect of a great product or PR. He spells out the principles, strategies, and specific techniques - many of which he invented - and how they relate to each other and to other media. The book is full of checklists of do's and don'ts, many of which aren't at all obvious. He explains how to maximize the leverage, getting 5-10 times more per promotional dollar spent. (Was there ever a better time for that?!) Heaven help your competitors who haven't read this book after you have.

I have 10+ years of experience marketing and launching high tech (and non high tech yet innovative) products of various sort and i found this information both accurate, invaluably concise and making good business sense. I find it an excellent complement to more theory oriented books like the "tipping point" and the "anatomy of buzz".
These last two books will explain you how words of mouth works but will not give you any really in depth insight about how you can make words of mouth work for you. "The secrets of words of mouth marketing" does.

To give just and example: the "decision matrix" described in chapter 5 is an extremely concise and rich tool for anticipating the concrete information that customers need to hear in order to decide about a product. For instance if you are currently targeting early adopters kind of customers then the matrix will tell you the exact content of what they need to hear in order to help them "decide to decide", "weigh information in your favor", "engage in a trial" etc. The decision matrix will also tell you what middle majority/pragmatist customers will need to hear to make the same kind of decisions and of course it's not at all the same (those of you wondering what I mean by early adopters, middle majority etc will find the info in the book -- this belongs to the diffusion of innovation theory of Everett Rogers something that any person seriously interested about words-of-mouth need to know about anyway by reading the two other books or this one).

You might have notice that in the previous paragraph I have been speaking about what customer "need to hear" and not what your company "needs to tell them". I think it's one of the great success of the book in helping us to really see the difference between the two, to understand that what you company say is less important than what your cstomer say and think and to understand how words-of-mouth can be "organized" in order for the two to match better.

Great book!!

Bruno Levy

I recently cracked George Silverman's book called The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing and boy, is it an eye opener!

Being a veteran of Madison Avenue, and purporting to be someone who helps companies realize market leadership, I was unconsciously making the same mistake that most marketing people do -- by overlooking one of the most important audiences for the strategies and the materials we create.

Usually, sophisticated marketers (like myself) will craft marketing materials (just like this article) in order to convince recipients (like you) about the superiority of our products or services, with the expected end-result being an inducement to trial.

But where we invariably drop the ball is in overlooking how most customers actually make their decisions to buy. Rarely is it the direct result of our marketing efforts alone. Most often, their "go/no-go" is the direct result of an endorsement or recommendation -- word-of-mouth.

Geroge illuminates this often overlooked and powerful marketing tool and gives practical advice on how to use it.

Take my advice and read it and then pass the word!

If you are looking for a way to increase sales exponentially, look no further than George Silverman's book. Word-of-mouth is not only the best way to market you product and get people *buzzing* about it, but this book is your one-stop-shop for figuring how to implement a WOM program for your particular needs. A few questions this book asks:

1) Are all your communications sending the same, simple message? It can't generate and survive word of mouth unless it's simple, and unless it's a compelling story.

2) Is your product positioned as part of a general class, then differentiated on the basis of its most needed attribute?

3) Are your examples outrageous enough to be repeated?

4) Do you sprinkle your materials with success stories from real people?

5) Have you created mechanisms so that people can follow up on the word of mouth they hear: simple and multiple ways of inquiring, investigating, ordering?

Buy this book before your competitors do!

I consider this one of the top ten marketing books that I have ever read.

Silverman begins by putting forth his theory that the best way to dominate a market is to shorten the customer decision process. He then shows why word of mouth marketing is the best strategy for shorten the customer decision process. The bulk of the book is a step by step plan for generating various types of word of mouth. The information is well organized and clearly presented and, unlike many business books, is not just a promotion of his consulting service, but rather a handbook of everything that Silverman has learned in his many years of consulting.

If I were going to read only one book on word of mouth marketing, this would be the one.

This guy's some sort of genius or something! I learned more from this book than from all the other marketing courses I've ever taken - and that's a lot! He's right - word of mouth marketing is all that really matters. I observe myself telling my friends how great a movie is, and how that makes them want to go see it. The studios get word of mouth to create blockbusters and make millions. This author showed me how to use the same principle to create millions on my products. He's a business person's best friend! Buy this book - it will make you look at your marketing budget in a whole new way, and make what you do spend SO much more effective.

George,

Your book was absolutely fantastic.

In the past 6 months I have read over 50 books on sales, marketing and advertising. None have really stood out to me and delivered the inspiration I was looking for to develop a successful marketing plan that is truly unique and special.

I started reading your book on Tuesday, today is Thursday and I have read it three times. It is hands down the best book on sales, marketing and advertising I have ever read.

We are working on our marketing plan now, and it is centered around the word of mouth tactics outlined in your book.

Thanks for the inspiration!

at first i was a bit disapointed,because the author sounds like he is exageretely trying to sell his book to your friends, and he says at least 100times that he is the first and the greatest and the...in the domain of word of mouth.i would have given the book 3 stars,if it didnt turn to the better, as he goes into more details about methods and principles of word of mouth.

in the end he summarizes the main points in a remarcable way, and i actually learned a few things. he also provides a list of recommended reading.

so: good book, useful information, easy to read, even if you could cut down about 50pages of rambling about how great word of mouth and the author is.

Visitors can always tell how valuable a book is to me, by counting the number of colored flags sticking out from the pages. And whether or not the flags appear all the way to the end.

Word of Mouth Marketing has 17 flags, several turned down corners, a boarding pass, an Amtrack stubb and 2 Metro North tickets. Plus the yellow highted phrases. If you are interestd in practical help (not just advice)- to explode your marketing - this is the book for you.