Consumers are mostly influenced by opinions that are expressed directly to them. Nowadays the marketers spend millions of money on various advertising campaigns however what really persuades a consumer to make up their mind is a free and simple source i.e. by a word of mouth recommendation. It’s through the Word Of Mouth Marketing that results in 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions. It creates a greater influence when consumers are purchasing a product for the first time or when the product is really expensive or if there are certain factors of the product that requires a lot of research and opinions.
The influence of Word Of Mouth Marketing is constantly growing; the digital world has revolutionized and has accelerated to a point where word of mouth does not stand as a one on one communication alone. It also operates as one too many communication bases such as: product reviews are posted online on the internet, opinions get scattered through social networks and some consumers express their opinions about the brands by creating blogs on their websites. As online communication has increased in size, number and character marketers have now realized the importance of Word Of Mouth marketing.
[large]When assessing how word of mouth impacts the marketing, following are some factors that must be taken seriously such as:
1- What’s being communicated to the target audience: In order to have a greater influence on the consumers to make a purchasing decision, the word of mouth marketing has to emphasize on the product or on its services features. The marketers get inclined to build different campaigns by emotional positioning, consumers usually creates a buzz about the product’s functional messages.
2- The personal identity of the person whose delivering the message:The receiver has to trust the person who’s communicating the message and should believe that this person really knows about the product or service in question. Otherwise the message will get failed and won’t be spread further on.
3- The place where the message is circulated: The messages that are passed on through trusted sources have a less reach but have got a huge impact than those that are circulated through disseminated sources. However a lot of marketers may perceive word of mouth marketing as an immature and unsophisticated way of marketing a product. For a starting point, marketers can consider the word of mouth through social media. The social media can perform the monitoring by keeping up the track how the message is delivered online and how well it has its impact on the brands and businesses. The marketers must be engaged in social media and different online communities to get where they are able to stimulate the word of mouth like interacting with the customers and with people who are interested to buy their products.
The marketers are aware of the benefits of word of mouth on the consumers and this is truly an art to helpful word of mouth campaigning. The science that lie behind this shows how to sharpen and place the art like which message to pass on the consumers and its impacts. This is an essential part for companies to strap up the potential of word of mouth and to seek higher returns on their marketing’s investments.