Hear 2.0

Word-of-mouth means face-to-face

Face-to-face remains the strongest medium for spreading word-of-mouth, according to a new study by NOP World.

"Influentials" are the one in ten Americans who tell the other nine how to vote, where to eat and what to buy. These are the primary engines of word of mouth. And word of mouth is the most effective kind of "marketing" there is.

Influential Consumers said the following contributed to a recommendation they made in the past year:

Face-to-Face: 90%
Telephone: 79%
Magazine: 61%
In Store: 58%
Television: 55%
Newspaper: 53%
Coupon, Discount : 49%
Web: 45%
Radio: 44%
Free Sample: 39%
E-mail: 26%

From the client standpoint, not a very good showing for Radio, I must say. Particulary since so much of Radio advertising is tactical and promotional. How much of this is the fault of our actual creative, I wonder? I'm guessing a lot.

From the perspective of marketing your station, what this means is that all of the mechanisms you can dream up to spark word of mouth must, at one point or another, involve a face-to-face or telephone-to-face communication if they're to be truly effective.

That also means that if there's a way you can connect to and through social groups, your "ideas" are much more likely to spread.

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