WOM Research #2.12
- Ron Fournier to Keynote Research Symposium
- Consumer-Generated Reviews Spur Shopper Loyalty
- Social-Cause Marketing Secures Brand Trust
- From the Archives:
Happy 2,400th Birthday, WOM!
 Tell a friend: http://www.womma.org/taf.htm
1> Ron Fournier to Keynote
Research Symposium
Who: Ron Fournier, editor-in-chief of HOTSOUP.com and co-author of the best-selling "Applebee's America: How Successful Political, Business, and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American Community"
What: Exciting, must-see keynote speaker
When: Dec. 11, 2006
Where: WOMMA's Word of Mouth Marketing Research Symposium, in Washington, D.C.
Why: Hear best-selling author Ron Fournier weigh in on the state of word of mouth marketing while rubbing elbows with all of the industry's most influential researchers
How: Register at http://www.womma.org/research2
More presentations you don't want to miss:
Does Participation in an Agent-Based Word of Mouth Program Cause or Predict Future Elevated Product Usage?
Sean Glass, Higher One
Individual Differences, Social Networks, and Word of Mouth Influence
Harald Eltvedt, Informative
Single-Source WOM Measurement: Bringing Together Senders & Receivers; Inputs & Outputs
Brad Fay, The Keller Fay Group
Using the Service Process as a Word of Mouth Management System to Produce Measurable Results
John Goodman, TARP
Marketer, Beware: The Threat of Blog Spam ("Splogs") to WOM Marketing & Market Insight
Howard Kaushansky, Umbria
See these presentations, and more; sign up today.
2> Consumer-Generated Reviews
Spur Shopper Loyalty
Seventy-seven percent of online shoppers depend on consumer-generated product reviews and ratings, and shoppers who find them useful are more loyal to stores that feature reviews and ratings, according to Patti Freeman Evans of JupiterResearch. Evans' August 2006 research report, "Retail Marketing: Driving Sales Through Consumer-Created Content," reveals that the number of online buyers who cite customer ratings and reviews as the most useful feature of a site more than doubled between 2005 and 2006.
Other findings:
* Online shoppers who find user-generated product ratings/reviews useful spend more money online than average buyers.
* Online buyers who write a lot of product reviews make up 20% of the online shopping population but account for 32% of online sales.
*Shoppers that find reviews useful say they are more loyal to stores that feature reviews/ratings; they buy more often and return products less frequently as a result.
Learn more
3> Social-Cause Marketing Secures
Brand Trust
Using affinity social-cause marketing techniques -- as opposed to sports/entertainment affinity marketing -- increases consumers' perception of brands' trustworthiness, according to a recent MIT Sloan Management Review article. That said, the research indicates that, when it comes to attributes related to functionality or performance, the type of affinity marketing partner does not sway consumer perception.
Learn more
4> From the Archives:
Happy 2,400th Birthday, WOM!
Scholars may have been pondering word of mouth 2,400 years ago, but it was only as recently as the 1940s that marketing research into the phenomenon began in earnest, at least according to Francis A. Buttle's 1998 Journal of Strategic Marketing article, titled "Word of Mouth: Understanding and Managing Referral Marketing." The problem with the research done thus far, Buttle contends, is that most of it has been from the customer-to-customer perspective, which neglects influence, employee, and recruitment contexts -- something that he attempts to correct in his analysis by identifying researchable gaps in knowledge.
Buttle's research reveals a slew of unanswered questions (some of which still haven't been adequately addressed eight years after the publication of his article):
* Which is better at predicting intention to spread word of mouth/actual behavior: the disconfirmation or attitudinal paradigm?
* Which andecedent marketing conditions are more closely associated with word of mouth?
* How is intention to spread word of mouth connected to actual performance? What conditions, if any, enable or constrain performance?
* How can we better understand the focus of WOM in influence, recruitment, and internal markets?
Learn more |
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