Word of Mouth

Word of mouth is a powerful way to “spread the word”. In a recent article that was posted on the Customer Evangelists Blog. The numbers say it all ….

• 56: The average number of times an American discusses brands in ordinary conversations every week.
• 72%: The percentage of brand-related opinions delivered from a person to a family member or personal friend; 13% are delivered to co-workers and 7% are delivered by a professional or expert on the topic. (I suppose that puts us marketing bloggers in the distinct minority.)
• 41%: Number of conversations about brands that reference an item seen or heard in the media or in marketing material; 15% refer to an ad, 8% refer to a form of editorial or entertainment content, 5% refer to a point of purchase item, and 4% refer to the lowly coupon or other promotion.
• 62%: Percentage of marketing-related discussions described as “mostly positive.”
• 9%: Percentage of marketing-related discussions described as “mostly negative.”
• 92%: Percentage of word of mouth conversations that occur offline; 71% of those occur face-to-face, and 21% occur by phone.

The numbers are courtesy of a new study (PDF) from the Keller Fay Group.
It's pretty clear that most word of mouth occurs primarily while we're not sitting in front of computer screens.
For more info …