Church of the Customer Blog
November 28, 2011, 02:38 PM
The simplest definition of word of mouth marketing
Nice video from WOMMA on the basics of word of mouth marketing.
October 17, 2011, 01:45 PM
14 new statistics about word of mouth marketing
The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) has a neat infographic detailing the latest stats about word or mouth marketing, online and offline.
Source: WOMMA
Note: the WOMMA Summit is coming up November 16-18 in Las Vegas. It's a great conference to learn the latest WOM marketing techniques from leading brands and agencies.
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October 14, 2011, 02:31 PM
How Nordstrom creates word of mouth around the holidays
Retailers are scheduling holiday promotions earlier than ever this year, including Costco which started selling Christmas items on September 1. Nordstrom has a long tradition of bucking this trend and promoting their holiday wares after Thanksgiving.
Result: people talk about this suprising stance offline and online. (This sign is from 2009 but it is getting alot of play on Twitter and Facebook recently).
Lesson: To create word of mouth, zig when the rest of your competitors are zagging.
October 06, 2011, 09:42 AM
Steve Jobs
If you have never seen this video of Steve Jobs's commencement speech at Stanford, today is the day to watch. RIP Steve.
September 28, 2011, 11:35 AM
Where do most people talk about brands?
If you said Facebook or Twitter, i.e. social media, you would be incorrect.
With all the (continued) hype about social media, it's still in face-to-face conversations where people discuss products and services the most.
As you can see from this survey, even mobile and landline phone conversations (ear-to-ear?) rank very high.
Lesson for marketers: have an integrated approach to your marketing efforts. Leverage the visual advantages of online with the passionate persuasion of the human voice offline.
Hat tip to Tom Frisby of Czarnowski for the eMarketer chart.
September 13, 2011, 02:40 PM
Creating word-of-mouth for a cause, the Innocent Drinks way
How do you get your customers to rally behind a cause? Build in a word-of-mouth factor.
Innocent Drinks, a UK-based smoothie and juice company, donates 10% of their profits to charity. One way they do this is their annual "Big Knit." They ask customers to knit little hats for their bottles that will be displayed for two weeks at large grocery stores in November. For every behatted bottle sold, Innocent will donate 25 cents to a charity that helps the elderly pay their heating bills over the harsh winter. The goal this year: 650,00 hats which would mean £162,500 ($257,000 USD) in donations. The Big Knit was started in 2003 and this year the company hopes to hit the £1 million mark in donations.
Supporters are encouraged to start their own knitting circles to recruit their friends into the effort. Innocent provides all the of materials, including invitations, a hatometer poster to keep track of hats produced, as well as patterns and knitting instructions. You can see the hat creations from last year in this Flickr group. Innocent uses their Facebook page to have fans vote on "Hat of the Week."
And who could resist buying one of bottles that stand out on the store shelf in their warm, fuzzy tobaggans?
June 06, 2011, 04:21 PM
Kicking out unwanted customers, Alamo Drafthouse style
Two years ago, we wrote about the best theatre chain in the country: Austin, Texas' Alamo Drafthouse and how it clearly warns customers to not talk or text during a movie or "we'll kick your ass out." (Their actual words.) The Alamo maintains its policy with their own funny PSA's that run before the previews.
This week, the chain launched a new PSA featuring the evidence of a slightly inebriated, unhappy customer who didn't heed the warning. See below. Audio is NSFW.
Alamo Drafthouse founder and CEO Tim League explains on the company's blog:
Ma'am, you may be free to text in all the other theaters in the Magnited States of America, but here at our "little crappy ass theater," you are not. Why you may ask? Well, we actually do give a f*$k.
Check out the comments on the blog post (like the one below) and you'll see why standing up for your principles and your best customers, at the expense of bad ones, is a smart loyalty strategy.
UPDATE:
- CNN's Anderson Cooper does a segment on the PSA and calls Tim League a "great American hero" who should win the Nobel Peace Prize.
- Tim League pens a CNN.com article detailing all of the founding principles of the Alama Drafthouse designed to provide an "awesome experience for true movie fans."
May 13, 2011, 10:15 AM
Hamburger love
Two new In-N-Out Burgers just opened in the Dallas area and the burger faithful came out in droves. People camped out for two days to be the first to sample the goods and the drive-through line stretched for 2 miles at lunchtime. Check out the video for a woman who was in tears when asked about her love of the iconic chain.
May 12, 2011, 09:48 AM
Your most valued customer
Ms. Linda may not be the mayor of your coffee shop, but she is one of your most valued customers.
My nearby Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf sported this sign inside the store the other day. The barista told me that Linda comes in every day for her small mocha ice blended and her warm oatmeal raisin cookie.
I love this simple home-made sign idea in the store because:
- It shows customers they are valued
- It's an invitation for customers to ask employees about Linda
- It's local charm in a national chain
April 01, 2011, 02:01 AM
How to buy and sell fans and followers
It's a lot of work to build a fan base for any person, company or brand. There's listening, ongoing conversation, support, empathy... so much work. We've been thinking there must be a simpler way.
Today, my colleagues at Ant's Eye View are proud to announce FanAuction, a marketplace for buying and selling fans and followers for your social media channels. We've been working on it in stealth mode for some time and the results are astounding: Our beta testers have been buying fans by the millions and adding them to their Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts in minutes.
The work I've done on FanAuction with my colleagues Chris Carfi and Steve Alter has proven beyond any doubt that free markets will solve every problem imaginable, including how to buy and sell people. I'm a convert!
The diagram below explains how FanAuction works. The announcement (with more details) is here.
