Chapter 12 referral
Referral marketing
This type of marketing tries to leverage the power of recommendations from happy customers. It
typically refers to programs that give customers a incentive to send new customers your way. This
often creates viral loops.
Infectious virality: satisfied customers refer their friends to your platform, so the experience gets
better for both parties involved.
Word-of-mouth virality: your customers describe their experience to their friends an recommend
that hey use these products and services.
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Contagious: framework for viral content
1. Social Currency
People care about how they look to others. They want to seem smart, cool, and in-the-know. So be
sure to find the inner-remarkability (e.g. Will it Blend?) and make people feel like insiders.
2.Triggers
Top-of-mind means tip-of-tongue. So consider the context and grow your habitat so that people are
frequently triggered to think about your product or idea. Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ music video is a
great example of this.
3.Emotion
When we care, we share. Emotional content often goes viral, so focus on feelings rather than
function. And kindle the fire using high arousal emotions. Learn more about why emotional videos
work better in our E for Emotions post. Read the article.
4.Public
Built to show, built to grow. The more public something is, the more likely people will imitate it.
Design products and initiatives that advertise themselves (e.g. red bottom shoes) and create some
visible behavioural residue. See Apple logo (upside down)
5.Practical Value
News you can use. Useful things get shared. So highlight incredible value and expertise so that people
can easily pass it on. “Good deal” or “promotion”.
6.Stories
Information travels under what seems like idle chatter. Stories are vessels – so build a Trojan Horse.
Create a narrative or story that people want to tell which carries your idea along for the ride.
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"Build a social currency-laden, triggered, emotional, public, practically valuable Trojan Horse, but
don't forget to hide your message inside. Make sure your desired information is so embedded into the
plot that people can't tell the story without it."
EXERCISE
A fitbit can be used to spread the word. Explain how the 6 SPEPPS principles drive the fitbit to
become a popular product?
Famous referral marketing examples
1. Old Spice “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” Campaign (video dia 14)
2. Dove “real beauty sketches” campaign (video dia 15)
3. ALS Ice Bucket Challenge (video dia 16)
Traditional word-of-mouth (WOM), which was originally defined as an oral form of interpersonal
non-commercial communication among acquaintances (Arndt, 1967), has evolved into a new form of
communication, namely electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication.
eWOM is defined as “any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former
customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and
institutions via the Internet” (Hennig-Thurauet al. 2004, p39).
eWOM is a particular approach to promoting the active membership participation is to encourage the
community members to advertise the positive benefits of the membership to potential members by
spreading their words(Bickart& Schindler, 2001).
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The customer journey
In which phases is it important to use:
● Buzz marketing?
● Viral marketing?
● Word of mouth?
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Buzz marketing: Super Bowl 2018
Pepsi got the most social engagement out of the $5m ad spots at this year’s Super Bowl,
Spreading the word by seeding
Seeding is considered the process of allocating content to specific customers, groups of customers, or
websites that can start the spreading of your content.
Read the article:
How Universal Launched Harry Potter World by Only Telling 7 People
http://www.thinkcreativedigital.com/inbound-marketing-how-universal-launched-harry-potter-world-
by-only-telling-7-people
QUESTION:
What are advantages & disadvantages of WOM?
Advantage Disadvantage
Is modern Depends on product
Is customer oriented Depends on user
Is manageable Includes different media
Accelerates purchases Not always reliable
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Nielsen
92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than advertising.
Beyond friends and family, 88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much
as they trust recommendations from personal contacts.
Most consumers identify word of mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decisions.
But the minority of businesses are actively seeking out and collecting reviews.
Despite that fact that a little, can do a lot.
Specific case studies demonstrated a 10% increase in word-of-mouth (off and online) translated into
a sales increase between 0.2 – 1.5%.
QUESTION: Why do people spread online word of mouth?
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The spreaders
Variation in who spreads: rich get richer effect
“Preferential attachment," where nodes gain new connections in proportion to how many they
already have. That means some nodes end up with many more connections than others (see Matheus
effect in Dutch).
Opinion leaders: the are usually the most active and respected voice in a community and can
persuade or influence their followers at the grassroots level.
Influencer marketing
The role of influencers via: technology, culture, and promotion.
Influencer marketing is when social media users with a large and loyal following group agrees to
communicate temporarily in partnership with a brand. Marketing has the potential to humanize your
brand and foster customer engagement.
Do not confuse influencers with brand advocates or brand ambassadors!
How do influencers look like?
= reach x engagement x relevance.
Give some examples of influencers of this moment.
MACRO –INFLUENCERS VS. MICRO–INFLUENCERS
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QUESTION: Why do you search or use eWOM for?
Reasons why people search for electronic WOM
Search theories: why do people search for e-word of mouth?
● Reduce efforts
● Reduce risk
● Social Security
● Negativity bias
Some facts about the people who search and read
Almost everyone first checks out eWOM messages before making a purchase
Almost everyone trusts eWOM messages
Almost everyone will interact with the brand if the brand had mainly positive posts
eWOM messages are an easy way of getting the best deals!
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Some tools that help you monitoring reputation
● Google.com/alerts
● Brandwatch.com
● Meltwater.com
Go to Google.com/alerts and search for PXL (when was it last time mentioned?
Online reputation management
When it comes to online reputation, eWOM has meant a distinct shift in power from companies to
consumers.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you will do
things differently.” (Warren Buffet, business magnate).
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Online reputation management is the process of monitoring, analyzing and purposely trying to
manage the reputation of a company, organization or individual.
QUESTION: How can companies build a positive online relationship?
Building relationships
Corporate Social Responsibility: give something back to the community and contribute to making the
world a better place.
Trust and integrity: try to be as reliable as possible in your offer and communication
Employer branding: show you treat your staff with respect and fairness.
Impact of eWOM on sales: video dia 44
How to get more positive online reviews?
● Make sure potential customers find positive reviews online
● Approach your core customer base and ask to write reviews
● Post reminder on social media sites and ask to leave reviews at SNS
● Send mail to encourage customers to write reviews
● In an offline store: create a sign and place it at the door: if you liked it, tell everyone.
How to handle negative online reviews?
● Address potentially harmful content immediately and in a polite way.
● Remember: ignoring the issue will not make it go away.
● Understand the reasoning behind the negative comments.
● Do not feed the trolls by reacting! Trolls are persons who deliberately upsets users of online
for a and social media.
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How to get more helpful reviews?
Exercise:
● How can you stimulate people to write reviews?
● How can you stimulate moderate satisfied people to write reviews?
● How can you stimulate review writers to write reviews that are more helpful?
● How to get more positive helpful reviews?
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Online consumer review websites: amazon, epinions, tripadvisor, yelp, iens
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5 Ts framework – the essential steps in every successful word of mouth campaign. With this
framework, you’ll have a process to use every time you want word of mouth for a new product,
service, or brand. It’s simple, repeatable, and effective every time.
Talkers: Find People Who Will Talk
Topics: Give People a Reason to Talk
Tools: Help the Message Spread
Taking Part: Join The Conversation
Tracking: Measure and Listen
Create a word of mouth campaign for the newest energy drink: YULA.
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