Build the Buzz

Word-of-Mouth Marketing:
How to Build Customer Buzz on Your Product

Somewhere, way off the beaten track, there exists a company that has never run an ad, never issued a news release, doesn't have a web site, has never sent a newsletter. The self-satisfied owner of this company dismisses marketing as an unnecessary expense since he claims his product thrives solely on word-of-mouth marketing.
The implication is that marketing is for chumps -- build a better product and the world will beat a path to your door.
So if word-of-mouth marketing doesn't mean "no marketing," what does it mean? Simply stated word-of-mouth marketing means that one person recommends a product or service to someone else, typically a friend or associate.

Studies show that people talk about products and services in 14 to 27% of their conversations. People talk about products and services so often because they like to give friends the benefit of their experience -- good or bad.

Buzz Builder

A recommendation doesn't necessarily mean, you must eat this, but it's about one customer finding something intriguing, worthwhile, valuable, noteworthy, amusing or interesting about your product. "Let's give them something to talk about," and giving your customers something to talk about is the seed of word-of-mouth marketing.
Word-of-mouth marketing makes common sense. We've all seen it happen with a fad or a news story. Marketers call this "buzz" -- when everyone seems to be talking about a new movie, book or piece of celebrity gossip.
How information is passed from friend to friend is easily understood -- think of neighbors talking across the back fence -- the concept has scientific basis as well. In 1967, Stanley Milgram, a sociologist, developed the proposition called the "Small World Phenomenon." Milgram set up an experiment with a goal to hand-deliver a small package from one person to another. The sender and receiver did not know each other, and they lived in different locations. To get delivered, the package had to be handed through an intermediary chain of people. These "Small World Phenomenon" experiments found that a chain of six people, at most, connect every person in the United States.

That's how the "six degrees of separation" concept came into being. For a food producer, the community you want to affect is even smaller so you can imagine how customers you could reach through the satisfied experience of just one.

Six Degrees of Separation

It is said that everyone knows at least 250 people -- and some know up to 3,000 people. If you have 250 customers who also know 250 people, then you can potentially reach 64,000 people. Of course there is going to be overlap within the confines of one trading area, but the numbers are impressive. Everything is in your reach. There is always another person to contact.


Commercial E-mail vs. Word of Mouth

The main reason generating positive word of mouth is crucial is that messages received through word-of-mouth channels are trusted. For example, if you are afraid to go to the dentist, the recommendation of another fearful patient is far more convincing than a dentist's ad.
What's more, consumers feel bombarded with marketing messages through television, radio, magazines, newspapers, billboards as well as some of the more imaginative places marketers have found to put messages such as the reverse side of event tickets, inside restroom stalls, or on envelope stuffers that accompany most invoices. There are always the omnipresent sponsor logos during any sporting event in the form of signage or a logo on a player's uniform.

The growth of the Internet has compounded the feeling consumers have that they are being assailed at every turn with commercial content. In the year 2000 the average consumer received 400 commercial e-mails a year. By last year, the number of commercial e-mails receives was 1,600 and growing. But it's not just the Internet that is creating marketing overload. One estimate put the average number of marketing messages received on an average day 20 years ago at 300. Today, it's 10 times that much -- 3,000 separate marketing messages. That equates to more than a million marketing messages that an average person sees. Is it any wonder that your occasional print ad doesn't yield the results you want?

How Much Marketing is too much?

DMA research indicates that this barrage of marketing has left consumers feeling put upon. So how much is too much? Nearly two-thirds of consumers feel constantly bombarded with marketing and advertising. When consumers feel bombarded, they shut down. Consumers can avoid marketing messages actively by grabbing the remote control and channel surfing during commercials. Remember how the television version of Charlie Brown and his friends in Peanuts would only hear the teacher's voice as "wah-wah-wah-wah?" That's how many consumers respond to excess marketing messages. Consider a person waking and the marketing messages that come their way, from commercials on the clock radio to marketing messages on toothpaste, breakfast cereal, even a coffee cup. Most likely the person hears more commercials on the car radio on the way to work along with billboards, signage and ads on bus stop benches. You arrive at work and, around the water cooler, hear, "I ate the best new food last night." You don’t hear that as a commercial marketing message, but it is. Of course, you respond, "Really? Where?" And then you get an authentic, friendly, credible commercial for a restaurant in which the recipient is giving 100 percent of his attention. That's the power of word of mouth.

The foundation for any successful word-of-mouth marketing campaign is that you must supply your consumer with a positive experience. No one is going to volunteer information about a plain baked potato, ho-hum service or an average piece of pizza. Before positive word of mouth is generated, you must have a high-quality product. Listen to this customer: "The food was beyond fantastic. The crab fritters are the best thing that I've ever tasted ... period. The duck was incredible, mouth-watering, and well worth the price." Or this one: "I ended up spending more than I did on my first car, but thought it was worth every penny." This last comment reiterates the power of word of mouth. The source is an everyday person, with whom others identify, making a very honest statement. The combination of honesty and enthusiasm is a strong one.

Selling Airplanes, Filling Seats

In 1963, Bill Lear invented the Learjet, the first mass-produced business jet. At the time, Lear said, "I want every pilot in the world to be a Learjet salesman." He didn't mean that literally, of course, but he was tapping into the power of word of mouth. He knew pilots talked to each other. He knew that friends and colleagues would ask pilots their opinion of this new airplane. He wanted pilots to be armed with the information they needed to talk knowledgeably about his new airplane, how fast the airplane flew, how much it cost, how many passengers it could seat. If Lear limited his marketing efforts to only those company officers who were the decision makers for an aircraft purchase, he never would have had a successful new airplane introduction. By running multipage ads in aviation magazines, he was able to create thousands of Learjet "salesmen." His efforts were so successful that, now, more than 40 years later, despite all the other companies that manufacture corporate jets, Learjet is still synonymous with "business jet."

Give Them Something to Talk About

Giving them information is really the first step in getting people to talk about your product or restaurant. You must have something worth talking about. For example the entire restaurant experience is frequently talked about; it is more likely that a consumer will comment on a detail of your restaurant. While it is definitely to your advantage to create elements and products that are unique to your operation, it is also important to create points of difference in those items you know that every one offers.

Identifying Opinion Leaders

Part of enacting a word-of-mouth marketing program is to realize that all talkers are not created equal. Some people's opinion carries more weight than others. That's why toothpaste manufacturers quote dentists' opinions when it comes to the best toothpaste. You must identify people in your community who are opinion leaders. The opinion leaders may be rabbis, business owners, corporate executives, doctors, the Rotary Club president, or the high school principal. The opinions of these individuals carry more weight than the average Joe. It's the same theory for why so many companies use celebrities as spokespeople. These companies know that many people look up to these celebrities and believe in them. You may not be able to afford Paris Hilton or Tom Cruise to vouch for your product, but identifying opinion leaders and inviting them to your restaurant (or alerting them to your existence) and telling them a little about your operation shows clearly how word of mouth doesn't magically happen by itself. You still have to drive people to your product. When you send out a letter or a brochure with a note to these opinion leaders, you are planting seeds.

Word of Mouth Complements Your Marketing

A fantastic byproduct of generating positive word of mouth is that you will know exactly what customers love most about your product. When you listen to customers, they may tell your story far better than you can. You can take their comments, with their permission, you can make
them into copy for your promotional materials. Positive comments from your customers can also be turned, with their permission, into testimonials to use on your Web site or ads. Testimonials continue to be a powerful marketing tool as the comments have built-in credibility when a customer thinks the person giving the testimonial is "just like me."

Engage Your Staff

To help generate word of mouth, your staff must reinforce customer comments. If a customer says to the server, "We love your fried chicken," don't stop there...” The server needs details, what about your fried chicken sets it apart. Once you have a word-of-mouth program up and running, you may want to share stories of what has worked it’s the human factors that will make a word-of-mouth marketing program successful. "The qualities in your staff that bear on the success of your word-of-mouth program are sincerity, enthusiasm and naturalness." In other words, forget about scripts.

Kosher at a Different Level provides full-service consulting services to the Restaurant and Hospitality industries. The firm offers a full menu of advisory services focusing on every aspect of the life-cycle of restaurants and other hospitality organizations, from pre-opening and conceptual planning, to day-to-day operations, as well as design and brokerage. We operate primarily in the kosher market but do have significant experience in the broader, non-kosher world. The Principal of KADL is Chef Scott Sunshine. Chef Sunshine is CFBE, ServSafe, TIPS and HACCP certified. He has owned and operated four successful restaurants and has been a Chef and Food & Beverage Director in a variety of hotels. Chef Sunshine has also done both large and small scale catering on and off-site in the kosher and non-kosher world. He has also been featured in Shimon Apisdorf’s Kosher for the Clueless but Curious, Leviathan Press, 2006, has spoken at the NY Restaurant and Foodservice show and has appeared on TV and radio. You may contact him at chef@differentlevelkosher.com.