By Jamie McDonald and Tessica Burley The hottest marketers in the country face their biggest challenge yet: marketing themselves. Article 42

 Word of Mouth Marketing Association:  is a form of marketing by which companies encourage consumers to recommend products to one another- is currently among the brightest stars in the advertising firmament.

 The biggest problem with word of mouth is separating the truth from the lies.  Marketers try to get samples of new products into the hands of individual consumers.  The marketer encourages those individuals to talk up its products to friends, acquaintances, and total strangers.

 Entrepreneurial companies are also embracing word of mouth because it can be done cheaply and has an outsider appeal.  Some companies that use word of mouth are: DellHersey IntuitKraft General MotorsProcter & Gamble

 In order to promote and manage Word of Mouth communications, marketers use methods to achieve desired behavioral response.

 Stealth Marketing  Marketing disguised as something else.  Viral Marketing  Promoting products or services through messages and video spread by consumers via .  Influencer Marketing  Targeting the connected or cool people that lemmings will most likely follow.

 Winning the attention for products by putting them in the hands of celebrities.  o42ko&feature=related o42ko&feature=related

 In late 2001, BzzAgent founder and CEO Dave Balter realized that marketers weren't harnessing the power of word of mouth (WOM).  His vision was to create a platform that would allow people to experience new products and services, share their honest opinions about them with people they knew and report those activities and opinions so marketers could directly see the results.  This community would be something entirely new, bringing consumers and marketers together to organize and track honest word of mouth.

BzzAgent lets marketers leverage the power and pervasiveness of natural word of mouth, and put it to work for their brand in a controlled, replicable and measurable way.

Easy, Integrated, Effective PlanExecuteIgniteAccelerateAnalyze Put BzzAgent to work for your brand

 The rich taste of espresso combined with skim milk and Splenda, the no calorie sweetener, makes Latte Lite a healthy espresso beverage option.  Dunkin’ Donuts wanted to find a way to connect directly with it target demographic to get the word out about Latte Lite.

Dunkin’ Donuts engaged 3,000 Agents in a 12 week Campaign Targeted Agents in New York, Detroit, Boston and Cleveland Each Agent Received six “Be My Guest” cards for a complimentary Latte Lite and the official Latte Lite BzzGuide

 Generated Reach and Trial  Reached 111,272 individuals  96% of Agents noted that at least one person with whom they conversed had tried a Latte Lite  Category sales increased by 26% in test markets while control markets experienced an 8% increase.

 If you can’t say nothing nice then don’t say nothing at all. Companies often use an occasional lie to get customers to buy their products. Word of mouth is effective only as long as people trust it.

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