Word of mouth (WOM) marketing stems from sharing our likes and interests with our friends and family. While its basic premise remains the same in the digital age – sharing information about a product or service – the channels used offer a great deal more functionality. Brands can not only directly influence conversations, they can now monitor what’s being said and interact with their advocates and ‘badvocates’ in real time, through multiple, integrated platforms.
For brands, the Internet has enhanced and expedited the buying process. The customer journey might be achievable in a few quick clicks, but the decision making process is no less important. With so much vying for the consumer’s attention, relevant information is needed more than ever to help inform their decisions.
There can be no doubt that an individual’s opinion is more credible than a company’s. While e-commerce sites are awash with customer recommendations, the rise of social media has accelerated the way in which consumer ‘conversations’ occur. It’s here that marketers have most opportunity to garner influence, but in an age of increased corporate scepticism, transparency and honesty are key.
However, openness hasn’t made WOM any less powerful or persuasive. Not only has it enhanced the customer experience by giving them a soapbox on which to express their opinions, it’s also given them a chance to influence brand behaviour, which in turn helps create more loyalty.
The digital WOM relationship is reciprocal in other ways too. For example, using customer response forums, marketers can anticipate public opinion during a campaign’s initial planning stages or potentially influence the perceived performance and popularity of their brands.
Although the benefits are obvious for consumer brands keen to enhance loyalty online, in fact WOM has an even greater role in business marketing. B2B marketing plans are generally used to emphasise products, values and uses, rather than the more emotive advertising campaigns and media reviews approach used by consumer marketers.
As with any campaign, marketers must make sure they know their audience well, and WOM is a way to help build relationships. While a carefully mapped out campaign can reduce damage limitation when things do go wrong, what makes a WOM-lead community thrive is the ability for brands to relinquish some degree of control. This makes a conversation more authentic – something that consumers hold in much more esteem than the one-sided party line towed by a faceless multinational.
Essentially, WOM is about trust. We trust our peers to give us accurate information, but increasingly it’s the marketer’s role to facilitate delivery. By doing so they’re encouraging customers to evaluate their products and services impartially, which helps to build trust and in turn, create more interest in their brand.
Welcome to I Spy Marketing TV’s first episode!
Don’t forget all our videos can be found on our YouTube Channel, so be sure to subscribe to be informed the moment we upload a new video.
So what do we have for episode one? Let me tell you…
The whole subject of this first video came about very unexpectedly. I picked up on a story from Tom Wright via Twitter and it just went from there.
Rob Lockyear (AKA BrewedBoy) has built up a great presence on Twitter, and also blogs about his experiences, sights and sounds. This has led to him gaining some loyal customers who have in turn started blogging and tweeting about him and spreading the word.
I was very curious to find out more about this guy who sells coffee from his little van in Soho, and so we got in touch and paid him a visit.
We can all learn a lot from his activities. By using just Twitter and his blog, he has built up a great following and met lots of interesting people along the way. He is even considering creating Spotify playlists!
So, check out the video below for the full interview and let us know what you think in the comments!
The background noise is a bit louder than we hoped, but we know for next time!
For more information on Rob, follow him on Twitter and check out his blog to discover his plans for BrewedBoy. Remember, we would love to hear your thoughts about the first episode, and BrewedBoy so get scribbling in the comments section below.
Facebook have announced their new check-in functionality app, which has soft-launched in the US only for iPhones. The real time app allows you to tell your friends about a place you may have recently visited – a new restaurant, shoe shop or an amazing bird watching hotspot.
You can also view your list of friends who have recently checked into various locations, and by selecting the specific person you can view details of their recent locations.
Google Changes its Algorithm to Show More Results from a Domain
Google has made a change to its algorithm that will make it easier to find multiple pages from a single site. For search queries that show a strong user interest for a particular domain, Google will now show more results from a single site to better match the users query.
Google AdWords To Adjust Your Max CPCs Based On Conversion Data –
Google AdWords has rolled out a new bidding method named Enhanced CPC.
This new method analyses your historic conversion data within your campaign, to automatically adjust your maximum CPC prices. The system predicts the likelihood of an ad converting based on the conversion tracking data. Google said “using this bidding option will result in “more conversions while maintaining or reducing your overall CPA.”
Google remarketing is a simple way of retargeting your site’s visitors with text and display ads on the Google Content Network. It’s technology is not as intelligent as dynamic display retargeting but it’s easier to set up and create the pixel tracking code.
Remarketing uses the relationship between pixel codes on individual site page and text / display ads in your adwords campaigns to retarget previous site visitors.
The most basic method of setting up remarketing is to place the pixels on the homepage and use a generic text / display ads to retarget users across the GCN (Google Content Network). From here, it’s a good idea to build up further pages with pixel code; this means you can ad different creative’s for these pages. However make sure the ads are relevant to the pages, this is the whole point of retargeting! Users want to see ads relevant to their last session on your website.
The ‘Audience’ tab in adwords allows you to implement all of this very quickly. The only delay can be client’s development queues after you have created the pixel code.
One pixel (page of website) relates to a remarketing list. You can build up as many remarketing lists as you wish. For each list, adwords shows you how many global users have been added to the list, with the potential to retarget (remarket). It’s important to keep an eye on how many global users each list has built up. Smaller sites with less monthly traffic may find the global users total will only be in the thousands, consequently the number of conversions maybe small.
Google remarketing is an effective and efficient method of using the GCN. It provides a good platform for gaining sales from existing customers. Remarketing also provides minimal wastage and encourages the use of a variety of display and text creative’s.
Try and reflect the look and feel of your website in the display ads, the same colours, price points, product pictures and call to actions. If possible create a new offer to entice the user back to the site, there may be a reason they didn’t purchase the first time!
The pitfalls are its lack of intelligence compared to the dynamic retargeting. Adding layers of pixels on various pages to retarget users with a more specific message is the key; however this can be time consuming. If you are planning on setting up Remarketing, ensure to check the GCN creative specifications before handing over the reigns to the design team. Display ads are easily disapproved by Google. (For example ads looping for more than 30 seconds)
However, typically with Google it’s free, easy to create the pixel tracking and offers something new to sites with reasonable traffic levels. It’s worth trialling sites with enough unique users per month, especially if you’re struggling with bounce rate, dwell time and on site conversion.
For a bit of fun on a Friday, we’ve put together a music playlist which we think will be right “up” your alley. The tunes are upbeat, they’ll make you get you up out of your seat and we know already you’ll want to crank them up!
Are you sensing a theme here?
So, without further ado, we present our inaugral I Spy Spotify playlist: Music to Uptimise To
If you can think of any vital songs that are missing from our ‘uptimisation’ playlist, then please leave your suggestions in the comments below.
We get excited over our office parties, not only because they have previously involved Eurostar trips to France and lavish wine tasting in countryside B&Bs, but because we tend to get invited to them in ways that put a smile on everyone’s face (even first thing on workday morning) … Check out how we were invited to our 5th Birthday Party -
For those of you who are familiar with I Spy, you probably already know about our uptimisation philosophy. In simple terms, we are constantly striving to break the boundaries of what can be achieved through digital marketing.
So what better way to anchor our beliefs than with an official Ispyble?
The Ispyble is not only an employee manual of brand guidelines but it also underpins what I Spy stands for and the way in which we approach digital marketing. It is an amalgamation of our key services as well as defining what differentiates us from our competitors so we can deliver outstanding ROI to all of our clients.
And since we like to think big, our Bible is actually very big! (43cm x 41 cm)
So next time you come to our offices, ask Lulu if you can take a gander – although it will probably be hard to miss it yourself!
Hundreds of people have been controlling the ball with their mind. Are you one of them? We hope so. If not don’t miss out, give it a try now. Here at I Spy we have had a lot of fun testing our mind control skills!
We hope you have managed to find the time to give it a go! It’s fun! Get your colleagues involved and see where you rank in the league of No Brainers!
If you were one of the handpicked recipients of this genius gadget then we want to hear from you! You are one of the first people in the UK to get your hands on one of the MindFlex games! If you didn’t have one get down to I Spy’s office and come try it!
See the I Spy management team giving it a go here! Why not submit your best attempt?
Chris Whitelaw (I Spy President)
Jim Brigden (I Spy CEO)
Send us your video to info@ispymarketing.com and we will upload it!
