Author: virginia.miracle

I am a passionate Word of Mouth Marketing practitioner. The juxtaposition of my experiences in WOMM vs. my time in the trenches of one of the country’s most voluminous direct marketers has given me firsthand understanding of the power of customer conversation and the relative inefficiency of shout and interruption marketing. Currently, I am the Director of Word of Mouth Marketing at Brains on Fire, a national Identity and Word of Mouth marketing company. There, I champion the client services group and intimately shepherded the Fiskateers crafting ambassador program for the first 18 months of its existence. Brains on Fire is a supremely creative and intuitive company. If you ever are in search of examples for how to make every customer touchpoint express your true personality, try calling the Brains on Fire front desk. I was first turned on to the power of conversational marketing through a role I was asked to tackle during my 4 years at Dell, Inc. in Round Rock Texas. I began my time there in Corporate Strategy and rolled through various roles in consumer marketing including word of mouth marketing manager (believed to be the first WOMM title at a F50 company) and leading the company’s online advertising to consumers and small businesses. Before that, I was a proud member of the late-90s phenomenon Trilogy Software and earned a BA in English language and literature from Princeton. I am a member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s Board of Directors. I am also a new mom, a mean Scrabble player, and a (formerly closeted) Bruce Hornsby superfan. I recently completed GH3 for Wii on Medium, but secretly doubt if I’m going to get good enough to go through it on Hard. I’m not sure how many more times I can listen to Metallica’s “One”, anyway.
Entrepreneurs: Find Your First Talkers

Entrepreneurs: Find Your First Talkers

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The economy may be down, but the entrepreneurial spirit is in full bloom.  Recently, I had the pleasure to catch up with 2 former colleagues in the midst of amping up their online businesses.  After both conversations, I realized that the first step in WOMM is different for new vs. established businesses.

The first T in Andy Sernovitz’ 5T framework (a worksheet for which can be found here) is Talkers.  Who is going to spread the word about you?  An established brand can do research to determine who is already talking, analyze what they organically talk about and use that as a good starting point for a word of mouth marketing program.  A new company, however, does not have that luxury.

New Site/Service Step 1: Identify which micro-audience will derive the most value from the differentiation of your offering. They will be your talkers.  They can be your beta testers and your product development focus group and your conscience as you make decisions about the business.

The challenge?  Like minoxidil that was designed for high blood pressure and now treats baldness or Dr. Martens shoes that were designed as gardening shoes for the elderly and became a symbol of the punk movement, sometimes your most valuable talkers are not the ones your originally had in mind when you went into business.  Here are some thoughts on finding them:

  1. Family & Friends – Ask family and friends (real and Facebook) to test the site, provide you some feedback, and suggest what THEY think the value of the site is and what the ultimate user profile would be.
  2. Research, ID and start to follow bloggers in all of the different profiles/specialties that your family and friends think might be your ultimate users to gain insights into their needs and desires.
  3. Ask a handful of bloggers to check out what you’re building and provide you with some feedback on your beta.
  4. Gauge which segment has the most significant need/value from your offering and prioritize their development requirements.
  5. Develop new features, and repeat from step 3.

As promised Sunday, this was the gist of my feedback for Recipecomparison.com.  What else do you tell the entrepreneurs who seek WOMM advice from you?  Do you have any other thoughts for this site in particular?

Recipe Comparison WOM Advice?

Recipe Comparison WOM Advice?

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A friend and former colleague of mine has started a night and weekend passion project called RecipeComparison.

Recipe Comparison Header

In a nutshell, the site allows you to “search for, compare, and share recipes” from popular recipe clearinghouse sites.  The comparison is unique.  It is a side by side look – allowing you to compare amounts and varieties by type of ingredient – like you would comparison shop for appliances or cars.

Close up comparison

So…what audience is going to find this feature the most valuable?  As a non-foodie, it is very easy for me to see the value beyond folks who spend hours trying to make sure they are optimizing their pumpkin pie recipes (in all honesty, I actually HAVE gone through this process to find the ultimate macaroni & cheese recipe and it was pretty painful without this tool).   What about people trying to lose weight and find lighter versions of their favorites?  Or heads of household who are cooking for families with food allergies who need to make substitutes?

What would your advice be to the founders of RecipeComparison.com on how to get the word out about the site and its unique features (others include being able to keep a record of searches cross-recipe sites)?  Where would you start?

On Wednesday, I’ll post the advice that I gave to the founders, but in the meantime, I know they would appreciate collecting ALL the best practices and suggestions they can.  Bring it on!

I came, I SWOM, I learned something

I came, I SWOM, I learned something

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CoBrandit's Owen Mack as Pee Wee HermanSWOMFest was a blast from the 80’s themed preparty to Thriller dance recreation kickoff to the final case workshop.   Because of the extremely varied crowd that included authors, practitioners, and WOM newbies, my guess is that SWOMFest was a bit like a rorschach test with everyone taking away a little something different.

That being said, what follows are my takeaways from the event:

Six Sigma is the enemy of Word of Mouth. In Ben McConnell’s surprisingly practical kickoff presentation, he framed the reality that Word of Mouth is generated by radical value propositions – not incremental ones. Citing Zappos radical value proposition of removing any risk from purchasing shoes online, he noted that 10% cleaner, 50% faster, 20% cheaper, etc are value propositions that will never drive organic discussion or advocacy. For example, if someone were to now offer free OVERNIGHT shipping both ways on shoes instead of just free shipping, that incremental improvement would not be likely to drive a lot of WOM or out-Zappos Zappos. He did caveat that for manufacturing and surgery, Six Sigma is still a very important concept.

Storytelling may be the hardest element of WOM to master – I have to give screenwriter Yaphet Smith the prize for the best mindbending presentation of the day. I wasn’t sure why he would be on the agenda at such event, but he captivated newbies and crusty WOM pundits alike and challenged them to think about their stories in a structured way, while remembering that “seeking the Neat” is a part of that structure.

Even Credit Unions can be interesting. If you don’t believe me, check out TDECU’s Young & Free Texas competition here or Trey Reeme ongoing battle to Thwart Mediocrity.

WOM is in the small stuff. The setting (the Long Center in Austin, TX), the events, the food, the swag, the music (DJ Mel), and the audience were as important as the speakers. Some of my most interesting conversations was with a marketer whose mission is to bring young adults back to the catholic church.  Very different from my day to day work, but a fascinating challenge.

Everyone in Word of Mouth Marketing loves sharing ideas with entrepreneurs. I was a little grumpy at the idea of a case study breakout – sometimes they are frighteningly painful.  This one was amazing. The entrepreneur in question, Jacob Boone of local organic smoothie/frozen yogurt trailer Mamboberry, benefited from the enthusiasm of the crowd for his business.  Blue Avocado also traded their stylish, collapsible sustainable grocery bags for WOM ideas and a lot of Austin style love.

Click here for the rest of my pics from SWOMfest

Click here for all pics from SWOMfest

Click here for all of the Twitter coverage of the event

WOM Influence &…Ethnicity???

WOM Influence &…Ethnicity???

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Today, the Center for Media Research emailed out some BIGResearch from this mouth looking at the % of respondents in various groups who respond that their purchases in certain categories are influenced by Word of Mouth:

BIGResearch on WOM
BIGResearch on WOM

As a WOM Marketing practitioner and general data hound, I love a good chart.  But why the ethnic overlay?  If we look at the data, there are slight differences in the groups, but so slight that I really can’t imagine they would compel a marketer to change investment decisions.  Would I be more likely to do a BzzAgent campaign if I am a restaurant with a largely White patronage just because they are 10 points more likely to be influenced by WOM recommentations?  Probably not.  “Eating out” was the #1 or a close #2 most influenced category across the board.

So are any of these differences meaningful? What does this data say to you?

BlogHer DC Roundup!

BlogHer DC Roundup!

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Monday marked my second BlogHer live event and did not disappoint. Why does BlogHer hold such anticipation and appeal?

  1. Making offline connections with online friends. Getting to see and meet Lindsay (a.k.a. Rock and Roll Mama) was a highlight. I originally found her by searching for other Moms who had written about the WOM-worthy Rody toy, and have been enjoying her blog since. Getting to make that connection real alone was worth the price of admission. It was also a great pleasure to see the BlogHer’s political director Queen of Spain and DC’s own PunditMom discussing their roles covering the election. And always a pleasure to see @jillfoster and put a real life person to the wit at Nurse Ratched’s Place .
  2. Being turned on to new blogs & Tweeters: @digitalsista, @dcconcierge (very helpful website by the way), @thewino, @cecilyk, @blogdiva, @resourcefulmom, @thegreenparent are all well worth a read and follow! Check out @blogherdc for a more extensive list.
  3. Meaty conversations. In this case, the angst revolving around blogging’s relationship to mainstream media permeated multiple panels. I don’t know that there is a shared vision right now for what that relationship “should be”. At some moments there seemed to be pent up desire for respect and integration with the mainstream media (MSM). At other times, the annoyance at being “used” by the MSM was palpable. I have started following @ricksanchezcnn after the event! I think this is a complex, rich topic that we’ll see BlogHer digging into long term. Another (un)controversy surrounded the term “mommyblogger”. Some embrace the term. Mommies like me who blog about business sometimes bristle at the term, but the conviction with which I heard “My name is X and I’m a mommyblogger!” has made me reconsider my feelings about the term.

And, because of the timing and location, BlogHerDC offered some lively discussions about politics and the coming election. There is great consciousness about how candidates and the MSM are actively trying to use bloggers – unfettered by the need to feign journalistic balance – as pot stirrers. Lesley Stahl, of CBS fame and her internet venture Women on the Web talked about the old days of presidents rearranging their schedules around HER deadlines because they knew the nightly news was a communications tool. Now, she posits, they are doing the same with the Internet, but the path to making it happen is less clear. I would love to sit in on one of the “blogger phone calls” being held regularly by both candidates.

Also on the political front was BlogHer’s careful treatment of politics on their site. As @LisaStone said, BlogHer is omnipartisan, but their editors aren’t. Opinions from PUMA (former Hillary supporters who formed Party Unity My A**) have been welcomed on the site. Even though @QueenofSpain is a vocal Obama mama (and Michelle Obama blogs on BlogHer), the need to foster a place that encourages free speech and multiple views is critical for the success of their political discourse.  Check out all the BlogHer Election coverage here.