To answer the question Eisenberg poses of whether or not other businesses should cancel their advertising to focus on word of mouth marketing alone, there are a few considerations:

1) Current Customer Experience – Why are people opting for your competition (be it another business or another channel) instead of you? Is that something you could correct by reinvesting marketing dollars?

2) Quality of Customer Stories – When folks do select your business, what kind of conversational capital are you providing them? Is it the kind of story they will want to shout from the mountaintop, tell a select few, or never think about mentioning again.

3) Awareness & Urgency – Does anyone know who you are? If the answer is no, it could take a long time to launch your business with absolutely no advertising. You would be relying on your immediate personal and business connections to get the word out.

If you do have a solid customer base who would be willing to tell your story more often if only you provided them with a better one, the reinvestment of marketing dollars into your customer experience might payoff just as much as Amazon’s did.