Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking

Not sure how much Andy updated this second edition in April of 2012 since the original was published in 2006, but--judging from years of 4- and 5-star recommendations--"Word of Mouth Marketing" is a classic. What really sold me on the purchase was seeing how Andy practices what he preaches by commenting on some of the reviews people make to keep people talking.I read the book because I'm looking at a competitor situation where salespeople are forced to call people who visit their stores on a regular basis to see if they're ready to purchase. It's apparently very frustrating for the salespeople and drives customers crazy -- definitely away from ever coming back to buy. So this activity does the opposite of what that management team wants. They keep their salespeople active but end up killing sales and annoying people. Andy explains clearly in the book why this would be counterproductive if not fatal to the business and cause high turnover not just of customers but also of the salespeople themselves.As other reviewers have noted, many of the suggestions and lists in the book are common sense -- or have become common sense in the six years since the original edition was written. But still, if those salespeople were encouraged to create word of mouth conversations with those prospects and recent customers that management team would be getting what it wants.Companies who have weathered the recession and are still around may be at a point where they can really take advantage of consumers who are about to catch up with long-delayed purchases. "Word of Mouth Marketing" seems to be a better strategy than ever to get people talking and buying their "stuff".

This is an extremely easy read written in conversational style. The tone of the author reminds me of Seth Godin. If you love Seth's books, you will definitely love this book too.The gist of this book centres around 5Ts - Talker, Topic, Tools, Taking Part, Tracking:Talker - Find out who is talking about you and who you want talking about you.Topic - Create something worth talking about - it could be product feature, sales promotion, connection with a charity cause or an exceptional shopping experience.Tool - Make it VERY EASY for talker to talk about you and help spread the word. You can do this by reminding people to share to friends, including "Share to a friend" buttons in website, using email signature, giving out samples etc.Taking Part - You have to take part in the conversation. If the word of mouth put you in a negative light - reverse it by listening, improving and telling people about the effort you put into that.Tracking - Monitor word of mouth online and offline so that you know who is talking and what they are talking about you.I think this is a good book - it has good examples and some useful tips (e.g. incorporating network effect to your product promotion so that people benefit from sharing). At the same time, I took 2 stars off because:(1) One of pillars of the book is that you need to be a company worth talking about, which essentially means creating remarkable products and services (Purple Cow). This is always easier said than done and the book does not provide much guidance as to how this can be done.(2) The book gets quite repetitive along the way. The author just uses different words to express the same ideas over and over again.All in all, still a must-read for people interested in WOM marketing!

First off, I've only ever written a handful of reviews on products, books...etc. this is one of them because it makes buzz campaign plans more easily actionable. I read Mark Hughes Buzz Marketing book years ago and it was great, but I needed the next step. I'm trying to generate buzz with mini campaigns for iPhone apps. For an indi developer, we need a lot of results for low cost! The strait forward plans and worksheets are worth much more than the book cost alone. I'm sure you have tons of ideas for advertising and marketing like me, but they're scribbled on random note pages, my email, note apps, etc. You need to do a few things to get the most of this after reading it:Get all your notes and ideas and sit at a table /desk.Print out all the free worksheets from the website and organize them.I also bought the audio book to listen to while traveling.Seth Godin wrote the foreword!Just buy and read the book, download the worksheets, and plan out your campaigns!This can put you ahead of 90% of your competitors just picking the book up.Btw, I have no affiliation with this author. I'm a sales director by day and an iPhone app developer / marketer by night.Thanks Andy!

I loved this book not only for the specific word of mouth marketing tips, but for the enthusiasm Sernovitz brings to the subject matter as well.I am nobody you've ever heard of - just a woman starting her own business. Sernovitz made me realize that there is a whole new way of doing things, a whole world out there that I have had no connection to.First, this book made me feel not so bad about my lack of experience, because plenty of people with experience are just not getting it! And second, Andy's book taught me that if my business was going to have an internet presence I'd darn well better get up to speed on how to become a part of the online community and be as smart as I can about making sure people know about my product, find my website, and buy! I'd better blog - I'd better get out there - I'd better make connections, and friendships, and be a part of the conversation!"Word of Mouth Marketing" has an exciting message and is very accessible even for the novice. This book should be a part of anyone's Business 101 learning, and I highly recommend it.

I thought this was an excellent book, with only two minor caveats. The message of the book is very strong and very valuable, and even though I have worked with word of mouth advertising for several years, the book provided some points of view and models that I hadn't necessarily thought through completely before. I was delighted to find several useful pieces of information in this book.There is a lot of repetition, but in my opinion this is not because the author ran out of things to say, it was more to hammer home some very important messages, such as doing business honestly and ethically, and that dishonest business practices always end up coming to light and the consequences are not worth it. Such repetition is therefore not a bad thing, although it was perhaps overstated a little in places.The other minor issue is that the book had the misfortune to be written in the first decade of the 2000s, when the use of the internet was only beginning to blossom into what it is now. Therefore, although it talks a little about how to use the internet to help with word of mouth advertising, it shows its age in this sense, and some things have changed quite a bit in the ten years since the book was published. The core of the message remains unchanged, however, it's just that the specific examples to do with the internet are no longer as useful as they must have been at the time of publication. I do not feel that this harms the message at all.So, these two minor caveats do not detract from the book in any meaningful way, and there is so much valuable information in here for someone setting out to open a new business, or even for someone looking to re-invigorate an existing business. Well worth the purchase.

This book has 4.5 star rating which just goes to show you can't trust the star ratings as they are very subjective. The first 60 pages tells you what a dictionary would have told you in two lines. The sparse information is obvious, for example word of mouth makes you more money because it's free advertising and reduced customer acquisition costs. You don't say!

Fab handbook whether you're a start up or a professional marketer. Outlines simple but effective techniques to kick off or WoM or reconsider WoM as part of your overall marketing strategy.

OK, world of mouth is the most effective advertising. And in case you didn't get it, it will be explained through 60 pages. Then, finally we go to some practice: refer-a-friend scheme (that's already 2 years ago...), blogs and boards (nothing new), making people talk about yourself... with some few cases of interesting ideas already put in practice. We all know that enthusiasm is not a strategy, and devil lies in details of implementation, which are critically lacking in this book. So if you already have read any other book about word of mouth, you won't learn anything. If, like many Managers, you don't know anything about blogs, forums, communities, and importance of customer service, then you can start reading this book - and to confirm your sudden conversion to this new idea, distribute it to your commercial staff who already knows everything about it.

This book is a very nice read and I enjoyed reading it. I would rate it 4.5 but since that option isn’t available so I have given it a 5 star rating. I would take that half a star because the book gets repetitive in the middle which makes it a bit un-interesting.