. . . few are actually doing much about it.

Word of mouth marketing and its online namesake - “word of mouse” (I stole that from Mark Jarvis, CMO of Dell, but I don’t know where he stole it from.) is all the rage in big company marketing departments and the corner table staff meeting at Starbuck’s alike.

And yet, I recently read that less than 5% of the Fortune 500 companies employ a blog or similar online new media tool and only 3% of the Inc 500. So, where’s the disconnect.

I sat down with Mark Jarvis, Dell’s CMO, and discussed online marketing, new media and community building in marketing as a whole and at Dell for a special “field version” of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast.

Jarvis talked about a “Generation Gap” that is epidemic in most large companies and the leading cause of a real lack of understanding and employing word of mouth at companies large and small.

See, my daughters - heading squarely into the prime marketing demographic - wouldn’t know what to do with a Yellow Pages directory if you handed one to them, don’t watch much TV (never watch network TV), and don’t really listen to radio - it’s more like they snack on it for about 25 seconds a song.

So what Jarvis is talking about and what Dell in my opinion is moving towards is not some trendy new cutting edge way of marketing it’s the future, it’s here now and it’s a game of survival. If you don’t figure this out, if you don’t tap the power of the Internet in smart, relevant, engaging and community building ways you will become last year’s phone book.

Dell is making the right noise, but noise only goes so far - during the conference where I met up with Jarvis an audiance participant asked if this new way of marketing was how Dell intended to market away some of its lingering customer service issues and to that Jarvis replied, “You don’t market your way out of customer service issues, you fix the issues.” We shall see.

Check out SB360, Idea Storm and Studio Dell - they keep getting better. (Disclaimer, I contribute some content to each, although I’m not sure that has anything to do with them getting better.)

7:34:43 PM    

Large advertisers have been doing it for years - buy our product and get a free t-shirt to wear around and help spread the word about our company.

I love this type of grass roots promotion and I think small businesses underestimate how a well run promotion involving every customer can turn into a flood of buzz and referrals. I’m not talking about some of the once trendy “paid to drive” type of schemes, I’m talking about ways that small business owners can get their customers to spread the word.

Here’s an example I witnessed this week.

An auto dealer offers car buyers free oil changes on a schedule for as long as they keep a simple web site address decal on their back windshield.

This is just a twist on the age old endorsement tactic, but by doing all the work for your customer, creating the bumper sticker and offering an incentive, you get immediate benefit. Cars are a great vehicle (I know) because they move around like mini billboards, but so do pizza boxes, flower arrangements, real estate signs, backpacks and bikes.

The key is to offer an incentive that makes people talk - free oil changes for life might do that and is in line with your overall brand (it’s pretty easy to go overboard and actually turn people off - know you customer!). Make the incentive about your products and services so you can continue the relationship with your client and highlight a feature of your business that they may not be as familiar with.

So, what creative exchanging advertising for services have you seen, offered or experienced?

7:34:40 PM    

Yet most businesses remain tongue-tied—not because they don't have stories to tell, but because they don't know how to tell them. The truth is that you don't have to be a writer to create an effective business story. In fact, all it takes is three simple steps.
7:34:31 PM    

Except not quite. While everyone agreed there was a brand problem, the solution was costly and very long-term. Here's how Marketing won over Management, by talking a language they understood.
7:34:29 PM    

Even if you're new to Twitter, this article will serve as a guide to educate you to help you make a decision, by linking to resources and providing a starting point for your strategy.
7:34:28 PM    

In this one-on-one, he gives us the lowdown on how to use social media to kick-start your buzz marketing efforts.
7:34:27 PM    

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7:34:27 PM    

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7:34:26 PM    

The answer is yes.
7:34:24 PM