Word Of Mouth Marketing Has No Budget But Big Results

An excellent find by Ben mcConnell of Church of the Customer, as they comb the new BIGresearch report for information on how consumers use the media.

For car-buying - Word of Mouth and TV Broadcasts rank number 1 and number 2, with newspapers and magazines ranking 4 and 5. This doesn't address individual dealers, but I'm not surprised that people buy off of recommendation and off the visual thrill of looking at a car move in high-def.

As for Word of Mouth - this information isn't shocking at all:

"... 94.2% of consumers regularly or occasionally give advice about products and services they purchased and 90.8% regularly or occasionally seek advice about products and services before making a purchase.

There is a visceral thrill to car-buying that works well in stories - and you know how people love to tell stories. The point Ben makes is that WOMM works, but needs to be measured, and given a budget. It may be more difficult to track, but from the results we're seeing, all of the statistics for media buying are a bit fuzzy - and the dollars spent on different mediums don't reflect the merging of marketing channels (you heard it on the radio but saw it on the television. Which one made you buy?).

Personally, I'm still waiting for local car dealers in St Louis to catch on to the power of blogging. As soon as I get that eighth day, I'll start calling them.

By the way - if you're in the market for a good book on customer marketing - Jackie and Ben of Church of the Customer have an excellent book - and a good blog to boot.