Recently Megan Leap, our Marketing Coordinator, and I attended an AMA dinner featuring Andy Sernovitz's Word of Mouth Marketing presentation. While Meg was there to get some ideas for ion's own viral marketing, I attended on behalf of each and everyone of my clients.
So, how can our clients use post-click marketing to get people talking?
The idea is pretty much summed up in Andy's personal anecdote, "Stroller Valet." In a society that scoffs at baby strollers (and children in general) in restaurants, there is Minny's, an eatery that specializes in "stroller valet." Got a stroller? They'll park it for free! Parents rave about the unique service—and the word is spread. Andy calls this a word-of-mouth (WOM) topic: it's fun, portable, and to those parents—it's remarkable.
Post-click marketing gives our clients the opportunity to be "remarkable." Forget sending paid search, banner and email marketing traffic to plain old landing pages (PLOP) or dead-end corporate websites. We use conversion-focused, multi-page landing experiences that target and engage users. Add in rich media (dynamic Flash, video), personalization (via sophisticated behavior rules), a great brand, and you will find a post-click experience that is truly an exception to the rule.
Here's the WOM Manifesto. We especially like # 4 & # 7...
- Happy customers are your best advertising. Make people happy.
- Marketing is easy: Earn the respect and recommendation of your customers. They will do your marketing for you, for free.
- Ethics and good service come first.
- UR the UE: You are the user experience (not what your ads say you are).
- Negative word of mouth is an opportunity. Listen and learn.
- People are already talking. Your only option is to join the conversation.
- Be interesting or be invisible.
- If it's not worth talking about, it's not worth doing.
- Make the story of your company a good one.
- It is more fun to work at a company that people want to talk about
- Use the power of word of mouth to make business treat people better.
- Honest marketing makes more money.
-Jessica Frobel
