Word of Mouth - 5 Deadly Sins

In Support of Sean Moffitt's 11 Deadly Sins of Ill Advised Word of Mouth Marketers...

If not undertaken with authenticity, careful consideration, planning, and follow-through any marketing initiative can fail. Word of mouth initiatives, in particular, are incredibly subject to scrutiny and shame if left unattended. Why? Because of the sheer nature of the activity. Once any word of mouth or social campaign is launched it will sprout it's own legs, mind, and mouth - and wander it will - whether you'd like it to or not. To give it such life and turn your back on it is asking for trouble.

Agent Wildfire has released some preliminary results of the 2008 Word of Mouth Marketing/Media Survey and the results are interesting if not surprising to those of us who (try to) practice what we preach.

As identified by those who took the survey, here are the top 5 ways to get it wrong with word of mouth:

#1  Lack of authenticity 70.7%
#2  Not creating two-way dialogue 51.2%
#3  Lying about identity i.e. fake blogging 51.2%
#4  Not measuring what happens 46.3%
#5  Not having a strategy 43.9%

The results are clear friends.  We must be real, plan, participate, and pay attention. As trusted advisers to our clients we must ensure they understand the depth and implications of the undertaking and ensure they have the wherewithal to see it through lest their reputation - and ours - be sullied.    {Sullied.  I love that word.}

And of course, because I believe so strongly in the power of word of mouth and am a fan of Agent Wildfire's work, I encourage you to take 15 minutes to complete the survey.  You'll be one of the first to get the top line results and you'll also get a chance to win some of the cooler books on the subject.

Thanks for the insight Sean!  Looking forward to the full results.