The 7 Principles of Word of Mouth
This article was first published as a bonus chapter in The 2018 Influencer Marketing Handbook. You can claim a free copy of the book (I’ve paid for the book, you cover the shipping :-) here.
What does Space X, Bitcoin, Spotify, Uber, Slack, Flappy Bird (You do remember Flappy Bird, right?) and Amazon Prime all have in common?
Incredible growth — Driven primarily by word of mouth.
Their users, customers, loyal fans and their brand ambassadors can’t seem to keep the mouths shut — and that’s a good thing! But what is it, specifically, that makes a product or service like those aforementioned talk-worthy? Are there commonly shared attributes amongst these examples that make them more likely to be successful?
And if that would be the case– can we, as marketers, break down the elements and incorporate their principles into our creative development (and even product development) to be more likely to succeed?
Do you remember when your friends told you about the app where you could press a button and have a private driver arrive within minutes?
The music streaming service that would have you play any song on demand, for free, instantaneously?
The annoyingly simple yet addictive little mobile game with the flapping bird?
Flappy Bird conquered the world, its Vietnamese founder Dong Nguyen lost his mind, and took the app off the App Store — But do you remember when it first exploded all over Twitter and then blew up in the news?
These things, seemingly random, are not.
Having spent more than five years at Spotify, working specifically with user growth (and prior to Spotify at King Digital Entertainment, the maker of Candy Crush — another great example that could fit into the previously mentioned list of successful products), I had the unfair advantage of getting to study these things first hand, as they were taking place, with access to all the relevant data and insights that an outsider wouldn’t have.
Uncovering The 7 Principles of Word of Mouth
When I began to break down what caused certain products and services to be more talked about than others I found that the more of the following principles you could apply, the more likely your brand, product or service (or marketing campaign) would be to gain traction through word of mouth.
See, the best marketing in the world (specifically influencer marketing) doesn’t have to be overly creative to drive exceptional buzz or word of mouth. Instead, it can be dressed down to a point where you’re amplifying a message that is already out there in the market that resonates with the audience you’re aiming to reach.
It sure isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, nor is it always easy, but can be extremely powerful when appropriately applied.
Speaking of applied insights, what does this have to do with influencer marketing, and the context and contents of this book, you may ask. Well, if the core message in your campaign can tick these boxes, then the engagement in your campaign, the earned media aspect and the amplified word of mouth, will improve dramatically.
Without further ado, let’s jump into the 7 Principles of Word of Mouth that you should ask yourself when planning out a launch, positioning or creative idea.
- Does it solve a problem?
- Is it easy to talk about?
- Does it feel good to share?
- Does it evoke a sense that the world is an amazing place?
- Does it start a conversation?
- Is it relevant to our core target audience?
- Once experienced, does it exceed your expectations?
Now, going back to the list of Space X, Spotify, Uber, Bitcoin, Slack, Flappy Bird and Amazon Prime you’ll begin to see how the answer more often than not is yes.
How about commercial messages and advertising? Head over to Google and type in “Top Ad Campaign Of The 21st Century” (link to save you the trouble) and you’ll see that the list by AdAge is featuring campaigns like:
- Dumb Ways to Die
- Apple — Get a Mac
- Red Bull: Stratos
- Dove: Campaign for Real Beauty.
- Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
Check them out, go back to the list, and you’ll see that these principles can be applied to some of the most iconic adverts ever produced (they seem to be the ones most frequently shared, as well).
So what problem does the Old Spice commercial solve? It spoke to women without alienating men.
Just like the Red Bull Stratos campaign did indeed evoke a sense that the world is an amazing place. Does it feel good to share the Dumb Ways to Die video? In fact, it’s so entertaining that they turned into not one but two mobile games. Did the iconic Get a Mac campaign start a conversation relevant to its core target segment?
They solve problems, are easy to talk about, feel good to share, evokes a sense that the world is an amazing place, start a conversation, are relevant to a core target segment of customers and exceed our expectations as consumers.
It’s to be noted that there’s naturally a varying degree of problem-solving, conversation-starting and feel-good involved in each of these examples– What’s important is to have your messaging and creative idea align with as many of these principles as possible to the greatest extent that you can.
Let’s dig deeper and break them down:
1. Solving a problem
Products and services that solve problems better than anything else will naturally have an organic intake of new users. Uber is an amazing example, Slack is another. Space X is solving the problem of saving humanity while Spotify is making the world’s music accessible to everyone.
But this can also be in the form of entertainment (Flappy Bird, Candy Crush) or your way of communicating an issue or culturally relevant topic (Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, Dove: Campaign for Real Beauty).
For influencer marketing specifically we’ve got a few examples to share:
One of our clients has produced more than a hundred videos on YouTube where each video, made by the influencer, is highlighting a specific feature that they really like about the mobile app and how it solves a problem for them.
We recently created and distributed a series of 60-second videos (“Coffee Break Tutorials”) for Adobe with a behind the scenes look at how some of the most talented photographers in the world edit their photos.
In fact, we’ve produced several campaigns for Adobe centered around the idea that people that follow talented photographers on Instagram are eager to learn how they create their content (Behind the scenes).
2. Making it easy to talk about
Half of the work we do is often to encapsulate and simplify an idea to a point where it’s easy to talk about from both a content creator and content consumer point of view.
Keep it simple, and it will be easy and more likely to talk about. In short — If you can’t share the core idea in less than a few sentences around the dinner table, it’s likely not going to get passed around amongst people.
The other benefit of an easy-to-talk-about concept, idea, product or experience is how it ultimately shortens the viral cycle time. Much has been written about virality so I won’t go into great depth on the subject, but “viral cycle time” is essentially the time it takes from the second your message is received by somebody until that person spreads the word to the next person.
The shorter the viral cycle time, the quicker it spreads.
3. Feel good to share
I recently discovered an article from 1966 in the Harvard Business Review by Ernest Dichter. In the 52 year old article, titled “How Word-of-Mouth Advertising Works”, the American psychologist and marketing expert known as the father of motivational research, outlined the findings from his research uncovering that a person is more likely to talk about a brand if he “gets something out of it”.
But how does this connect to why we’re sharing what feels good to share?
His research revealed that we receive self-satisfaction from spreading what feels good to share specifically from a point of view of confirming our ownership and joy of the product, service or experience — and more specifically our discovery of it.
Think no further than back to a recent experience at restaurant, concert or vacation that made you feel really good and how you came back from said experience and told your friends about it. It helped you relive and receive the lovely feeling you felt at that time, and it made the other person feel good, too.
4. Evoke a sense that the world is an amazing place
There are a lot of negative things in the world — a lot of terrible things happening all the time, lots of problems that need to get solved — but life cannot just be about solving one miserable problem after another. There needs to be things that inspire you, that make you glad to wake up in the morning and be part of humanity…” ––Elon Musk
Ideas that successfully evoke the sense that the world is an amazing place — especially brands, services and products that are doing well — tend to evoke precisely these feelings. This also extends to people on both small and grand scale.
JFK evoked the sense that the world is an amazing place by declaring that he’d put a man on the moon and Elon Musk walked in his footsteps and decided that he’d put a man on Mars.
Noteworthy is that the principle of evoking a sense that the world is an amazing place isn’t just for those that are going to space — the idea also can also be applied at microscale from both a person, brand, or storytelling perspective. Look no further than for instance @peopleareamazing on Instagram and you’ll see how millions of people engage, relate, and share stories that are built around the 4th principle.
5. Starting a conversation
The best word of mouth is the kind you overhear on your morning commute. They start discussions, conversations, and provoke debates.
There are countless examples of products, services and creative advertising campaigns that are all built around the idea of starting a conversation to amplify its earned media and word of mouth — but what came to mind as I thought about this 5th principle was a rather unusual example from one of clients that we worked with back in 2016.
The conversation starter, and question, was:
“Could a long jump suit made of condom material make athletes perform better?”
In time for the 2016 Olympic Games, the condom brand SKYN turned to the creative community on Instagram in the fitness niche to launch a big campaign amplified by influencer marketing. It wasn’t a campaign directly promoting their core product; their condoms, but rather centered around an experimental long jump suit made of condom material. What blew us away beyond the incredible level of engagement in the activation was the conversations it started amongst hundreds of thousands of consumers that interacted with the campaign.
The campaign, designed to turn up the discussion around alternative material design, quickly ignited a wildly engaging conversation in its key target audience and successfully started a relevant discussion (and even debate) amongst the millions of consumers that they reached with their campaign.
6. Relevance to your core target audience
Sometimes overlooked, what’s often more important than having a message or idea that will travel around — is if it’s relevant to your core target segment. More than a revolutionary concept or idea this is a reminder, albeit arguably the most important one, that you craft your core idea around your core target audience.
7. Exceeding your expectations
When products exceed your expectations, you can’t keep your mouth shut. This is single-handedly the primary reason –in my own opinion– to why Spotify took off back in 2008 in Sweden (and later conquered the world.)
“It can’t be THAT good…Oh… Wait…What just happened?”
I felt the same way about the iPad, but not the Apple Watch. My Apple Watch doesn’t solve any problems and once experienced exceeded no expectations at all. All I had to do was charge it all the time. Sorry, Apple.
My iPad on the other hand, I thought would be a rather useless (albeit fun) toy, but quickly became a product I simply couldn’t live without (And later became indispensable in the modern parenting toolbox.)
If you can nail the 7TH PRINCIPLE, the growth of your brand, product and its services will explode.
It doesn’t matter if it’s your local bar, a music-streaming service, free 2-day delivery or a company building rockets that will take us to Mars. Elon Musk keeps exceeding everybody’s expectations — but remember that he’s playing by the same rules as your local favorite bartender.
See, we don’t tell our friends about the products and services we like or even love — We talk about what’s greater than we could possibly imagine.
“Did you see”, “Have you heard”, “You won’t believe”, “check this out” and “Can you imagine” is what will make it to the dinner table. That’s what matters because 90% of all word of mouth happens offline.
If you can turn your campaign, brand, product, or service (and often just ONE aspect of the aforementioned) into a dinner table topic because it exceeds expectations, you’ll see explosive growth through word of mouth.
And here’s how you do exactly that:
Amplifying a dialog that’s already taking place
The key to exceeding the expectation of your customers–at its very core– comes down to figuring out exactly what it is that your consumers are saying about you (that their friends, in turn, are sharing with their friends) and amplify that message.
Once you understand the word of mouth loop, you’ll understand the where, how, and why of how you can turn product marketing into word of mouth.
Pepsi Max applied this principle in one of their influencer marketing campaigns in 2017 where each participant shared the surprisingly great combination of Pepsi and Ginger — and how it exceeded their expectations. A bold promise that turned out to resonate well (Principle #7) with those fond of Pepsi Max and the taste of ginger (Principle #6).
We also — as human beings — tend to share the really bad news. The widely controversial, the things we truly dislike, are annoyed by or what pisses us off — But that’s a separate topic that isn’t useful in the context of modern marketing, in my opinion.
Going back to my first-hand experience at Spotify, I’d like to share a method I used to reverse-engineer the 7th principle.
Now, it should be noted that there are certain things I can disclose, and others that I can’t, but it should come to little surprise that both the growth of a subscription business like Spotify or a game publishing company like King Digital Entertainment ain’t exactly random.
What’s incredibly powerful though, and what I urge you to do for your brand, product or service, is to dive into the qualitative and quantitative aspect of what drives word of mouth to understand how it can be applied for either your core product, service or brand or to the development of a specific campaign, product launch, re-positioning or when tapping into a new target segment or market.
Back in 2014 for instance, a large proportion of the user growth at Spotify was driven by word of mouth — and while it’s possible to track referrals and traffic sources, it’s even more powerful to ask your users why they bought your product, subscribed to your service or downloaded your app.
You’ll want to go beyond where the users or customers are coming from and understand the how and the why.
How to pinpoint what’s driving your organic growth
Get yourself set up with a service like SurveyMonkey or Typeform and send out an email to users or customers that bought your product less than 30 days from now.
The email should be short and to the point and answer why you’re running the survey and what the benefit it holds for the survey taker (e.g. improve their experience or make it more relevant and aligned with their expectations.).
Your first step is to figure out where your customers are coming from. It’s likely that you already know these numbers– but follow along anyway.
Three examples of the first question:
- “What made you sign up for our service?”
- “What made you purchase our product?”
- “What made you download our app?”
List the most common referral sources, and have the survey respondents pick a primary one. A few examples (adjust to fit your product):
- I saw an ad for your product.
- A friend recommended your product.
- I found you on Google.
- I read about you in the news
- Other (short-form answer)
You’ll want to include the 5th option here if this is the first time you’re running this kind of survey to learn if there’s a referral source you’re missing (or phrasing your options in a different way than how they are perceived in the mind of the consumer).
Don’t worry though, this isn’t meant to be a scientifically reliable way to model attribution — This is highly effective yet somewhat ghetto marketing research.
Now, what you’ll want to do is take all users that picked Option #2 (Friend recommendation) and follow up with questions that will get you to understand the how and the why.
You’ll ask three questions (phrase them so that they make sense for your specific business):
- What did your friend/or friends say that made you buy our product / Install our app / Visit our store (etc)?
- On a scale of 1–10, how likely are you to recommend our service/product/brand to someone you know?
- How would you describe our service to your friends?
What you’ll discover when you run this type of survey to your customers is absolutely mind-blowing.
The first question is the most powerful of all, as it will reveal exactly how your product is perceived in the market.
You’ll have to analyze each response individually and look for reoccurring themes and keywords. Pay attention to the answers. This can get time-consuming but take the time and you’ll instantly know more about your customers than anyone on the planet.
You’ll discover what promises your customers are making to their friends, and by following up with Question #2, you’ll see if the promise is fulfilled or not.
These are the conversations that are taking place around dinner tables, in emails, over coffee, at schools, workplaces and on the morning commute — whether you like it or not.
If you’re seeing a large proportion of your growth coming from friend referrals and many of the referrals are expressing that they’d recommend your service to their friends, you’re on the right track. Following up with Question #3 you’ll see what parts of your service they are impressed by.
You’ll also learn that there will be multiple clusters and segments representing different needs, problems and solutions. This is what I did at Spotify (and more recently for several other clients) to uncover exactly what customers in different segments, age-groups, countries and cohorts were saying about the service, product or experience they’re selling.
Incorporate these commonly occurring themes into your next marketing campaign (it work’s incredibly well for influencer marketing), and you’ll amplify your existing word of mouth. As a bonus, it will help your existing customers distinctly express what you know will resonate with the way they already talk about your brand or services.