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Dispatch from WOMMA Basic Training, Day 1

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s Basic Training Conference gave attendees a strong foundation in the strategies, tactics, and culture of word of mouth marketing. But the fast evolution of the discipline is evident in some of the new ideas and topics presented.

Marketers who are new to WOM got an intense crash course (those who didn’t attend should be sure to take advantage of WOMMA’s many educational whitepapers, podcasts, etc.). But even a “veteran” (of a little over a year!) like me picked up some new tips, in two areas:

Organizational practices: in my podcast leading up to the conference, I stated that organizational silos and mentalities impede most companies from really using WOM right. The panel titled “How We Made WOM Part of Our Corporate Philosophy” Maggie Colby of Intuit and Zane Safrit of Conference Calls Unlimited described some of the steps their companies took to make the shift. Zane admitted that some of his customer representatives couldn’t make the transition from order processors to caring, customer service people, causing some turnover and short-term pain.

I especially liked Intuit’s formula which Maggie outlined: “look for people with the right DNA”, have them participate in “follow me home” sessions (on-site visits to observe customers using the product), and give them special training in topics like blogging.

Simpler metrics: The industry seems to be gravitating to using some form of Fred Reicheld’s Net Promoter score. Late in the day, Fred provided a detailed look at the research and case studies that support his assertion that companies with strong word of mouth grow faster and are more profitable than industry averages. In the morning, Don Peppers shared his “return on customer” formula as a way of converting the “feel good” sentiment of treating customers right into a number CFO’s can love. Lorent Flores of CRMMetrix showed how his company uses the greater detail available in consumer-generated content to expand the Net Promoter into “brand strength”, the ratio of delighted promoters to unhappy detractors. In contrast to the detailed, multi-faceted measurement framework that came out of WOMMA’s July 2005 conference, having a core concept like Net Promoter is a practical approach to assessing the value of a company’s word of mouth.

But underlying these new ideas is a core set of principles that WOMMA continues to focus on and develop: ethical standards, measurement methodologies, and protecting the reputation of this nascent industry. In a fast-changing market like this with such a diverse membership, maintaining this focus is difficult, I’m sure. But these are the right things to do now – keep it up, Andy!

I wasn’t able to stay for Day 2, so if you have seen a good wrap-up leave me a comment with a link!

Posted by Jim Nail on January 20, 2006 at 04:17 PM | Email this post Permalink

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