A friend of mine, Leasa Maxx, Maxx Grafx, sent this cartoon to me a couple days ago and I immediately wanted to include it in this blog. I just received permission from Tallie Fishburne to use it. Tallie is the wife and business manager for Tom Fishburne, the creator of this cartoon and many others. You can view more of his work at www.skydeckcartoons.com. I think he has captured the essence of the power of word of mouth marketing. First I laughed and then I was in awe of his ability to simply send the message. Tom has a book of his cartoons called Brand Camp.How do you think word on mouth has changed the way business is done? Or is it not different at all?
4 comments:
Over the past year, my business has flourished because of WOM (word of mouth) advertising. Just yesterday, I had a sales person from a local newspaper come in to sell me ad space. She asked if I advertised and I said I did all the time. She didn't know what to say when she asked "Where?" and I said "Everywhere, by word of mouth."
As an aside, after I told her I wasn't interested in purchasing ad space from her, she proceeded to hand me a rate sheet for "when you change your mind."
I hope she's not holding her breath.
Some of the best word-of-mouth advertising I receive on a regular basis comes at the expense of other stores!
I always ask first-time maternity customers how they heard about the store. At least three times in the past few months, women have told me they were shopping in the maternity department of other stores (ok, it was Target and Kohl's), when another customer told them that my selection was bigger, better and less expensive.
How cool is that?
I think word of mouth adds a greater element of integrity to the way people do business. As a business owner, if I'm purposefully growing my business by WOM, I'll make darn sure that the message being passed is a positive one!
What's intriguing to me about the cartoonist is that his "day job" is in brand management. (Cartooning is his passion.) For this Harvard Biz School grad to share honestly, through his cartoon, about the power of WOM speaks volumes about its impact on consumer behavior.
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