Business owners are always seeking cost effective methods to attract new customers. However, none of them will ever be as effective as word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth marketing is a technique that requires companies to come up with concepts that would appeal to their customers and compel their customers to share their experiences with others. This is a skill that many business owners are always seeking to perfect, which is why I was excited when I came across
Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking by Andy Sernovitz.
The introduction to this book entices readers into feeling as if they are in for a treat because they are about to learn something new regarding word of mouth marketing. However, in my opinion I feel many readers will read this book feeling extremely disappointed. Sernovitz spends the first half of the book discussing the concept of word of mouth marketing by sharing rules such as "Be interesting" or "Make people happy" and then shares a variety of case studies to support these common sense rules. Obviously these "rules" must be adhered to in order to attract customers, so I am more concerned with learning
how to accomplish this mission (my guess is you will be too!).
Sernovitz finally discusses how you can be successful at word of mouth marketing by making sure your campaign includes the Five Ts (these are elements that must be addressed in your campaign strategy). One of the Ts stresses the importance of making sure that you provide your customers with something noteworthy to share. He suggests that you, "Keep your topic short and sweet," yet, this a rule that he violates throughout the book. I found this book to be extremely repetitive by rewording the same thoughts in a variety of different ways. Sernovitz includes new case studies to the reworded thoughts as if this will "trick" the reader into thinking that he has introduced an entirely new concept, which is not the case. Another 'T' mentions that you have to take into account how your message will travel. I am confident that you probably already know which methods Sernovitz will suggest, so I will not provide you with any hints.
I do not wish to sound redundant, but I can not stress enough how much of this book with the exception of the case studies are recycled concepts that many business owners are currently implementing in their business. Many business owners are not "marketing gurus" and the irony is I foresee many will turn to this book expecting to find innovative techniques only to be left thinking, " I already know this, so where do I go from here?"
I give this book 2 out of 5 stars.
This book was published in 2009 and contains 232 pages. The price of this book is $24.95 and can be purchased
here.
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BOOK REVIEW - Word of Mouth Marketing
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