Word of Mouth Marketing

     What's the best form of marketing?  If you said "Word of Mouth," you are correct!  Advertisers pay a premium rate for placing ads in great locations where "exposure" to the message takes place.  Repeated exposure "brands" the image into the viewers' or listener's mind, but that's still no guarantee that the prospect will act on what they've been exposed to.

     If the message is made "personal" - that is, it's delivered by a person - the odds that someone will act on that information increase exponentially.  It's why movies, plays, restaurants and other artistic creations (think a restaurant isn't art?) rely on the "critics" to generate "buzz" about the latest and greatest.

     If a person is positively impacted by an experience, they'll be sure to tell at least three people.  That doesn't seem like much, but thousands of dollars are spent to impact those same three people through other means - like radio, television and billboards.

     And although it's the best, word of mouth is the sharpest double-edged sword out there.  A person with a negative experience will infect 9 others with the message.  It may not be true, but that doesn't matter - it's the perception of the experience that counts.

     We need to be authentic to our message.  If we say children will have a positive experience, we have to make sure they do; if we say we exude academic excellence, we must; if we say children won't be bullied, we make make sure they're not; if we say children will grow in faith, then, indeed, they need to be able to prove it by their actions.  This authenticity will continue to make our Catholic schools invaluable - not only to the community, but to the whole of society.

     Will we be criticized?  Sure!  Will we be crucified?  Yes!  But will we have done our best, so that parents will continue to talk about our school to other parents, sharing the good news about our school to their friends?

     The business world calls it, "Word of Mouth Marketing;" we call it, "Evangelization."

     In the "Articles" section, a new Article has been posted titled, "4 Rules of Word of Mouth Marketing."  It's by Janine Popick, President and CEO-Founder of Vertical Response, a company that encourages marketing through technologies.  You can link to her blog at http://verticalresponse.blogs.com/.

© Michael V. Ziemski, SchoolAdvancement, 2007

Back to Marketing Matters Index