Word of Mouth Marketing Up 33% in 2008
With the new year in front of us, it seems like a good time to talk about what will be happening in marketing in 2008. Today, I thought I’d focus on word of mouth marketing.
Word of mouth marketing spending is expected to jump by 33% in 2008 up to $1.3 billion according to a PQ Media report released in November 2007. That’s actually a smaller increase than occured in 2007 (35.9% increase in spending over 2006).
It seems companies are finally recognizing the influence of the social web in terms of word of mouth marketing. In fact, Paul Rand (vice president of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association) summed up the trend perfectly by saying the world of marketing, “is evolving from ‘interrupt me’ to ‘engage me’ when it comes to consumer interactions. It is a fundamental shift in the way marketers approach consumers with their message.” I love that quote!PQ Media takes their projections further by predicting that word of mouth marketing spending will grow by 30.4% per year for the five year period of 2006-2011 bringing total spending to $3.7 billion in 2011. PQ Media also states that 3.5 billion brand-related conversations take place each day in the United States. That’s a lot of potential!
It’s an exciting time to be a marketer and have a chance to be a part of the growing focus on word of mouth marketing and learning to leverage the internet to fuel that word of mouth marketing. The social web offers enormous potential, and word of mouth marketing is a natural way to tap into online communities, reach online influencers and generate an online buzz that will ultimately lead to offline word of mouth marketing as well.
I can’t wait to see what comes in 2008 in terms of word of mouth marketing, social media marketing, viral marketing and more! What do you think about the expected increase in spending on word of mouth marketing in the coming years?
Tags: 2008-marketing-predictions, Branding, business-predictions, marketing-budget, PQ-Media, social-media-marketing, social-networking, Viral Marketing, word-of-mouth-marketingRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Marketing, Social Media Marketing & Networking
6 opinions for Word of Mouth Marketing Up 33% in 2008
Liz Fuller
Jan 3, 2008 at 3:08 am
Hi Susan
These are exciting predictions and I believe they’re on target. It seems counter-intuitive to say that billions of dollars will be spent on generating “word or mouth” marketing - mouths are free, right? But companies need to do something worth talking about - and the internet makes that much more possible for businesses of all sizes.
Thanks for sharing these predictions!
Susan Gunelius
Jan 3, 2008 at 6:38 am
Thanks for visiting, Liz. I agree, having something meaningful to say to generate an online buzz is essential to earning a decent ROI from WOM marketing.
Simone Brunozzi
Jan 4, 2008 at 3:02 am
I definitively agree!
I also think that WoM will affect virtual worlds, and Second Life, bringing them into a better position for investing in marketing.
Best,
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Joe Hernandezes
Mar 16, 2008 at 9:17 am
Hi, this is pretty intresting article. I myself have been looking for alternate ways to advertise. There is a few products out there. Newest one being WideCircles. They seem to have intresting approach to it, form bunch of viral messages then inject these into tons of social networking channels. And they are pretty cheap compared to some of the other ones out there.
In any case if you wanna check it out go to widecircles.com, they have more information there.
Thanks.
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