In May of 2006, I published a research paper with Osterman Research highlighting the challenges brands would face as they embarked on implementing word of mouth marketing campaigns.  The study took 6 months to implement and eventually grew to 54 pages of content.

My goal was to provide organizations interested in, or even intimidated by, word-of-mouth (WOM) campaigns with data and guidance designed to help them integrate this exciting strategy into their marketing and media plans.

The study is titled Perceptions, Practices & Ethics in Word of Mouth Marketing.  And, I’m making it available again.  Is it still relevant?  Well, from a planning standpoint I think the topics are still as relevant today as they were two years ago.

I also turned the release of the study into an example of how to support viral marketing pass along.  The study was downloaded over 150,000 from May 2006 to February 2009.

Here’s how we did it:

1. We started with no marketing budget and decided to use a free e-book framework to drive distribution.
2. We became members of communities to hear what was going on and to gain qualified participants for the survey. This platform also allowed us to announce to relevant communities when the study was available.
3. Created a database. We captured the email addresses, names, and company names of all survey participants. We also included email requests for the survey that were appended to the database. There are 217 records in the database for email requests.
4. We communicated. We thanked individuals for participating.  And, sent them a link to pick up the results.
5. We said something important. The study took 6 months from formulation to publishing and we focused on giving readers valuable and actionable information. The content publishing focus was on tips and techniques.
6. We focused on co-creation. This is an important step. We reached out to 45 industry experts and competitor firms in our industry ten days before we published and, asked them for their feedback and insight. 38 individuals responded, and 17 of those people provided lengthy comments and insight that enhanced the quality of the work and required us to rethink some of the conclusions and rationale. Personally, I’m still thrilled and humbled that competitor firms say that the work is incredibly valuable and comprehensive.
7. We recognized the contributions of those that contributed feedback.  And, even asked some individuals for reviews of the study that we published as Accolades.
8. We did a blogged press release. Having a blog press release really helped to drive distribution.
9. We created a counter so that we could track downloads.
10. We provided links to relevant publishers that cover the WOM industry.
11. We talked about the study at industry events.
12. We commented on comments to be part of the conversation.  Thanking people for reviews gave us more content to reference in the form of lists of people who were talking about the study.  This became blog post content.
13. We shared our success by publishing download counts.
14. We published snippets of content from the study with additional insight on our blog.
15. Once it was added on Wikipedia — we linked to it.  NOTE:  If you feel the study is worth adding back into the Wikipedia article for Word of Mouth or Word of Mouth Marketing, I hope you’ll add it as a resource.

In addition to the 150,000 downloads, I was interviewed for a New York Time article on social media and generated $1.685 million in new business.

TAGS:  Word of mouth, word of mouth marketing, wikipedia, Osterman Research, Audience Machine, content distribution, viral marketing,