Marketing and WoM: The Power of the Referent
Earlier in my development, when I was in business school, I interviewed a lot. Jobs, internships, graduate assistantship positions… the interviews never seemed to end. Yet, when it came to expressing my value and defending my abilities, I often balked. I found it very difficult to market myself without feeling like I was boasting or coming across as a cocky upstart. It was then that my Marketing Professor, and mentor, gave me some great advice: ‘Tell them what I said about you.’
I no longer approached the conversation with ‘I’ and ‘am’ but instead relied on the words others had used to applaud my successes.
And just like that, my interviews changed. I went from sounding stilted or uninterested to immediately expressing my value in a manner that made both me and the interviewer comfortable. It was a simple fix, and one that I haven’t soon forgotten. But what struck me most about this advice were two things: the inherent irony that a marketer had difficulty marketing their self, and the power of a referent.
Word of Mouth (WoM) advertising is the pinnacle of success for many marketers. When you can get your customers to proselytize their connections into loyalists or adopters of your products, you’ve hit the jackpot. No better advertisement has there been than one from someone you trust. And while many companies may be able to spend seemingly unlimited wads of cash on celebrities and spokespeople you may look up to or hold in high esteem, nothing can replace the advice of a trusted family member, friend, teacher or mentor; and that is precisely why WoM is the way to go.
This is actually something that is not lost in today’s technology world.
Facebook’s ‘like’ button is a prime example. So is re-tweeting something on Twitter. Yet relying on a referent is truly a dated method of reinforcing the validity or power of something. A Web 1.0 example of this might be forwarding emails about a new product or even making phone calls to inform family and friends about a local politician they should support; rest assured, it’s an idea as old as communication itself, and forms the basis of marketing. This tried and true tactic is one we are all comfortable with and find familiar.