Building Buzz to Beat the Big Boys: Word of Mouth Marketing for Small Businesses

by Steve O'Leary, Kim Sheehan

Overview

Thousands of small, retail stores open every year, but 70 to 80 percent of them close within five years. Many are done in by the big box and Internet retailers who crush competition with low prices and convenience. But smaller retail stores and service providers have distinct competitive advantages: They are local. They can connect on a personal level with customers in a way the big guys can't. And they can add immense value to the customer experience. To capitalize on these advantages, marketing experts Steve O'Leary and Kim Sheehan offer dozens of inexpensive Word of Mouth marketing methods small businesses can use right away. Done well, these efforts will help smaller merchants do more than survive—they'll prosper.

For independent retailers to succeed, it is no longer enough to create a loyal customer base. Local store marketers need to put their loyal customers to work, encouraging them to talk about the store to their friends, family members, and others in their social networks. When they do, the result is Word of Mouth (or Buzz) marketing, a powerful tool that creates an army of advocates who become even more loyal and help attract new customers. Besides learning how to leverage the power of word of mouth marketing, readers will learn: -How to understand their customers better. -How to increase customer loyalty to their store. -How to communicate with customers to maintain loyalty. -How to encourage loyal customers to talk to others about their store. -How to create a customer community, both in the store and on line. -How to measure results. The book also includes numerous examples from current businesses, as well as thought-provoking ideas and templates to help readers generate their own successful buzz marketing plans. Most resources available today on buzz marketing focus on techniques for large companies and online retailers. This book offers something priceless for the little guy by showing ways to increase loyalty and gain new customers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313345982
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/30/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

STEVE O'LEARY is CEO of O'Leary and Partners, an advertising agency in Orange County, California. In his thirty-five year advertising career, he has worked on over 20 retail brands that range from single store operations to large chains, and from dry cleaners to fast food restaurants. His clients have included Coca-Cola, Miller Brewing, Century 21 Real Estate, and Taco Bell. He has been a speaker at various industry events and client conventions and workshops, and a guest lecturer at numerous universities.

KIM SHEEHAN is Associate Professor at the University of Oregon, where she teaches classes in communications and advertising. She spent twelve years in the advertising industry, working with fast-food clients such as Wendy's and McDonald's, and with retail store clients like Kinney Shoe and Laura Ashley. She is the author of Controversies in Contemporary Advertising, and a coauthor of Using Qualitative Research Methods in Advertising.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1:
The Importance of Word of Mouth and Customer Communities
Today's Retail Environment
What Are Word-of-Mouth Marketing and Customer Communities?
What Customer Communities Will Do for Your Business
Why Word-of-Mouth Marketing Is So Popular Now
Why You Should Harness the Power of Word of Mouth
Word of Mouth and the Local Store Advantage
How a Customer Community Fits into Your Advertising Plan
Summing Up
Chapter 2:
Who Are Your Customers?
Getting Started: Defining Your Trading Area by Geography and ZIP Codes
Moving Forward: Determining the Demographics of Your Trading Area
Taking It Further: Looking at Your Business by Customer Segments
Your Loyalty Segments: The Family, Flirts, and Phantoms
Getting the Data About Your Customers
Summing Up
Resource Toolbox
Chapter 3:
Getting Started with Word of Mouth
Getting Started: Backgrounds, Definitions, and History of Word of Mouth
Just What Is Word of Mouth?
Getting Started: Understanding the Impact of Word of Mouth
Moving Forward: The Elements of a Word-of-Mouth Campaign
Moving Forward: Using Information to Create Word of Mouth
Moving Forward: Delivering the Communication
Taking It Further: Working with Traditional Advertising
Taking It Further: Using Word of Mouth with the Family, Flirts, and Phantoms
Taking It Further: Creating and Working with Store Champions
Summing Up
Resource Toolbox
Chapter 4:
Encouraging and Rewarding Word of Mouth with Family, Flirts, and Phantoms
Getting Started: Asking Your Customers to Talk About Your Store
Moving Forward: Understanding Reward and Loyalty Systems
Moving Forward: Types of Reward Programs
Moving Forward: Selecting the Best Reward Program for Your Business
Taking It Further: Creating a Personalized Loyalty Program
Useful Information
Taking It Further: Personal Communication as Its Own Reward
Taking It Further: Turbaning Loyalty into Referrals
Summing Up
Chapter 5:
How Customer Communities Work
Getting Started: Customer Communities as the Third Place
Getting Started: Understanding the Customer Benefits of Communities
Moving Forward: Best Practices of Customer Communities
Taking It Further: Understanding How Communities Pay Off for Your Store
Summing Up
Chapter 6:
Establishing Your Online Community
Getting Started: Successes and Challenges of Online Communities
Moving Forward: Choosing a Format for Your Online Community
Moving Forward: Identifying Social Glue to Bring Your Community Together
Moving Forward: Selecting the Best Glue
Moving Forward: Involving Customers in Your Community
Taking It Further: Facilitating and Moderating Your Community
Taking It Further: Making the Third Place
Summing Up
Resource Toolbox
Chapter 7:
Growing and Supporting Your Online Community
Getting Started: Ways to Get Online Members into Your Store
Moving Forward: Creating a Community Space in Your Store
Moving Forward: Involving Your Employees in Community Efforts
Moving Forward: Roles Your Employees Can Play
Taking It Further: Reaching Out to Local Organizations to Aid Your Community Efforts
Taking It Further: Selecting Activities
Taking It Further: Successfully Implementing Community Marketing Programs
Summing Up
Chapter 8:
Tracking the Results
Getting Started: Defining Success and Tracking Results
Moving Forward: Sales Measurements That Track Changes in Your Business
Customer Service Measurements That Indicate Changes in Your Business
In-Store Measurements
Ways to Measure Word-of-Mouth Activity
Measuring the Value of Your Community
Taking It Further: Making Sense of Measures
Summing Up
Chapter 9:
Keeping Your Community Fresh and Vital
Getting Started: The Cluster Effect and Its Impact on Your Community
Moving Forward: Understanding the Power of Social Networks through MySpace
Keeping Interest and Involvement Alive
Taking It Further: Revisiting Your Marketing Grid
Taking It Further: Clarifying Community Roles
Summing Up
Chapter 10:
Ethical Considerations That Will Make Your Community More Successful
Why Privacy Statements Are Important
Steps in Developing and Implementing Your Privacy Program
Transparency and How It Effects the Legitimacy of Your Community
The Word of Mouth Marketing Association Principles of WOM Marketing
Summing Up
Chapter 11:
The Adventure Begins
Appendix:
Your Local Store Marketing Toolbox
Toolbox 1: Developing Your Marketing Grid
Toolbox 2: Creating a Map to Discover Your Trading Area
Toolbox 3: Using Zip Code Tabulation to Think about Your Local Market Area
Toolbox 4: A Primer on Demographics
Toolbox 5: Data-Collection Techniques
Toolbox 6: Talking to Customers: What to Ask
Toolbox 7: Analyzing Data
Toolbox 8: Collecting Data on Your Web Site
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Rich Jernstedt

"Nothing like great advice from experts who combine experience with passion. This book is jammed with everything from smart strategies to common sense action. In the current marketplace, if you're not using buzz, you are missing out. Read this and start the buzz working for your business."

Rich Jernstedt

"Nothing like great advice from experts who combine experience with passion. This book is jammed with everything from smart strategies to common sense action. In the current marketplace, if you're not using buzz, you are missing out. Read this and start the buzz working for your business."

—

Rich Jernstedt, PR Executive, Chicago, Illinois

Arthur R. Tauder

"A must-have handbook for local retailers in their everyday David vs. Goliath battle with the Big Boys. Each chapter lays out step-by-step how to enhance the shopping experience of your core customers and how to enlist them to attract even more shoppers to your store. Building Buzz shows you how to leverage your natural competitive strength, your closeness to your customers. Level the playing field with the Big Boys and gain the competitive edge."

Arthur R. Tauder

"A must-have handbook for local retailers in their everyday David vs. Goliath battle with the Big Boys. Each chapter lays out step-by-step how to enhance the shopping experience of your core customers and how to enlist them to attract even more shoppers to your store. Building Buzz shows you how to leverage your natural competitive strength, your closeness to your customers. Level the playing field with the Big Boys and gain the competitive edge."

—

Arthur R. Tauder, Former Vice-Chairman of McCann WorldGroup, Founder-ThunderHouse Enterprises

Glen Adams

"This book gives the small business owner the personal touch tools that a small business needs. It is the perfect solution to the problem of how to compete with the Big Boys."

Glen Adams

"This book gives the small business owner the personal touch tools that a small business needs. It is the perfect solution to the problem of how to compete with the Big Boys."

—

Glen Adams, Owner of Hair Care Salons, Louisville, Kentucky

Editorial Reviews

The Web has caused a redefinition of business systems and how they interact and dialogue with consumers. This is especially true for small businesses, which face challenges marketing their products and services and competing with large, often global competitors. O'Leary (CEO, advertising agency) and Sheehan (Univ. of Oregon) successfully take on the challenge of addressing these important how-to issues for small businesses. They establish a basic road map—customers-conversations-community-commitment—as the organizational framework for this useful work. The objective is to help small businesses use customers to talk about their stores and services with others to help build a growing community of customers and increase sales. As a method, this is word-of-mouth on steroids. This well-organized, lucid book sets forth this operating approach with practical marketing suggestions, and ideas that make budget sense and can be quickly implemented and measured. A how-to book doesn't get much better than this….Highly recommended.” —Choice

From the Publisher