1、中文4300字，2800单词，15800英文字符PDF外文：http:/ A new way to measure word-of mouth marketing April.2010 Jacques Bughin, Jonathan Doogan, and Ole Jrgen Vetvik McKinsey Quarterly Consumers have always valued opinions expressed directly to them. Marketers may spend millions of dollars on elaborately c
2、onceived advertising campaigns, yet often what really makes up a consumers mind is not only simple but also free: a word-of-mouth recommendation from a trusted source. As consumers overwhelmed by product choices tune out the ever-growing barrage of traditional marketing, word of mouth cuts through t
3、he noise quickly and effectively. Indeed, word of mouth1 is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions. Its influence is greatest when consumers are buying a product for the first time or when products are relatively expensive, factors that tend to make people conduct mor
4、e research, seek more opinions, and deliberate longer than they otherwise would. And its influence will probably grow: the digital revolution has amplified and accelerated its reach to the point where word of mouth is no longer an act of intimate, one-on-one communication. Today, it also operates on
5、 a one-to-many basis: product reviews are posted online and opinions disseminated through social networks. Some customers even create Web sites or blogs to praise or punish brands. As online communities increase in size, number, and character, marketers have come to recognize word of mouths growing
6、importance. But measuring and managing it is far from easy. We believe that word of mouth can be dissected to understand exactly what makes it effective and that its impact can be measured using what we call “word-of-mouth equity”an index of a brands power to generate messages that influence the con
7、sumers decision to purchase. Understanding how and why messages work allows marketers to craft a coordinated, consistent response that reaches the right people with the right content in the right setting. That generates an exponentially greater impact on the products consumers recommend, buy, and be
8、come loyal to. A consumer-driven world The sheer volume of information available today has dramatically altered the balance of power between companies and consumers. As consumers have become overloaded, they have become increasingly skeptical about traditional company-driven advertising and marketin
9、g and increasingly prefer to make purchasing decisions largely independent of what companies tell them about products. This tectonic power shift toward consumers reflects the way people now make purchasing decisions.2 Once consumers make a decision to buy a product, they start with an initial consid
10、eration set of brands formed through product experience, recommendations, or awareness-building marketing. Those brands, and others, are actively evaluated as consumers gather product information from a variety of sources and decide which brand to purchase. Their post-sales experience then informs t
11、heir next purchasing decision. While word of mouth has different degrees of influence on consumers at each stage of this journey, its the only factor that ranks among the three biggest consumer influencers at every step. Its also the most disruptive factor. Word of mouth can prompt a consumer
12、to consider a brand or product in a way that incremental advertising spending simply cannot. Its also not a one-hit wonder. The right messages resonate and expand within interested networks, affecting brand perceptions, purchase rates, and market share. The rise of online communities and communicati
13、on has dramatically increased the potential for significant and far-reaching momentum effects. In the mobile-phone market, for example, we have observed that the pass-on rates for key positive and negative messages can increase a companys market share by as much as 10 percent or reduce it by 20 perc
14、ent over a two-year period, all other things being equal. This effect alone makes a case for more systematically investigating and managing word of mouth. Understanding word of mouth While word of mouth is undeniably complex and has a multitude of potential origins and motivations, we have identifie
15、d three forms of word of mouth that marketers should understand: experiential, consequential, and intentional. Experiential Experiential word of mouth is the most common and powerful form, typically accounting for 50 to 80 percent of word-of-mouth activity in any given product category. It results f
16、rom a consumers direct experience with a product or service, largely when that experience deviates from whats expected. Consumers rarely complain about or praise a company when they receive what they expect.) Complaints when airlines lose luggage are classic example of experiential word of mouth, wh
17、ich adversely affects brand sentiment and, ultimately, equity, reducing both receptiveness to traditional marketing and the effect of positive word of mouth from other sources. Positive word of mouth, on the other hand,can generate a tailwind for a product or service. Consequential Marketing activit
18、ies also can trigger word of mouth. The most common is what we call consequential word of mouth, which occurs when consumers directly exposed to traditional marketing campaigns pass on messages about them or brands they publicize. The impact of those messages on consumers is often stronger than the
19、direct effect of advertisements, because marketing campaigns that trigger positive word of mouth have comparatively higher campaign reach and influence. Marketers need to consider both the direct and the pass-on effects of word of mouth when determining the message and media mix that maximizes the r
20、eturn on their investments. Intentional A less common form of word of mouth is intentionalfor example, when marketers use celebrity endorsements to trigger positive buzz for product launches. Few companies invest in generating intentional word of mouth, partly because its effects are difficult to me
21、asure and because many marketers are unsure if they can successfully execute intentional word of-mouth campaigns. What marketers need for all three forms of word of mouth is a way to understand and measure its impact and financial ramifications, both good and bad. Word-of-mouth equity A starti
22、ng point has been to count the number of recommendations and dissuasions for a given product. Theres an appealing power and simplicity to this approach, but also a challenge: its difficult for marketers to account for variability in the power of different kinds of word-of-mouth messages. After all,
23、a consumer is significantly more likely to buy a product as a result of a recommendation made by a family member than by a stranger. These two kinds of recommendations constitute a single message, yet the difference in their impact on the receivers behavior is immense. In fact, our research shows th
24、at a high-impact recommendationfrom a trusted friend conveying a relevant message, for exampleis up to 50 times more likely to trigger a purchase than is a low-impact recommendation. To assess the impact of these different kinds of recommendations, we developed a way to calculate what we call word-o
25、f-mouth equity. It represents the average sales impact of a brand message multiplied by the number of word-of-mouth messages. By looking at the impactas well as the volumeof these messages, this metric lets a marketer accurately test their effect on sales and market share for brands, individual camp
26、aigns, and companies as a whole. That impactin other words, the ability of any one word of-mouth recommendation or dissuasion to change behaviorreflects what is said, who says it, and where it is said. It also varies by product category. Whats said is the primary driver of word-of-mouth impact. Acro
27、ss most product categories, we found that the content of a message must address important product or service features if it is to influence consumer decisions. In the mobile-phone category, for example, design is more important than battery life. In skin care, packaging and ingredients create more p
28、owerful word of mouth than do emotional messages about how a product makes people feel. Marketers tend to build campaigns around emotional positioning, yet we found that consumers actually tend to talkand generate buzzabout functional messages. The second critical driver is the identity of the perso
29、n who sends a message: the word-of mouth receiver must trust the sender and believe that he or she really knows the product or service in question. Our research does not identify a homogenous group of consumers who are influential across categories: consumers who know cars might influence car buyers
30、 but not consumers shopping for beauty products. About 8 to 10 percent of consumers are what we call influentials , whose common factor is trust and competence. Influentials typically generate three times more word-of-mouth messages than noninfluentials do, and each message has four times more impac
31、t on a recipients purchasing decision. About 1 percent of these people are digital influentialsmost notably, bloggerswith disproportionate power. Finally, the environment where word of mouth circulates is crucial to the power of messages. Typically, messages passed within tight, trusted networks hav
32、e less reach but greater impact than those circulated through dispersed communitiesin part, because theres usually a high correlation between people whose opinions we trust and the members of networks we most value. Thats why old-fashioned kitchen table recommendations and their online equivalents remain so important. After all, a person with 300 friends on Facebook may happily ignore the advice of 290 of them. Its the small, close-knit network of trusted friends that has the real influence.
