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Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking [Hardcover]

Andy Sernovitz
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 216 pages
  • Publisher: Kaplan Business; illustrated edition edition (1 Nov 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1419593331
  • ISBN-13: 978-1419593338
  • Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 214,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andy Sernovitz
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Product Description

Synopsis

Who Is Talking About You? Master the art of word of mouth marketing with this fun, practical, hands-on guide. It has a foreword by Seth Godin and Afterword by Guy Kawaski. With straightforward advice and humor, marketing expert Andy Sernovitz will show you how the world's most respected and profitable companies get their best customers for free through the power of word of mouth. You can learn the five essential steps that make word of mouth work and everything you need to get started using them. You can understand the real purpose of blogs, communities, viral email, evangelists, and buzz - when to use them and how simple it is to make them work.You can learn what sparks the irrepressible enthusiasm of Apple and TiVo fans, and understand why everyone is talking about a certain restaurant, car, band, or dry cleaner-and why other businesses and products are ignored. You can discover why some products become huge successes without a penny of promotion - and why some multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns fail to get noticed. Open your eyes to a new way of doing business - that honest marketing makes more money, because customers who trust you will talk about you.

Learn how to be the remarkable company that people want to share with their friends.


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Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars How to get people talking about your company, 18 Oct 2007
By 
Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking (Hardcover)
People love to talk. Now, thanks to the Internet, they also like to post reviews about the products and services they have experienced. This combination of people talking and a new democratic medium has helped create a variation of marketing based on word-of-mouth. Of course, any good business owner recognizes that word-of-mouth, or customer referrals in the old lingo, is a time-tested form of marketing. But the new twist is that, thanks to increased ad costs, more intense competition and smaller budgets, marketers are stretching to develop new tactics. Enter author Andy Sernovitz and the word-of-mouth concept. The author contends that this is a novel idea, but is it really new? Probably not. Most of the ideas are self-evident and Sernovitz tends to repeat them. While we love a new thing, readers instead might see this as an updated look at a known phenomenon: the power of neighbors who talk to each other.
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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Repeat and repeat and repeat....., 29 Nov 2006
By 
J. L. Vergaert "Jean Louis" (Hammersmith, London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking (Hardcover)
OK, world of mouth is the most effective advertising. And in case you didn't get it, it will be explained through 60 pages. Then, finally we go to some practice: refer-a-friend scheme (that's already 2 years ago...), blogs and boards (nothing new), making people talk about yourself... with some few cases of interesting ideas already put in practice. We all know that enthusiasm is not a strategy, and devil lies in details of implementation, which are critically lacking in this book. So if you already have read any other book about word of mouth, you won't learn anything. If, like many Managers, you don't know anything about blogs, forums, communities, and importance of customer service, then you can start reading this book - and to confirm your sudden conversion to this new idea, distribute it to your commercial staff who already knows everything about it.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com: 4.6 out of 5 stars (141 customer reviews)

107 of 109 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Word of Mouth Marketing - An Essential Read!, 17 Nov 2006
By Dana "Dana VanDen Heuvel" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking (Hardcover)
I recently finished Andy Sernovitz's new book, "Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking". Actually, I finished it a while ago, but haven't had time to do a full blog review.

The book is a quick read - 4hrs total, give or take, and it's packed full not only of WOM theory and a bit of history, but also with some concrete ideas from real WOM marketers and a checklist or two to boot. I love checklists!

The really "shocking" thing about this book, is that it's not one of those "wow, wouldn't it be cool if our company could do that" like "Blue Ocean Strategy, but rather, a book about WHAT EVERY BUSINESS SHOULD ALREADY BE DOING WITH THEIR MARKETING. Seriously, let's look, at what the book tells me to do.

You need the Five Ts. Talkers, Topics, Tools, Taking Part and Tracking.

* Talkers: Find people who will talk about you
* Topics: Give people a reason to talk
* Tools: Help the message spread faster and farther
* Taking Part: Join the conversation
* Tracking: Measure and understand what people are saying

Andy has another tidbit that worth the price of the book (or a visit to his site). The Word of Mouth Marketing Manifesto:

1. Happy customers are your best advertising. Make people happy.
2. Marketing is easy: Earn the respect and recommendation of your customers. They will do your marketing for you, for free.
3. Ethics and good service come first.
4. UR the UE: You are the user experience (not what your ads say you are).
5. Negative word of mouth is an opportunity. Listen and learn.
6. People are already talking. Your only option is to join the conversation.
7. Be interesting or be invisible.
8. If it's not worth talking about, it's not worth doing.
9. Make the story of your company a good one.
10. It is more fun to work at a company that people want to talk about.
11. Use the power of word of mouth to make business treat people better.
12. Honest marketing makes more money.



17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A brainstorming guide to becoming remarkable, 21 April 2008
By Lindy Dreyer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking (Hardcover)
This book is exactly what it promises to be...a fun, practical, hands-on guide to the art of word of mouth (WOM) marketing. This book is about getting back to the basics and fueling your desire to build a remarkable organization. The quick summary of what's in the book...

* 3 Reasons People Talk About You
* 4 Rules of Word of Mouth Marketing
* 5 Ts of Word of Mouth Marketing
* 6 Big Ideas: Deep Stuff That Changes Marketing Forever

The first 59 pages of the book give a thorough, yet concise, overview of the concepts of WOM marketing. For me, the really juicy stuff began on page 61--the HOW-TO section. (That's the pragmatist in me.) Page after page, I found myself writing down ideas, usually a spin-off of something Andy's seen or done...which is a considerable amount. Going back through my notes, many of these ideas are things we can do right away along with things we should have always been doing, but somehow got off track. This book is like a brainstorming guide...it helps you focus on the WOM concepts that matter most.

Word of warning...if you're looking for detailed, data-driven analysis of WOM, this is not your book. Most of the negative reviews on Amazon criticized the book for being too "obvious" or "simple." I'd argue that it's the simple and obvious ideas that make this book so powerful, not just for marketing and PR professionals, but for anyone in your organization who interacts with your customers and prospects.

BONUS: One of the 5 Ts of Word of Mouth is TOPIC. People often latch onto the most unexpected topics and we need to have the courage to run with it. Andy uses the example of RedEnvelope. Their unexpected topic? Beautiful gift packaging. I've personally ordered from RedEnvelope...it was a gift for my mom. The first thing I heard from her after she received the gift? "The package was just beautiful! It came in this great red box with a giant bow!" She told all her friends about her "gift in the big red box." Not only did I look like the world's greatest daughter, but RedEnvelope likely got a few new customers.

What's your big red box?

47 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars basic concepts presented as something fresh and radical, 7 Oct 2007
By Ala "Prompter" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking (Hardcover)
I've just gotten into WOM marketing and so I assumed that my knowledge on the subject is limited. After reading this book, however, I came to think that I could be a marketing guru as well. The ideas described in this book could be summarized on three pages and still those pages would not be worth reading! Rules such as: make your message interesting or make it short or make it easy to remember are obvious for all those who are capable to think logically. Others (e.g. Chinese banquet example) are simply ridiculous!
I expected to learn a lot from this book. I learned nothing new. Plus, the book appear to contradict all the rules he lists: it could definitely be shorter and more interesting!
 Go to Amazon.com to see all 141 reviews  4.6 out of 5 stars 
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