The 12 Buckets of Word of Mouth

Yes, word of mouth can be orchestrated. Look around and you'll see - smart, forward-thinking companies are winning and building brands with orchestrated word of mouth efforts.

In this connected marketplace, lagging traditional companies (you know who you are) are losing like a band-aid being "ripped off very slowly" .  Unethical and shifty companies are losing and the band-aid is being ripped off very fast (and taking some skin off with it).

So if I've got you past the first couple of paragraphs, your next question is likely: "well, what do you mean by orchestrated word of mouth? - I understand the other kind that just kind of happens, what is this form?"

Here is the landscape of word of mouth marketing, 12 different buckets you can use when wanting to tap into your user or customer grapevine (some we like more than others but thought we should include them regardless):

1) Product seeding/intervention - incubating an audience with a unique/exclusive product, service
2) Influencer/ambassador programs- spreading evangelism w/ valuable stakeholders or passionate fans
3) Advisory Panels/Beta Testers- creating select private product and concept tester & advisor groups
4) User-generated content/media- creating  customer forums to get involved & produce for your brands
5) Viral Advertising/marketing - online word of mouth via passalong ads or integrated marketing
6) Advergaming/virtual worlds - creating passalong interest via the use of interactive technology
7) Experiential marketing- offline word of mouth via event-based sensorial experiences with the brand
8) Buzz/guerrilla marketing - creating offline and PR-driven "turn your head and get noticed" theatre
9) Grassroots/cause marketing - generating positive associations through local/charity-based efforts
10) Social media (blogs, podcasts) - authoring or outreaching to participatory media
11) Social networks - creating or outreaching to formal connected public and private online communities
12) Brand communities -developing "Insider tribes" of users w/ online & offline channels of involvement

Special dispensation for a 13th type:
Affiliate programs - creating a mutually beneficial program that rewards members through a per sale/per action basis  (can be done ethically but does involve financial rewards leading to potential weakening of authentic word of mouth)

The bad stuff (we do include in the word of mouth umbrella nor do we think you should practice these)
Shill or roach-bait marketing - hiring paid actors to pose as grassroots word of mouth marketers (lack of authenticity)
Astroturf marketing - creating the appearance of grassroots organizations funded and organized by (lack of transparency)
Multi-level marketing   - oftentimes referred to as pyramid schemes (although they by definition different things) - similar to an affiliate programs with multiple tiers, relationship with brand is almost always linked to sales transactions and commissions are disproportionately earned by first or top members of the pyramid (lack of authenticity and oftentimes transparency)

I'll state it in plain terms - with:
- 67% of all consumer purchase decisions being made by word of mouth
- 93% of consumers claiming word of mouth is among their most trusted sources of info and
- positive word of mouth about brands exceeding negative word of mouth by a healthy 6-to-1 ratio
- a word of mouth key influencer having 184 conversations each week,

...as a marketer of communicator, you're mildly insane, quickly tilting to irrelevancy if you're not spending at least 20% of your brand budgets on some of the word of mouth advocacy-driven tactics mentioned above. The more relevant question should be "which word of mouth bucket should I be spending in?"