The nature and tone of word of mouth, by the numbers:
56: The average number of times an American discusses brands in ordinary conversations every week.
72%: The percentage of brand-related opinions delivered from a person to a family member or personal friend; 13% are delivered to co-workers and 7% are delivered by a professional or expert on the topic. (I suppose that puts us marketing bloggers in the distinct minority.)
41%: Number of conversations about brands that reference an item seen or heard in the media or in marketing material; 15% refer to an ad, 8% refer to a form of editorial or entertainment content, 5% refer to a point of purchase item, and 4% refer to the lowly coupon or other promotion.
62%: Percentage of marketing-related discussions described as "mostly positive."
9%: Percentage of marketing-related discussions described as "mostly negative."
92%: Percentage of word of mouth conversations that occur offline; 71% of those occur face-to-face, and 21% occur by phone.
The numbers are courtesy of a new study (PDF) from the Keller Fay Group.
Previously research by Walter Carl at Northeastern University revealed that 80% of word-of-mouth conversations occur offline, but his sample group was primarily college-age students.
It's pretty clear, though, that the most word of mouth occurs primarily while we're not sitting in front of computer screens.
Source: http://customerevangelists.typepad.com/blog/2006/05/most_word_of_mo.html
About Me
- Jeffrey Summers
- I am the expert you call when you need to learn how to increase top line sales, lower your operating costs, increase your profit margin, hire and train better managers and staff, evolve your operation into more and better ways of doing business, buy or sell a restaurant, improve your service, engineer (or re-engineer!) your menu, market your business better and less expensively, keep yourself from going nuts because you have no life anymore, open more and better restaurants, don't want to have to give up your first born child to pay a consultant and have more fun! My mission is to enhance the quality of life for my clients by providing the best products and services to help them achieve their personal and professional goals. I take great pride in my clients, my company, my commitment to service and the products I sell. I am a recognized expert in the hospitality industry with over 24 years of success at planning and executing strategies for delivering dramatic results, a former "GM of the Year" for 2 major, full-service, franchises, an Award winning Multi-Unit Executive with 2 of the largest restaurant chains in the U.S., published author, husband and father of two.