Niye WOM?

Niye WOM'la ilgili bir blog açmak istedim? Çok basit; çünkü WOMM'un, yani WOM pazarlamanın yakın gelecekte entegre pazarlama iletişiminde çok önemli bir yer tutacağını düşünüyorum. Öyle ki, bence 2010'da pazarlama planlarında WOM komponenti yoksa bir tuhaflık vardır bile denebilir.

Bunu nereden mi çıkardım? Halihazırda Yeditepe Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü'nde pazarlama doktorasına devam ediyorum, bir ödevimden alıntı yapmak isterim:

"MediaCat, one of the leading marketing periodicals in Turkey, has started a special section dedicated to WOM marketing, starting with the issue of January 2006 (Tavukçuoğlu, 2006).

WOM Marketing
“Word-of-mouth marketing is a term used in the marketing and advertising industry to describe activities that companies undertake to generate personal recommendations as well as referrals for brand names, products and services” (Anonymous, 2006g).

Well-known examples of WOM marketing are performed online (Anonymous, 2006g; Tavukçuoğlu, 2006). It has attracted considerable attention in academia (Grewal et al., 2003; Wangenheim and Bayon, 2004) as well as the business world (Dye, 2000; Reichheld, 2003; Marsden et al., 2005).

The growing attention has led to the foundation of The Word of Mouth Marketing Association in 2004 (WOMMA, 2006a). This organization is hosting its second annual conference in 2006 (WOMMA, 2006b). There are other events, showing the popularity of WOM marketing. For instance, a blogging conference has reached 400 attendees in Washington D. C., USA (Nycz-Conner, 2006).

In the meantime, WOM marketing is also getting attention in Turkey. Blogging, one of the types of WOM marketing (WOMMA, 2006c), is highlighted in the last issue of Bütünleşik Pazarlamada Marketing Türkiye (Ocakoğlu, 2006).

Even though all the above facts about WOM marketing suggest that it certainly has some value, its impact on the bottom-line is not so clear. Although there is evidence to suggest that word of mouth, both positive and negative, is one of the factors that drive business growth (Marsden et al., 2006), it may not be not be the next big thing, it may simply be another tool in the marketing arsenal (Trout, 2006)...

Finally, following research questions are proposed for the reader:
- What are the implications of WOM marketing for different industries? Is it a better tool for consumer goods marketing? Does it have a value for industrial goods marketing?
- What are the theoretical constructs in WOM marketing?
- How can the results of WOM campaigns be monitored? What are the possible metrics?
- How can offline WOM be driven towards a marketing goal?"

References
Anonymous (2006g) “Word of mouth marketing”, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_mouth_marketing, accessed May 13.


Grewal, R., Cline, T. W., and Davies, A. (2003) “Early-Entrant Advantage, Word-of-Mouth Communication, Brand Similarity, and the Consumer Decision-Making Process”, Journal of Consumer Psychology , 13 (3).

Marsden, P., Samson, A. and Upton, N. (2006) “Advocacy Drives Growth: Customer Advocacy Drives UK Business Growth”, Brand Strategy, December.

Nycz-Conner, J. (2006) “Blogging conference draws 400 in D.C.”, Washington Business Journal, May 19.

Ocakoğlu, G. Ö. (2006) “Editörden”, Bütünleşik Pazarlamada Marketing Türkiye, 4 (100), pp. 4.

Tavukçuoglu, R. (2006) “Küçük bütçelerle büyük mucizeler: Word of Mouth”, MediaCat, 14 (132), pp. 62-63.

Trout, J. (2006) “Tales From The Marketing Wars: Is Word Of Mouth All It's Cracked Up To Be?”, Forbes Online, March 7th.

Wangenheim, F. and Bayon, T. (2004) ”The effect of word of mouth on services switching: Measurement and moderating variables”, European Journal of Marketing, September.

WOMMA (2006a) “History of WOMMA”, http://www.womma.org/history.htm, accessed May 24.

WOMMA (2006b) “Word of Mouth Basic Training”, http://womma.org/wombat2/, accessed May 24.

WOMMA (2006c) “Types of Word of Mouth Marketing”, http://www.womma.org/wom101b.htm, accessed May 24.