I am sad I did not make this list, but here is a very good list of other Word of Mouth Marketing Blogs.  All the obvious ones are there – and some I am rediscovering.

Thanks Buzz Canuck

Have you ever had someone recommend something to you via email?  Sometimes it is interesting, but not something you need right that minute.

 With all the good news about the power of Word of Mouth, one thing that I think has not previously gotten attention is the ability to archive Word of Mouth for future use.  I do this all the time.  I often remember who sent me an email that I knew would be useful one day, and I simply go back and search for it.

But there are many ways to store Word of Mouth referrals for future use.  Here are the ones I can unintentionally use.

• Email Archives
• Bookmarks
• Blog Posts – If I think I want to share it.
• iGoogle Link
• Tumblr
• To Do list in Microsoft Outlook
• Forward email to my wife and expect her to remember for me.
• Future to do item in my Treo
• White Board behind my desk
• Slips of paper I scatter about and review when I clean
• Pass on the word of mouth and then later go back and ask that person if they remember what I told them.

And there are some that I do not do, but others do.

• Extreme Note Taking - I want to buy some notebooks and give this a try.  I used to write in journals daily but the computer killed that habit.

It is worth considering these things.  We can measure inbound links, sales, inquiries, etc.  But how many times has your product been archived for future use?

I had the pleasure of seeing Jeffrey Hayzlett speak a few months ago.  It was especially impressive to me because Employee Evangelism is something I usually have to dig for, and here was a CMO talking about how Employee Ambassadors are a huge part of their growth.

I got the chance to ask Jeffery some questions about how it works for Kodak and how they implement it.  Be sure to check out the link to their Print Ambassador program.

1) Question:  Kodak has gone through some major changes in the past few years. How has your employee-base changed?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Kodak has gone through an historic transformation from a vertically integrated manufacturer to a diverse supplier of digital and conventional solutions. That transformation was successful due to the enormous talent of the Kodak employees. Now a horizontally lean company, the Kodak employee remains one of the company’s greatest resources…that has not changed.

2) Question: With so many newer employees, has it been easier to encourage Employee Ambassadors?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: I’m proud that two of Kodak’s strongest assets are our people and our brand. Employees have long been ambassadors of the brand. In fact even after retirement, former employees continue to support and tout Kodak solutions. While there have been many change in the past few years, I think one of constants has been both the employees and the public’s desire to see Kodak succeed in its transformation. That support was one of the factors in the success of the transformation to a new Kodak.

3) Question: Can you give me one or two examples of non-sales staff that have been successful ambassadors? What impact did they have on the organization?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: We have recently implemented a program called FAST here at Kodak. FAST is set of operational guidelines designed to drive sustainable, profitable growth.

FAST stands for Focus, Accountability, Simplicity and Trust.

In short, the FAST behaviors require us to treat everyone — internal and external — as a customer.

If we treat everyone as a customer — by delivering as promised and making no excuses — the company prospers.

Another initiative is our new BOOYAH Recognition Certificate. It’s a fresh way to recognize individuals at Kodak for exceptional on-the-job performance, dedication, and commitment. Too often we forget to recognize and thank an individual’s contributions – this certificate provides the opportunity to signal our appreciation in a very visible, upbeat way.

The term “booyah” is a spontaneous expression of passion and joy, usually brought on by victory, success, or some other significant accomplishment. For us, it represents the acknowledgement of a job well done – a great idea, an outstanding attitude, or an obvious effort above and beyond the call of duty.

4) Question: How do your encourage active ambassadorship? Is it required or optional?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: I believe Gandhi said it best. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” People tend to model the behavior of those around them. As the Kodak leadership team models the behavior of an ambassador, it fosters that behavior in the Kodak community. Conversely, the leadership team learns from employee ambassadors as well. It is vitally important to the company as it keeps all levels of the organization in true communication.

5) Question: Overall, how has this program of actively cultivating a culture of employee ambassadors helped Kodak?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: The Kodak brand continues to grow stronger, both internally and externally as our employees hold themselves personally accountable for achieving the corporate goals. My overall observation is we have happier employees. As we continue to develop an environment that fosters a personal sense of ownership and commitment, we build company based on pride. The result is a company with a brand that each employee can call their own, a company of employee ambassadors.

Who is Jeffrey Hayzlett?

Chief Business Development Officer and Vice President,

Eastman Kodak Company

Jeffrey Hayzlett serves as Chief Business Officer and Vice President, Eastman Kodak Company. He has responsibility for Corporate and Product Public Relations, Communications and Public Affairs, Brand Management, Corporate Sponsorships, Market Development and Corporate Relationships and Partnerships. Mr. Hayzlett reports to both the CEO and COO of the company.

Mr. Hayzlett joined Eastman Kodak Company in April 2006 as Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President, Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group (GCG), leading all marketing activities for GCG. Mr. Hayzlett has nearly 25 years of international marketing, sales and customer relations management experience.

Mr. Hayzlett is currently a member of the board of directors of the Business Marketing Association (BMA), the Electronic Document Systems Foundation (EDSF) and is on the advisory board of the CMO Council. He is chairman of the Sales and Marketing Executives International (SMEI) Foundation for Marketing Education, and is a permanent trustee to the SMEI Academy of Achievement Hall of Fame. He is also a two term past chairman of SMEI. Mr. Hayzlett remains a trustee of Pi Sigma Epsilon National Education Foundation.

Mr. Hayzlett has received numerous honors and awards, including the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from Frost & Sullivan, a global business research and consulting firm. He was recently named one of BtoB Magazine’s Best Marketers of 2007. He was awarded the International Business Person of the Year Award by the International Printers’ Network (IPN), received The British Association for Print and Communication (BAPC) Honorary Life Member award in 2004, and the National Association of Quick Printing (NAQP) Industry Award of Distinction in 1997.

Mr. Hayzlett speaks frequently around the world on graphic communications and marketing, including presentations in 2007 at the Canadian Marketing Association’s National Convention and Trade Show, “THE Conference on Marketing,” the Direct Marketing Association Leadership Forum, Print Oasis, and the National Postal Forum.

To find out more about Kodak, visit www.Kodak.com and don’t forget to check out that Print Ambassador program to see some examples of Ambassadorship in action.

The Ear:  This is part 5 of a 13 part series on anatomy of your online presence.

It used to be that when you left the room and people started talking about you, you would never find out – unless someone else told you about it. Idle chatter was not documented and archived for your convenient review later on.

That has changed.  People are talking about you, and as you build a more robust online presence, they will talk about you event more.  Your ear is your ability to hear what is being said.

There are two types of communication to pay attention to. 

1) Messages directed at you
2) Messages about you but not intended for you

Direct Messages

Direct messages may seem obvious, but this is a big issue for many people.  Surf around a few blogs and look for basic contact information.  It is sometimes hard to find, and many times non-existent.  You must make it as easy to contact you as possible, and ideally through a variety of means.

Do you have an email clearly listed?  Your full name?  Your phone number?

If you are worried about SPAM, set up a free email account at one of the big search engines.  They do a good job of filtering out SPAM and that way you do not junk up your main email address.  Plus, if you change jobs later, your alternative email goes with you.

Other ways you can let people communicate with you:

• Skype
• Comments on your website/blog
• Forms for specific requests
• Mailing Address
• Instant Messaging

I do not use all of these, because they can interrupt your day if you get contacted all the time.  However, if you are using them already, why not publicize the additional ways people can reach you?

Indirect Chatter

Now it is time to open the can of worms.  What are people saying about you, but not to you?

It is an incredibly good thing if there is a lot of positive chatter online about you.  This means you are being noticed and being talked about.  This is one of the ways marketing experts measure word of mouth, which is an important factor in your success.

Here is a list of tools that will help you see what is being said.

Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts – This great tool will email you a list of new things said about you each day.  You can monitor your name, your company name, products and general industry terms you care about.  The more specific and unique your name, the more effective this is at sending you only relevant stuff.

Google Advanced Search – Did you know you can use the advanced search features of Google and see only new pages where your keyword appears?  Click here to see new talk about Buzzoodle in the last week.

To do that, you just go to www.Google.com, choose advanced search and set the date range.

Technorati and Google Blog Search – Both of these sites are excellent for just looking at blogs, which is where you are going to find a lot more idle chatter about you.

• http://www.technorati.com
• http://blogsearch.google.com/

Reporting – Another way I frequently find out people have linked to me is keeping an ear on my stats package.  Whatever good traffic tracking you are using will have a referring site report, and if someone links to you, it will show up in your stats the first time someone clicks one of those links.

Keeping your ears open will help you hear what people are saying, where they are saying it and who is saying it.  With this information you can fan the flame of positive discussion, address the issues around negative comments and feel good about the progress your online presences is making.

Read the rest of 13 part series on anatomy of your online presence.

[tags]Buzz Marketing, Internet Marketing, Branding [/tags]

I have an intimate email list.  It is entirely separate from my main email list and it is called FoR: Friends of Ron.  Please click on that link and go see what it says.  Don’t sign up – unless you REALLY want to after reading that.

You see, that list is my friends list.  I write that email periodically just like I would write to a good friend.  I send links people might be interested in, I let them know about events, and I may just tell them how my latest trip was.

While we all want to cultivate new clients, consider how much stronger your “friends” would be at telling people about you if they simply heard from you a little more regularly.

Here are your 7 reasons to have a friends list.

• Over 200% open rate – Everyone reads these emails multiple times
• Over 30% clicks – they spend time with the email and check out the resources
• Easy to write – If you want to be my friend, you have to be forgiving.  I write these emails quickly like a personal email.
• A “Go to” resource – I do not think twice about asking this list for a favor.  They are my friends.
• 50% of the list wants to be your friend.  -  I only know about 50% of the people that sign up.  The other group, I assume, would like to get to know me.
• Replies directly to me – People always reply to these emails as if I’d sent the message to them personally. “I am sorry I can’t make it….” type thing.
• Word of Mouth – The fresher you stay in the minds of people that know you, the more word of mouth you will create.  Plus, these people want to hear about what is new with you, so you can send them stories and updates.

This list is too new for me to know the impact it will have on the business, but I do know it is strengthening relationships and I enjoy the connections.

I just got back from speaking to the Business of Design group in Las Vegas at the Wynn.

I was talking to some locals – they had thier kids with them -  and we were talking about what kids can do in Vegas.  They did have some suggestions, but they also said that the city tried to rebrand itself a few years ago for families and failed.

That is how strong Buzz is.  Once you have Word of Mouth and buzz for something – it is hard to change.  A marketing campaign is certainly not going to change the powerful buzz around what people have experienced.

When I went into business 8 years ago, I was primarily working in technology.  We developed a great reputation for technology.  We were cost effective (cheap) and good.  Eventually we grew via word of mouth very effectively.  So effectively that we had hire and grow the company, even though we never planned to have a Custom IT service.  It wasn’t until I really thought long and hard about who we wanted to be that I realized I’d built great buzz and word of mouth for something I did not want to do.  Cutting it was a hard decision, but essential for me to grow the business intentionally.

This is the danger of word of mouth.  Once you develop it, it is hard to change.  Think about your real goals and focus your efforts on those.  It is not going to be easy to become family friendly vegas later on.

Sneezers are people who say something and other people react to it.  There was a time when marketing experts projected that 90% of the population did what 10% told them too.  More refined research later on revealed that many more people have a center of influence, even if they are not widely listened to.

For example, I call my dad for car or computer hardware information.  So do about 30 other people.  However, he is not extremely social or influential to a wide audience.

The unfortunate thing about this from a marketers perspective is that you cannot just focus on 10% of the population and expect them to tip the scales and tell the other 90%.  You have to create remarkable products and services that people will talk about, and you have to get a critical mass aware of the product or it will never be discovered.

So yesterday I bought an HP Photosmart R937 digital camera.  Just a mid-range camera that I could use every day.  It is worth talking about because someone else completely influenced me to not only buy it, but to run out and buy it within an hour of talking to them.

Steve and I were talking weeks ago about how I keep putting off buying a decent new digital camera.  He owns very high end photography equipment and reads all the magazines, so I knew that he keeps up to date on what is good. 

Yesterday morning he called (not about the camera) and he started telling me he bought the HP camera for his wife and it really impressed him.  He knew the price, the model number and told me about the features, which memory card to buy and how much it was on sale for, and where to buy it.  He also told me they were selling really fast and to call first because they were probably out.  (Good job by the sales people to create the aura of scarcity.)

Well, I’d been putting off buying one because I knew I needed to research digital cameras first, but I kept putting off researching them.  So within an hour I called, had one held at the store and ran out and purchased it.  It is a nice camera but I do not know if I got the best deal or not, I just took his word for it.

This phenomenan is common with electronics, books, cars, music and some other products.  How can you make it happen for your business or product?  Do other people really get excited about working with you?

I just presented at the Solar Energy Conference yesterday and I was very impressed. Not everyone there used online tools to create buzz, but they did understand advocacy. One presentation I saw talked about how they had developed vocational programs in their state for repair and installation of renewable energy sources. These programs were being taught in the schools.

I tend to spend a lot of time focusing on the quick things you can do to create buzz, but if you have a long term outlook and understand that an audience that is educated about your product will be a better consumer, you can build a long term buzz generator like this.  I found it inspiring.

They also showed great programs where they built great relationships with customers and created a strong sense of pride among the solar power users.  Word of mouth from those people helped then grow at a very impressive rate.

Thanks to RELI for including me in their Buzz Marketing for Solar Power presentation.

If there is one apparent flaw in the Buzzoodle marketing strategy, it is the seeming lack of focus.  Buzzoodle’s approach to creating a buzz seems like a shot gun fired in the dark when you first look at it.

If every person in an organization starts buzzing a few minutes per day in their own way, how does that help you reach your target audience?

This of course depends on the business and the product.  If you are a local restaurant and all the employees start telling more local people about it, there is a huge upside right away.  It is a no-brainer.

If you are not sure if this approach will help you, ask yourself some of these questions.

• Would I benefit from stronger brand awareness? – Word of mouth will add strength to a brand.
• Would I benefit from employees becoming more involved in representing the company? – This could lead to some people being experts in their field or feeling a stronger sense of pride and ownership in the organization.
• Is there any possibility of discovering an untapped market?  – Getting your message out to new people in new ways may help you discover a whole marketplace you did not know existed.
• Would people be more likely to make a purchase from us if they heard about us from several sources? – The likelihood of a purchase being made goes up each time someone hears about you from a new credible source. 
• Would we benefit from more website traffic? – If your website generates leads for you, it can probably generate a lot more by getting employees involved in the buzz.

Many word of mouth marketing consultants talk about the death of advertising and other such nonsense.  If something is working for you, don’t listen to them.  Instead, continue with your current successful efforts and add word of mouth and online buzz to the mix.  They will play well with each other.

I got an email from Aaron Joslow, Editor of RainToday.com (http://www.raintoday.com), an online content site focused on marketing and selling for professional services.

Here is what he wrote:

We recently surveyed over 700 professional services firms and asked them, among other things, what has worked to generate leads for them in the past, what has not worked, and what they are planning on doing to generate leads in the future.

We released the results and analysis in the report, The “Future of Lead Generation” Benchmark Report (http://www.raintoday.com/leadgenreport.cfm). Some results I thought you might find of particular interest include: