Take a look at what Mark Nagurski had to say about Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing over at Free Form Marketing.

The big reason I wrote the book was to give people the knowledge to quickly take action and get results.  I am glad that is coming through, and it is getting such great reviews.

This book is supposed to sit on every employees desk in a business looking to create buzz.  If you purchase 500 or more copies before 5/1/2007, I will come and do a workshop and strategy session at your location (US and Canada) at no charge.

Contact me for details.

I am on a constant search to get the right packages and products together to help people create a buzz for their product or service and have it fit within their budget.  I just hate to tell people I cannot help them because they do not have a big budget.  Creating buzz does not take a big marketing budget, but having me spend weeks working with you does. That has been the reason for the book, Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing and this blog, where I spend a little bit of time each day giving away my knowledge.

The problem with the book and blog by themselves is motivation and uncertainty.  People can read about it and understand it, but they are intimidated by new technology or they do not have the motivation to keep at it for a while. You need to have someone motivating you to create buzz every day.

So while I feel like a cliche, I have gone and reworked our original coaching program to be effective, accessible and within most businesses budgets.  You can read about it here: buzz coaching program.

The goal of this program is to help a small group of employees become very skilled at creating buzz.  The coaching is part training, part accountability and goal setting with assessments each month.  I will also track the buzz your group is creating on the web and see how it compares to other trends and maybe how it compares to your competition.

Once the Buzz Marketing coach gets the group buzzing, it will be time to take the next step.  The team will be challenges with coaching others in the organization to create buzz.  They will attempt to infect the staff with the same sense of enthusiasm for creating buzz. 

The coaching is sensitive to your limited time.  How to documents are prepared in advance and all coaching sessions last one hour.  The rest of the coaches job is done without taking up staff time so they can get their job done and still have time to improve the visibility of the business.

If you are unsure if this program would increase your sales and marketing, fill out the short buzz marketing coaching request form and I will give you a call to discuss the details. 

Sales leads can be generated with Buzz Marketing only if you are prepared. Buzz Marketing is not going to make people come and get in line to buy your service. It is going to create curiosity that will cause an investigation. If you are trying to generate sales leads with buzz and word of mouth marketing, consider the process a prospect will go through for your particular product or service.

To increase sales leads with buzz marketing:

• Make sure your website has clear, easy to find information about the product or service.
• Make sure it is easy to purchase online or request to request more information.
• Make sure your product or service name is memorable and you are ranked high on search engines when people start investigating.
• Have every staff member know how to handle a call from a sales lead.
• Make the purchase an easy to understand decision with multiple ways to find out about it.
  Acknowledge and reward people that do a referral and generate a sales lead for you.
• Be ready for a sudden increase in sales.
• Don’t let your buzz die. Keep generating a steady stream of buzz and word of mouth. When people hear about something from multiple sources they are more likely to investigate.
• Follow up with your sales leads quickly and multiple times. More than likely the buzz has made your lead curious, but you are not their top priority.

If you take the Buzzoodle approach and keep generating a steady stream of buzz, you will generate more sales leads. Be prepared to educate and handle the leads well, or you may be wasting your time.

- And yes, this is one of those many things I have learned the hard way.

Here are some basic principles that will help you be more successful with buzz challenges. These success secrets are centered around building quality relationships and being generous. Keep these in mind when buzzing and you will be building good will and standing out from the crowd.

• Talk less than half the time. A good listener will always stand out more than someone that dominates a conversation and does not give others a chance to express themselves
• Build a personal network even if you do not need it. You may not be in sales and you may not need to know lots of people, but start behaving like a network is essential to your job and success. A strong network will always pay dividends eventually.
• Don’t be afraid of Link Love. Link to other people’s websites, blogs and other online resources and they will often link back to you.
• Don’t hold back. Connect with people when you have the chance. Say hi and smile more. Don’t wait for someone else to break the ice.
• Give generously. No, don’t give away your money. Give people value by making introductions with people they will benefit knowing. Give people information they will like reading. Give value and knowledge without worrying about how you are going to make money that day.

Buzz depends on people talking to other people. It starts with you. Build good will and great relationships and creating buzz will be a much easier task.

Your Buzz Impact Score is how likely someone you just met is likely to tell someone they know about you. Read each description and rate yourself 1-5. 5 is highest, meaning an exact description of you, and 1 means the description is could not be further from the truth.

_____ My style of dress is unlike anyone else’s I know.
_____ I always Google someone before I meet them and know as much as possible about them.
_____ My conversations are daring. I tell people what I am passionate about and try to find out interesting things about others.
_____ I like to listen to others and laugh out loud often when they say something funny.
_____ People often say I am enthusiastic and full of energy.
_____ I love to network and meet people, even if I have no hope of selling them something.
_____ I enjoy introducing 2 people that I know would like to meet each other.
_____ When I have the chance to meet an influential person, I jump at the chance and introduce myself.
_____ I am not afraid to empathize with people I meet.
_____ Because I have done some adventurous things in the past, I have plenty of interesting stories and knowledge.

—————————————-

Add up the score. If you scored a 40 or higher, you are going to be talked about, but if you are not careful, you may monopolize the conversation and leave the person you met feeling pillaged.

If you scored a 34 to 39, you are well balanced, enthusiastic and fun. People will most likely remember you, even after a few beers.

If you scored a 25 to 33, you have spurts of fun involvement but generally feel more comfortable among the safety of friends. Try meeting new people more frequently and read more about networking blogs.

If you scored below a 25, you definitely need to take more chances and get to know more people beyond your immediate circle. If you are not comfortable with getting to know people in person, the web is a great way to meet people. Just be sure to have lunch with someone new once in a while too.

This Personal Assessment is highly scientific and not to be used for fun or leisure. The fact that it was developed in 15 minutes in bed when I could not come up with a better blog post does not have anything to do with its accuracy or effectiveness as a tool to assess all of your employees and fire the less popular or more flamboyant ones.

How often do you check your website traffic stats?

Surprisingly, many business owners put up their website and forget about it.

I have a friend that put up a website and was doing a television show. Some sponsors recently pulled out and the show was cancelled, and she felt the business was going to go under. Then she and I had a meeting on what was going on with her website.

She was surprised to find that she had nearly 100 people signed up for her eNewsletter, her site will get over 2,000 unique visitors this month, and her website traffic has gone up by over 100% in the last two months.

Armed with this knowledge, she is now reworking her business plan to do podcasts, blogging, video webcasts, ecommerce and more to capitalize on this audience she did not even realize she had.

High traffic is a hidden asset if a company has published some valuable information and does not realize how many people are accessing it.

One way to get your customers to talk about you is to publicly acknowledge them. Include them in things you do publicly, just be sure to ask permission first. Here is a list of things you can use to include customers, and most likely get them to tell their friends about you.

• White Paper
• Testimonial
• Podcast Interview
• Nominate them for an Award
• Find a speaking opportunity for them
• Blog Post
• Link to them on featured client list
• Introduce clients to each other when they have a good fit
• Talk about them and send referrals their way
• Feature them in an enewsletter article or a print newsletter article
• Include in promotional video

There are probably many more ways to do this. If you think of another please add it to the comments.

Today I visited the website of a new Word of Mouth Marketing Agency. I am not going to link to it, because even though the website was well done, I have to question what most of these Buzz Marketing and Word of Mouth Marketing agencies are doing.

To me, most of them seem to focus on internet marketing, blogging and a little bit of research. If this is all your word of mouth marketing agency is doing, hire a good internet marketing agency instead. Otherwise, you are probably just paying for the buzz phrase.

What should a good word of mouth agency provide?

• Strong Market Research
• A plan to develop advocates (ethically)
• Tools specifically designed to measure many forms of word of mouth (not just blogs and internet)
• Experience developing talking points and WOM Units
• Knowledge of a diverse set of channels to get the messages out
• Tools to identify current advocates
• Training for your staff to become stronger advocates

These are the kinds of things Buzzoodle has available to clients that are interested in creating more buzz and word of mouth, especially if they plan to use their employee base as advocates.

Jackie Huba from Church of the Customer had such a good comment in an earlier post, I am pulling it out here to make sure you all notice it.

Ron,
I think employees are a bit more like customers. If we want employees to spread the word that our company is a great place to work, then we have to create a work experience that is worth talking about.All of the six tenets of customer evangelism that we talk about for customers, also works when thinking about employees:

1. Customer plus-delta: Continuously gather employee feedback.
2. Napsterize knowledge: Make it a point to share knowledge freely inside the company.
3. Build the buzz: Expertly build word-of-mouth networks inside the organization
4. Create community: Encourage communities of employees to meet and share.
5. Make bite-size chunks: Devise specialized, smaller offerings of your products that employees can use themselves (and can give to friends, family and peers)
6. Create a cause: Rally employees on making the world, or your industry, better.

Thanks for the insight.

Anyone holding down a job and a family (you remember, those people that are always at your house when you stop by) know the challenge of doing a superior job and still having your spouse and children think you are great.

One buzz technique I believe is very powerful is to make the people you want to connect with seem like a hero in their family’s eyes.

On a small note, I like those kids gifts at trade shows, and my daughter loves to see me go to them.

But what are bigger things you can do that will have an impact on the way someone is perceived by the people that mean the most to them in their life?

If you go down this path, remember that not everyone is married, has kids or ever wants to. Have a way to know and something that will not leave those people feeling neglected.

Here are some quick ideas, but the bigger the better. The more memorable it is the more you will create wom.

1. Send flowers on behalf of client to spouse, when they purchase something. Let them hand write the card.
2. Have an open house that includes people bringing kids and family.
3. Send a basket or gift for special occasions.
4. Send a letter or other acknowledgement to the home praising the person for something they did.
5. Create a club for kids, such as a Junior (Fill in your industry) Club. Invite people to have their kids participate.

These kinds of things are true for your clients, prospects and your employees. Remember if you do something memorable and tie it to your organization, chances are you are going to create a lot of WOM.