Insights Into Word Of Mouth
We’ve talked about word-of-mouth (WOM) as the top driver of today’s consumer decisions.
Here’s a report from Online Media Daily on an interesting Yahoo study that has attempted to drill into WOM behavior. It notes that 76% of all WOM still occurs face-to-face … however, increasingly it just might be that two individuals are sitting side-by-side talking about something they are viewing on their respective smartphones! The study says that 38% of all WOM conversations, however they occur, are informed by internet-derived content.
No one’s really examined WOM specifically as it works in the nonprofit space, but there’s no reason to expect the underlying principles would differ. In our own DonorTrends surveys, we’ve seen that 15-20% of donors self-identify themselves as individuals who have recommended a specific charity or cause group to someone else. [See our Donor Superstars white paper.]
The viral videos we talked about last week are just one example of the ways nonprofit messages get passed along. The Environmental Defense Fund video we mentioned has gone from zero to 220,000+ views in less than one week.
Interesting exercise … for a week, keep a count of how many items show up in your email or social net pages (not related to your job) that you yourself pass along. What proportion are these pass-alongs to what came through your door? And is there any common denominator to those you forwarded? Can you use that insight to produce more compelling (i.e. WOM-worthy) messages for your organization?
Tom
P.S. Here’s a Harris survey on the same subject.
Behavioral Science Q & A
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