twopointouch

Opening the WoM Communications conference, Steve Barton of Keevil Barton Kershaw talked about the reasons word of mouth matters more than ever. He cited research that states we receive over 3000 messages a day about products and services (source unknown, but I can believe it. Here is some info). We’re not able to process that amount of input, of course, so when we need to make decisions about what to get, we turn to friends.

Some 78% of people turn to their friends as a basis for decision-making; as opposed to 38% of people saying that they turned to advertising. [Very different from the 14% figure for advertising from my previous post, which tells you something about trusting research stats. However, both show the declining role of advertising.]

Taking into account other forms of word of mouth, 92% of people use it as a basis for decision-making. This has risen from the 67% found in a similar study conducted in 1997. As the amount of ‘noise’ increases, the more important the information our friends can give us becomes.

Where does this word of mouth take place? According to research from the Keller Fay group, the outlook looks bleak for web evangelists.

Face-to-face communication accounts for 71% of word of mouth recommendations and criticisms. 21% takes place over the phone; 3% comes from mainstream media editorial; 2% comes from instant messaging. Just 1% of word of mouth advice comes from informal web sites like blogs. (but read on…)

Among younger audiences, there’s less need for face-to-face which sinks to 61% while instant messaging rises to a 10% influence. I take instant messaging to mean SMS messages from mobile phones in most cases.

These initial figures might make it sound as though we should all pack in our blogs and take to the streets if we want to have any influence. Brands would seem to be chasing a chimera if they think starting blogs will help them. However, Steve’s later presentation on how people choose financial services sheds a ray of hope.

Generally speaking, you can divide people into broadcasters and followers when it comes to financial services. Most of us are followers. Thinking about which mortgage to buy, insurance policies and the like is a massive headache. We want to get the choice out of the way as quickly as possible. We’re panicky and frightened by the choices and worry that we’ve made the wrong decision. We’re not likely to recommend things explicitly, because we suspect we’re probably wrong. What we really want is someone to tell us the right decisions to make.

Broadcasters are the experts. They’ve researched the subject and are keen to share their expertise. They trust the word of mouth of their peers, though. Broadcasters tend to look for information that no-one else knows – the inside track. They probably won’t talk about the information that appears on a company’s adverts – because everyone knows that – they want the specialised information that reaffirms their position as expert. Other broadcasters are seen as trusted suppliers of that knowledge.

This makes the information spread by broadcasters subversive. They won’t talk about brands’ mainstream messages, that there’s 0% interest on this credit card like the advertisement says. Because of this behaviour, lesser-known facts are more likely to travel.

And because they want specialised knowledge, broadcasters are more likely to pass along information gleaned from privately consumed media. They won’t talk about information they saw on a TV program, but they will talk about information from the Internet.

That information means that the 1% figure for blog influence I gave at the beginning of this post is slightly misleading. Maybe only 1% of the population will use blogs as a decision-making tool, but they are exactly the sort of people who will want to spread the information they learn to the other 99%. That 99% being sort of people who are desperate for guidance from experts.

Translating this research into web policy, brands should be aware that it isn’t the mainstream that’s likely to read their blog. It’s the informed enthusiast influencer. They are looking for the stuff they can’t learn from mainstream media, the information that gives them an edge over their uninformed neighbour. This means hints and tips, detailed technical information and links to other resources are useful to the sort of person who makes it to your blog or website. What they certainly don’t want is the same information that’s in your brochure and adverts.