Note: This article is the second of six-part series introducing the concept of Word of Mouth Marketing. Read Part 1

PART 2
What are the types of Word of Mouth Marketing?

Word of Mouth Marketing encompasses dozens of marketing techniques that are geared toward encouraging and helping people to talk to each other about products and services. The most common types of Word of Mouth Marketing are:

Buzz Marketing
Using high-profile entertainment or news to get people to talk about your brand.

Viral Marketing
Creating entertaining or informative messages that are designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion, often electronically or by email.

Community Marketing
Forming or supporting niche communities that are likely to share interests about the brand (such as user groups, fan clubs, and discussion forums); providing tools, content, and information to support those communities.

Grassroots Marketing
Organizing and motivating volunteers to engage in personal or local outreach.

Evangelist Marketing
Cultivating evangelists, advocates, or volunteers who are encouraged to take a leadership role in actively spreading the word on your behalf.

Product Seeding
Placing the right product into the right hands at the right time, providing information or samples to influential individuals.

Influencer Marketing
Identifying key communities and opinion leaders who are likely to talk about products and have the ability to influence the opinions of others.

Cause Marketing
Supporting social causes to earn respect and support from people who feel strongly about the cause.

Conversation Creation
Interesting or fun advertising, emails, catch phrases, entertainment, or promotions designed to start word of mouth activity.

Brand Blogging
Creating blogs and participating in the blogosphere, in the spirit of open, transparent communications; sharing information of value that the blog community may talk about.

Referral Programs
Creating tools that enable satisfied customers to refer their friends.

Coming up: Part 3: The philosophy behind successful Word of Mouth Marketing.

About WOMMA
WOMMA is the official trade association for the word of mouth marketing industry. Its members are building a prosperous word of mouth (WOM) marketing profession. Thriving markets are built on best practices, effective standards and ethical leadership. Those are the qualities that bring WOMMA members together.

© 2008 Word of Mouth Marketing Association. All rights reserved. Coles Marketing Communications, a full-service public relations, marketing, creative and Word of Mouth agency in Indianapolis, is specially trained in Word of Mouth Marketing by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.