Word Up - Canada’s Word of Mouth Conference

Word Up - 2007 - October 16th

We’re gearing up for Word Up! 2007 which will take place in downtown Toronto on October 16th.  We also have a new home for the conference information at http://profectio.com/word-up-07/, be sure to check it out now to see how’s coming to speak!

Matchstick serves up wine at Word Up!

Matchstick’s Matthew Stradiotto will be presenting with Joanna Romano, Director of Marketing, Wine Council of Ontario.   In this session, Matthew and Joanna illustrate how the Wine Council of Ontario successfully leveraged the power of Product Seeding to activate VQA Influencers and get their social networks buzzing, on their terms, about some of Ontario’s best wines.

Is there anything more relevant to a wine drinker than the recommendation of a close friend? In a world where consumers are inundated with the din of advertising clutter, open and credible word-of-mouth dialogue is a product’s most credible marketing tool.

What is the state of Word of Mouth Marketing in Canada?

Where is the Canadian data on how marketers use Word of Mouth Marketing? If you can find it, it all seems to be outdated. So we are asking for your help and those who you know in the industry…

Are you a member of the advertising, marketing or public relations industry? Do you use or want to use word of mouth marketing for your own campaigns or your clients?

How can companies take advantage of this marketing practice?

Do these questions interest you?

We are also conducting an industry survey regarding the use of Word of Mouth marketing and seek interested participants to join us in this important study. It is designed to give a better understanding of how professionals across Canada use Word of Mouth Marketing. Results will be shared with those who participate in this short survey.

Our goal is to involve a diverse set of opinions and responses representing professionals from the advertising, marketing and public relations industry.

How to participate: simply click and complete the survey.

Also be sure to register and attend Word Up! - Canada’s Word of Mouth Marketing Conference on November 14th in Toronto, Canada

Word of Mouth Links - 2006-10-06

• Are you training your sales reps on customer service are are you allowing them to give you bad WOM
• Great article from Brandweek which highlights recent results from a Keller Fay Group and BzzAgent study - here’s some great highlights - "Among the most salient finding was that many of the most successful interactions occurred in-store with strangers." + "According to the survey, 39% of BzzAgent’s most active agents (defined as those who conversed with 11 or more people during a campaign) talked to people in stores about products versus 25% for all agents. Other hotspots for the most active agents included work, social gatherings, restaurants/bars, school and during travel."

Tags: wom, word of mouth, wordupcanada, Brandweek, Keller Fay Group, BzzAgent

Word of Mouth Links - 2006-10-03

• Sean Moffitt has produced a great list of The Eight Traits of a Word of Mouth Influencer
• What’s one of the key’s to a success WOM campaign?  Alan Chappell says FULL DISCLOSURE
• Lonelygirl15 didn’t pass the WOM ethics test

Tags: wom, word of mouth, wordupcanada, sean moffit, lonelygirl15

Updated schedule of speakers for Word Up! - November 14th - Toronto, Canada

We are just about complete on the schedule of speakers for the conference, it will be a packed day of quality education.

Tags: wom, word of mouth, womma, conference, wordupcanada

Word of Mouth Links - 2006-10-02

• Terri Whitesel shares some good points on "Why the loyalty to Martha and Oprah?", "What Martha and Oprah have in common is tapping into a woman’s spirit."
• Word of Mouth Marketing - Rally Your Organization! - "People like to know about something that others may not know about, or they want to be in the ‘know’, so they will spread the message to all of their friends via email, or text messaging; the ability to reach a large volume of people with the click of the mouse, or by hitting the send button is amazing."
• Advertising agency Organic shares how movie studies use WOM - Little Miss Sunshine, Word of Mouth and Quality Cinematic Storytelling ,"Word of mouth used to be confined to cities. Now, thanks to e-mail, it crosses continents. It’s revolutionized what word of mouth means."

Tags: wom, word of mouth, wordupcanada, Organic, advertising

Personal passion turns into Word of Mouth

One Saturday night Jerry King (Toronto based business consultant), calls Brian Makse (Founder of Upshift Marketing Group & car enthusiast) saying “you’ve got to head over to William Ashley’s and check out the Lamborghini on tea cups.” A few hours later Brian makes his way over to the William Ashley’s store. He’s greeted by a sales representative who quickly offers a ballot to enter their contest for a 20 piece set of Fine China. Brian pulls out his digital camera and snaps a few pictures of the car (see below). He later shares his thoughts of what did and didn’t work about their contest over on his blog Entertowin.

Results… a few hours later a post appears on Autoblog linking to Brian’s original post, which is part of Jason Calacanis Weblogs network (recently purchased by AOL) giving Entertowin lots of Google juice. Two days later emails start to arrive in Brian’s inbox from companies looking to have Upshift Marketing Group provide the companies contest management services to them. Three days later I hear the pure excitement as Brian screams through the phone sharing this story with me (yes, he was a little excited)

Lessons…

1. Looking to blog? Start with what you are passionate about
2. Don’t be afraid to share your blog or posts with others who share your passion
3. Carry a digital camera, you never know when it will come in handy
4. Word of Mouth works - like we didn’t already know
5. Make sure you use all possible marketing mediums to promote your contest, you never know who will blog about your contest
6. Register for Word Up to learn more about how you can use Word of Mouth Marketing for your business

Tags: word of mouth, wordupcanada, autoblog, Jason Calacanis, Upshift Marketing Group, AOL

Matchstick’s Patrick Thoburn heats up the stage with Buzzing Bloggers

Matchstick Inc.’s Co-Founder Patrick Thoburn will be at Word Up! and will be doing a joint presentation with Profession Andrea Wojnicki.  Their session entitled “How do WOM campaigns evolve?”  Which will look at how Nokia, Matchstick, Rotman, Schulich and HEC (Paris) have collaborated to study the Nokia blogger seeding programme. The objective of the programme was to create word of mouth “buzz” about the Nokia brand and products. The objective of the joint research initiative is to understand the process of what happens in the marketplace when consumers are seeded with products and encouraged to talk and provide feedback. Based on this specific programme, we hope to decipher what the bloggers say, how they say it, and how the online communication evolves over the course of the programme.

In this presentation, you will learn the background details of the programme. You will also hear about some of the rich data in this ongoing study – including stories of bloggers who were seeded with the Nokia 6682 and the steps they took to spread buzz for the product and brand.

We will also discuss how to negotiate ethics, transparency and the power of popular bloggers to achieve impactful impressions online.

Technorati Tags: wordupcanada, wom, word of mouth, Nokia, Matchstick

Word of Mouth Links 2006-08-29

• Proof that you can learn from anything - The John Mark Karr School of Viral Marketing
• Sean Moffit shares 30 tips on The Art of the Word of Mouth Conversation
• Guy Kawasaki’s Book Preview: Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz

Tags: word of mouth, wom