ChatThreads ChatterBox

WOMMA Summit Presentation Slides Posted!

Just got back from another great WOMMA Summit in Las Vegas. Presentation slides are now posted on our website:

Slides for WOMMA State of WOM Research Address
Slides for Socializing WOM Research throughout the Organization with Bing

Listening 2.0: Social CRM and the Future of Social Listening

Be sure to check out what promises to be a thoughtful and informative webinar on social CRM and the future of social listening. I'm honored to be one of the panelists and will be sharing some exciting new developments for measuring online and offline WOM and social media which you won't want to miss! Details below. (If you're not a WOMMA member but want to participate shoot me an email at chatterbox AT chatthreadscorp DOT com)

March 18 - Listening 2.0: Social CRM and the Future of Social Listening

Presenter: Rob Key, CEO, Converseon

Panelists include:

-Dr. Walter Carl, Founder and Chief Research Officer,  ChatThreads

-Jeff Zabin: CEO, Gleanster

-Pauline Ores, Market Insights, Principal Consultant Social Insights Practice, IBM Corporation

Date: Thursday, March 18, 2010
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM CST
Who: For Everyone
Register Here: http://bit.ly/Mar18Webinar
Full details here: http://bit.ly/March18Info

WOMMA State of WOM Measurement Presentation 2009

Did Walter send you here? If so, I'd love to hear comments about my presentation...

Today I will be giving the Annual State of Word of Mouth Measurement presentation [links to SlideShare] at WOMMA's 2009 Summit. This is my fourth year giving this presentation and I'm honored to have the chance to do so again. 

There are a few links I will reference in my presentation and I've invited audience members to visit this post so they can link through:

WOMMA Metrics Best Practices Guidebook

Olivier Blanchard's Presentation on Definitive Social Media ROI

The Impact of Marketing-Induced Versus Word-of-Mouth Customer Acquisition on Customer Equity Growth

White Paper on Building Customer Networks for Successful Word of Mouth Marketing

Google Trend Chart for "Social Media" and "WOM"

Combining Empirical Data With Simulations

Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Visit ChatThreads to learn more!

Free access to Admap article: "Is Talking Getting You Anywhere? Measuring WOM Marketing"

Here's a PDF of my Admap article (Admap allows us to post it free for 30 days so read it now, or get your subscription to Admap). Be sure to check out other Admap articles devoted to WOM as well.

It was strange for me to give up editorial control over the final content of the article. Overall, though, the editors did a great job making my verbose language choices more concise and incorporating images and tables to bring the content alive. Just a couple comments to clarify some of the content:

- Figure 3 on p. 19: There should be a dollar sign not a pound sign by Net Conversation Value. (While we do work in the UK, this Conversation Value Model analysis was done for a U.S. client. Must have been a typo missed in the final editorial process).

- The blurb by the photo on p. 17: "Research by ChatThreads found that 50% of influencers' conversations were face-to-face, while 35% took place online." Be sure to read the full text in the body since we measured this for a new technology product launch where a company engaged influential bloggers. Other programs we measure, such as for CPG products, typically have 80%-90% of WOM that takes place offline. (Also, the article states that ChatThreads is the WOM marketing agency, while that text should refer to Matchstick).

WOMMA Webinar: Measuring the Value of WOM, Come Rain or Come Shine

What are you doing at noon EST on Thursday, April 9th?

You should be calling in to the free webinar I am doing (courtesy of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association) on how to measure the value of consumer conversations. It's free whether you are a WOMMA member or not. Here's the official blurb:

Whether the days are cloudy or sunny, or your brand is in or out of the money, measuring the value of word of mouth (WOM) has become a strategic imperative. This webinar will guide participants through five ways that consumer conversations impact a brand’s bottom line and offers specific tips and techniques to assess the value of WOM to your brand.

Hope to see you on the call! Register Here

Admap series of articles on WOM Marketing

Be sure to check out the current issue (April 2009) of Admap which has a series of articles on word of mouth. Articles include:

Where is talking getting you? Measuring WOM
Comparing new models for measuring word-of-mouth ROI, such as Conversation Value, Momentum Effect and Net Promoter Economics. 
Dr Walter Carl, ChatThreads

Influencers are essential in driving WOM
As demand for word-of-mouth marketing has grown, so has the need for insight into how influencers stimulate demand. 
Ed Keller and Brad Fay, Keller Fay Group

Empower consumers to shape the brand
Getting word-of-mouth right is not about telling people what to think, and may require a change in corporate culture. 
Ivan Palmer, Wildfire

Paying lip service is not enough
Word-of-mouth needs to be integrated into the whole brand development process, not tacked on as an afterthought. 
Geoff Gray, Naked Communications

Tap into passions of brand advocates
To ensure productive and long-term conversations with consumers, a brand must first identify its discursive matrix. 
Molly Flatt, 1000heads

State of Word of Mouth Research & Measurement 2008

Earlier this morning I presented the State of Word of Mouth Research and Measurement at WOMMA's annual Research Symposium. You can see it here.

Mapping the Social Networks of a Small Town

There's a fascinating article in the New York Times about how Unilver is attempting to map the spread of conversations about their Vaseline lotion, Clinical Therapy, in an Alaskan town.

 

Through mapping the conversations Unilever was able to identify a network hub, Petal Ruch, who was apparently the most well-connected town resident. Unilever's advertising  agency and production company then built a marketing campaign around her story.

 

The network map is supposed to make its way onto a branded website called Prescribe the Nation.

 

Given our research on mapping the conversational geography of word of mouth and we're especially interested in this endeavor and will watch with interest how this develops.

Cross-posted from Word-of-Mouth Communication Study

"Is Talk Cheap? How Cheap?": Conversation Value and Conversation Cost

I was excited to see an article in Brandweek about the value of a conversation titled "Is Talk Cheap? How Cheap?". The article is about how the WOM industry is making efforts towards a standardized ROI metric, or at least a set of standardized metrics.

There are some really important points in this article, and to fully appreciate it I think it's valuable to understand the distinction between the *cost* of a conversation and the *value* of a conversation.

First, some key points from the article:

- putting a value on a WOM conversation is indeed a hot topic and definitely worthy of coverage
-  the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, of which ChatThreads is a member, is helping to shape the discussion on this important topic
- when determining how to attribute purchases to a particular initiative it can be challenging, though not impossible, to isolate the effect of WOM especially in light of other influences going on in the market
- there are companies actively working in this space to help define the value of a conversation (by the way, here are links to papers by three of the companies mentioned in this article who have written on this topic: ChatThreads, Satmetrix, and BzzAgent's series of papers and stay tuned for more in the upcoming Measuring Word of Mouth research book by WOMMA).

Second, to appreciate this topic it's important to distinguish between conversation cost and conversation value. Here's the scoop:

One way to calculate the *cost* of a conversation is to divide the amount invested in a marketing initiative by the number of conversations that can be attributed to that marketing initiative (this is the formula that BzzAgent was cited as using in the article and how they arrived at a figure of $0.50 per conversation).

A different formula is required to calculate the *value* of a conversation. At ChatThreads we use the Conversation Value(TM) model which incorporates the conversational reach of a marketing initiative, reported purchase behaviors, and a number of other factors related to customer lifetime value (see the white paper for details). The outcome of this analysis is a single number, like $0.51 per conversation, which means that each time a conversation occurred about a particular brand that can be attributed to a marketing initiative, the bottom-line value to the brand was $0.51 (if the number is negative then the program failed to deliver a positive ROI). Based on our internal analysis we have found that this number can vary widely across product and industry categories, as one might expect.

In the Brandweek article, the figure that is attributed to BzzAgent refers to the average cost of a conversation. The figure that is attributed to ChatThreads refers to the value of a conversation (for a particular lower-involvement CPG product).

To summarize then, the cost of a conversation refers to the resources the company invested to generate those conversations (whether it be media spend, investments to improve the product or customer service, etc.). The cost of a conversation is established by the market, and can be used to set the rate for media spend, for example. The value of a conversation is the bottom-line impact to a brand of a WOM conversation. It is established by research and can be used to measure the effectiveness of particular marketing initiatives and for ongoing tracking of a company's performance.

This is an exciting time for WOM research and I'm appreciative that Brandweek chose to cover this important topic. Stay tuned for more research throughout the upcoming year!

(By the way, if you are a researcher who has something to add to this topic please consider contributing to the special section on Value of a Conversation for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's research book, Measuring Word of Mouth, Volume 4.)

WOM with a seat at the table

I was at the ARF Audience MEasurement 3.0 conference this past week. There were a couple developments in particular worth commenting on.

The final keynote session of the conference, titled "Global Views and Rapid Fire Measurement Updates", featured short updates from the measurement of seven media: word of mouth, radio, gaming, print, internet, outdoor and mobile. (Not sure why TV wasn't mentioned here, perhaps because TV was already represented well in the rest of the conference). But the important point is to see WOM included as media to be measured.

Jim Kite from MediaVest was presenting the update on WOM and mentioned some industry leaders in the online and offline WOM measurement space.

One of his main points was how WOM measurement needs to go beyond "just" measuring the volume of WOM and its sentiment, but also making clear linkages to ROI and measuring what the value is of a WOM conversation.

This is clearly an imperative and something that we are working on with our Conversation Value Model (per earlier posts). It's also an initiative that the Word of Mouth Marketing Association is taking up as part of the agenda for the Research and Metrics Council.

Finally, at the end of the conference the ARF announced it is making one of its imperatives to better understand the impact of listening to consumer conversations.

These are both interesting developments to watch as WOM takes it seat at the table.

PS - This is my first post using TypePad's mobile app for Palm OS 5. I haven't figured out how to add links yet using this app.