By Kathy at Omni
Word of mouth marketing can be defined as any unpaid form of promotion in which satisfied customers tell other people, in either verbal or written form, how much they like a business, product or service. For word of mouth marketing to be successful, the satisfied customer needs to be perceived as honest and having no ulterior motives associated with the recommendation. A recent example of effective word of mouth marketing is the publication of Charlie Stratton’s October 6, 2008 letter to the editor in the State Journal Register. His creative and compelling letter in recommendation of Darn Hot Pepper’s Habanero Honey Spread immediately caught my attention and deserves to be published once again here:
Habanero Honey Spread is work of art
Once every couple millennia, a human endeavor achieves such universal acclaim it is “owned by the ages.” A triumph of such monumental importance, its very existence allows us to gain increased insight into the human condition, to peer into our collective soul and to help us achieve a greater existential understanding. Such feats of human greatness might include the pyramids of Egypt and of Chichen Itza, the Great Wall of China, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the collected works of Shakespeare and others.
Add to the list: Gerardo Jerry Jimeneza’s Habanero Honey Spread, which he sells at our local farmers market every Saturday. Jimenez’s chosen medium is not clay, stone or paint; it’s peppers, and he uses them like a master of the renaissance. All of the products at Darn Hot Peppers (online and at the farmers market) are great, but the Habanero Honey Spread tastes as if it were divinely inspired. It is a work of art: a perfect ying and yang of fire and sweet; two mutually correlated opposites, complementing one another. In other words: dang tasty. Watch out Diego Rivera, another Mexican artist is on his way to fame.
Charlie Stratton
Springfield
This great letter effectively generated positive media buzz for Darn Hot Peppers, including an article two days later in the State Journal Register and this blog post in admiration of the successful execution of word of mouth marketing. Who knows what other rewards Darn Hot Peppers will continue to reap from Charlie Stratton’s letter, but I’m guessing the response will be substantial. So how can you generate positive results from word of mouth marketing? The answer is simple: focus to produce and deliver the best products or services to satisfied customers, who will then pitch your products or services for free! And in the “viral” world in which we now live, a satisfied customer’s recommendation can go a long, long way.
Back to Darn Hot Peppers. I headed down to the Farmer’s Market on Wednesday, October 8 at 8:30 am to purchase my own jar of Habanero Honey Spread and was disappointed to find out they were already sold out! I’m sure they are rushing to produce more right now, and I can’t wait to try it!
Brandy Moore of Springfield, IL has recently joined the staff of Omni Communications Group as Project Manager in the client services department. Her responsibilities include working closely with Omni clients throughout the various stages of project development and ensuring the successful completion of each marketing project on time and on budget through her adept facilitation of information and communication between the various advertising agency departments.
