University of Word-Of-Mouth

Pyro-Marketing

Here is a powerpoint presentation that captures much of what I was trying to express to student leaders at UNCA during our Fill The Seats project

Greg Stielstra's Pyro-Marketing is a type of viral marketing that can work in a wide variety of settings.  Even with student organizations, churches, non-profits and small businesses.

Here is the text of his presentation.  Read along with the powerpoint.

Here is an excerpt from the book.

Email your friends

Today is a good day to send your emails to those people who respect your opinion. 

What do you say?  Tell them that it will be a presentation event unlike any they have probably experienced. Why?  Because it will answer questions they actually have.

We are going to talk, have a conversation, think "I'm part of this presentation."

We are going to talk leadership, respect, and what servant leadership is about.  Not just theory, but real world practice.  Tell them that.

See you Wednesday.

The Blurb

Just cut and paste into an email with your introduction for why this is important.

Dear UNCA students,
Respect is something we all desire, and too often find lacking in our lives.
The respect that exists between members of a group or a team or a community largely determines whether they can work together.  If they can work together, they can achieve remarkable things together.

Next Wednesday from 5-6 in Highsmith 221, I'll be having a conversation with student leaders about  servant leadership.  This is an approach to the leadership of organizations that begins with respect and service and not direction and delegation.

The program will last one hour.  The first part will be on servant leadership.  The last 15-20 minutes will be a discussion of a project that the SOC and I have started called Fill The Seats.  We are using word-of-mouth and viral marketing techniques to make this event a success.  I've set up a blog for our project -  http://edbrenegar.typepad.com/universityofwom - visit it and let me know what you think.

I hope you will come.  You will not regret it.  It will not be boring.  It will be fun.  And maybe you just might learn something new. 

See you Wednesday, thank you very much.

Ed Brenegar
Community of Leadership Institute

A word on Viral Marketing

Came across this tonight.  Relavent to our project.  I'll comment after each point.

The piece is a commentary by Mike Manuel on this by Robert Scoble.  Manuel's comments are in blue, Scoble's in black and mine in RED.

Scoble's Viral Marketing Manifesto

1) Make sure the "brand" you're building in people's heads matches what you actually want people to think about.

By brand, he means the idea that captures the whole sense of what a product or project is about. I suggest our brand is about “How to fill the seats and have some fun talking about leadership.”

2) To have something go viral, you actually need to do something that will make people talk. Games that are fun are generally good, but won't work for all products. With Honda their "cog ad" for the Accord went viral and that was only a video.

Our project, to fill the seats in the room, is the kind of effort that is a bit quirky, but can attract some interest.

3) Be sensitive to the leading "connectors" -- they'll be the ones who'll really kick off your viral campaign. Convince them to link and you're really on your way. Know who the connectors are in the communities you want to reach. Want a political community to talk to you? Glenn Reynolds. Gadget freaks? Engadget or Gizmodo. Tech Geeks? Dave Winer, Boing Boing, MetaFilter, or Slashdot. Etc.

Connectors is a term used to describe people who have a wide, diverse, and extensive network of relationships. Who are those people? Who do you know that knows everyone? Go talk to them about our project? See if they can get some people to attend.

4) Test the campaign with 40 leading connectors before embarrassing yourselves. Listen to the feedback you get.

You are my 40 leading connectors. Give me feedback. Tell me what we need to do to generate interest.

5) Make sure that the viral thing matches the image you're trying to build. A VW ad (not commissioned by VW) went viral, but because it used a terrorist blowing himself up it didn't match the image that VW was trying to build for itself.

What is our image? We are having fun. We are learning about leadership. We are enhancing the conversation that takes place on campus about leadership. We are expanding the number of people who make an extra effort to do one additional thing for their organization. I could go on. Why don’t you suggest some?

6) A good test is whether employees like it or not. These things can be used to increase morale. "Look at my cool company, they even have cool viral campaigns." But, they can decimate morale too. "What a lame campaign." Be careful here. Ask coworkers if they would be proud of sending this to mom.

Let’s make this the talk of the campus Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. If we can do this for a talk on servant leadership, think what you can do with some other organizational activity.

7) A good viral campaign lets those who talk about it manipulate the campaign. If it is designed to manipulate those who are talking about it, be wary. We hate being manipulated, but we love to manipulate. Translation: can I add something to the campaign? Even a comment of my own? If it's a game, does it listen to me, like the Subservient Chicken does?

Here’s your chance to affect the outcome. I welcome your manipulation of the project, as long as it means increasing the number of people attending. Bring your whole organization.

8) Be wary of doing fake blogs. That gets bloggers fur to curl up. You might get away with it (ILoveBees, for instance, did) but if done poorly you'll just get derided for your fake campaign. Be especially wary when what you're advertising is actually real-life stuff. Search engines and blogs, for instance, need campaigns that accentuate the image of "reliable, trustworthy, always up, relevant to real life, etc."

U-WOM is not a fake blog. It isn’t advertising dress up to look like a blog. This is the real thing.

What is WOM?

Here is an excellent brief introduction to Word of Mouth, Viral and Buzz marketing by Dave Balter.   Here is how he distinguishes between the three.

WORD OF MOUTH is the most powerful medium on the planet. It’s the actual sharing of an opinion about a product or service between two or more consumers. It’s what happens when people become natural brand advocates. It’s the holy grail of marketers, CEOs and entrepreneurs, as it can make or break a product. The key to its success: it’s honest and natural.

VIRAL MARKETING is an attempt to deliver a marketing message that spreads quickly and exponentially among consumers. Today, this often comes in the form of an email message or video. Contrary to alarmistsʼ fear, viral isn’t evil. It isn’t dishonest or unnatural. At its best, it is word of mouth enabled, and at its worst, it’s just another interruptive marketing message.

BUZZ MARKETING is an event or activity that generates publicity, excitement, and information to the consumer. It’s usually something that combines a wacky, jaw-dropping event or experience with pure branding, like tattooing your forehead (or your ass, as a NYC health club recently did). If buzz is done right, people will write about it, so it essentially becomes a great PR vehicle.

Seth Godin is a marketing genius and has written several books on the topic.  Each worth reading.  He also has a weblog that is worth following.

The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen is excellent book on how ideas spread.

Finally, there is a professional association of Word of Mouth marketers.

The UNCA SOC Challenge

On Wednesday, March 23 from 5-6 in the Highsmith Student Center at UNC-Asheville I will be giving a presentation to students on servant leadership.

I would like to fill the seats of the space.

I propose that we practice two types of marketing by influence and relationships that are becoming essential aspects of any organization's effort to build involvement and enthusiasm for its programs and services.

The reality is that for most student organization leaders bearing the full weight of generating a turn out for meetings is solely in their hands. 

What WOM can do is spread that responsibility out to others in a manner that is simple and not overwhelming, even to most slacker of members.

So, let's do two things.

1.  Tell your closests friends and associates about next week's meeting. Give them your reason why they should attend a meeting on servant leadership (that's the topic, more on that in a later posting.)  Tell them this is a real life experiment in leadership.  It is a test to see if a crowd can form by word of mouth, by one person telling a couple people, and then inviting them to attend.  If you set you goal of bringing at least two people from your organization, then you could end up with five. Have two people you get to come to also bring a friend.

2.  Send an email out on Monday or Tuesday to your all the people on your email list who respect your opinions.  I'll provide a blurb on next's week's event over the weekend.  It will be short, to the point, and you can include it in your email.

OK.  The point of all this is not just so that I can have an audience.  I have that at home with my wife, children and dogs.  The point is that this is a learning experience that if you incorporate it into your organizational planning will ensure that you are going be successful.

Email me if you have questions. The link is on the right.