One needs only to take a walk down Boylston Street pass the new Apple store at 8AM to see how important word of mouth is to Apple and their new iPhone. Apple is legendary for their marketing (customer service is another thing - I waited close to an hour last week to get an iPhone, in which time Apple was only able to service ONE person). Their integrated marketing campaigns are amazing, from the traditional print, packaging, television, and branding components; to their forward thinking viral and word of mouth campaigns.
To get a large group of people to evangelize about your product or service is the end goal of any marketing campaign, and it’s something that my friend Dave Balter knows a lot about. In 2002, Dave founded BzzAgent, a word of mouth media company that currently coordinates 450,000 volunteer “agents” in the US, Canada, and the U.K.. Dave recently wrote and self-published his second book on Word of Mouth marketing, creatively titled “The Word of Mouth Manual Volume II.” It’s a great read, illustrated with examples from the Grateful Dead, Crocs, and of course, Apple. The book is for sale for $45 on Amazon, but Dave’s provided the book to a few folks for free, as a PDF download, available here. If you’ve ever been curious about how or why word of mouth marketing works, or how to get folks to start talking about your own product, I recommend you check it out.
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Mike King is the senior marketing manager at Berkleemusic, and author/instructor of Music Marketing 201. Prior to working at Berklee, Mike was the marketing/product manager at Rykodisc, where he oversaw all marketing efforts for label artists, including Mickey Hart, Jeb Loy Nichols, Morphine, Jess Klein, Voices On The Verge, Bill Hicks, The Slip, Pork Tornado (Phish), Kelly Joe Phelps, and Frank Zappa's estate. He also handled copyright administration for a number of active and catalog artists at Rounder Records. Mike consults as the Marketing Director and Managing Editor for the Herb Alpert Foundation's online musicians resource, www.ArtistsHouseMusic.orgOnline Courses
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The views expressed herein are those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of Berklee College of Music.
Mike~
I so enjoy reading your blog~ I always
tell my music students who want to turn pro that the basics of marketing never change, only the pipeline that delivers the message changes with new technology. I read recently that one of the best ways to market a new business even in this day of new technologies is to pass out business cards everywhere, something I still do for my business. One of the greatest ideas for my own business was given to me 22 years ago by a producer who found my business card on the ad board at the music school I was attending at the time. He didn’t find out about me by coming to one of my gigs, hearing me on the radio, or buying one of my recordings. He found out about me by my business card posted on an ad board.
The idea he gave me was where to locate my music studio here in West Texas, which 22 years later I’m still at the same location. It was one idea that changed everything for me. I always put every bit of extra cash back into marketing what I do, which is another mistake a lot of musicians make, thinking they can stop marketing once they become successful. It’s a never ending process I have found. Thanks for all you do!
Mike -
The word of mouth manual is excellent. It’s on my ‘Top 40′ list now!
I look forward to taking another class with you and your blogs are terrific. Thanks a lot.
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