The Importance of Word of Mouth

Non-profit groups would love to get that big break and be in the Globe and Mail or CTV News or some other major media outlet.

That would be great, and working with the media should never be ignored. But neither should we ignore good-old fashioned word-of-mouth.

Friends commending products or groups to friends is as old as, well, friendship. And face-to-face is still important. But now we have social media, which helps spread the word even faster and farther.

That's the point being made by Ted Wright of Fizz, a word-of-mouth marketing company in the U.S. 

In an article in the Globe and Mail, he notes that broadcast media are declining in influence and being replaced by conversations between friends.

He cites studies that show that about 80 per cent of people don’t believe that companies tell the truth in advertising, but 70 percent believe their neighbours and friends. 

“We are living in an age of conversation," he says. "Marketers, for big companies and small, have to study that trend and need to create conversations.”