By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright One of the most all-time most popular marketing ideas is swag – you know those little gifts you hand out at a trade show booth, customer meeting, or industry conference. Today I’m going to save you a lot of time and money by telling you the truth about the value of swag […]

By Ted Wright

  By Ted Wright First, let’s be clear on what we’re calling an influencer in this headline. When I say “influencer” you’re probably imagining a YouTube star selling energy drinks or Kim Kardashian pitching cosmetics. That’s not what I’m referring to here. I’m interested in natural, organic story-sharers that come from having a certain personality […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright Should you outsource word of mouth marketing or keep it within the walls of your organization? We see in the news that many types of marketing are coming back in-house these days, so I think an interesting topic is how this applies to word of mouth. Should this be an in-house competency, […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright One of my proudest achievements is writing the word of mouth marketing book Fizz: Harness the Power of Word of Mouth Marketing to Drive Brand Growth. Although it was written a few years ago, it stands the test of time because, in fact, the fundamentals of word of mouth marketing are timeless. […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright When Ronald Reagan came out of the Reykjavik Nuclear Arms Summit with Gorbachev, he said about the agreement, “We will trust, but we will verify.” I think that is a great business lesson, too. It’s a great rule for your employees, for your customers, for your marketing. Say you’re working with a […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright I’ve never met a business leader who told me they had too much money for marketing. Luckily, smart leaders using Word of Mouth Marketing can depend on influencers to cost-effectively carry their story. Word of Mouth Marketing is all about sparking conversations, and most companies already have marketing materials that point to […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright If your company has been following a traditional marketing path for awhile, getting started with a Word of Mouth Marketing process may take an adjustment of your mindset. There is no such thing as a grassroots change of a company culture. Most companies like sticking with the playbook they’re used to, because, […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright I love studying how word of mouth works in our world and one of my favorite case studies is Tito’s Handmade Vodka. It’s a brand that was created from the start by its ability to ignite conversations. What I love about the founder, Tito Beveridge, is that he recognized the importance of […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright Recently somebody asked me to define the word “activation” as it relates to word of mouth marketing. It’s a word I use routinely but I thought I would step back and talk about activations today. In our world where many traditional forms of marketing are in decline, we must rely on people […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright Someone said I should write about who has influenced me. I enjoy reading about other people’s business influences – who helped them get to where they are today. So I thought it would be fun to add my voice to the dialogue. Drum roll please . . . . . I heart […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright I’ve discussed word of mouth marketing with hundreds of companies and there are certainly patterns you can see where it works and where it doesn’t. Here are the three ideal organizational requirements for successful word of mouth marketing: 1. Openness to innovation You have to like to try to do new things. […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright My friend Mark Schaefer has written an epic book called Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins. You should go buy it. Once you buy it, you will want to thank me, but there is really no need to thank me. Any way, Mark sets forth a visionary manifesto of the future […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright I could have gone a lot of different ways in my career, but I wanted to talk a little today about why I have devoted my professional life to the craft of word of mouth marketing. Bottom line … It’s just so cool! I think people are very interesting, and I think […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright The best client/agency relationships start with the client doing enough research to know what an agency does and what they are great it then making sure that matches corporate goals and culture. So many times brands think that the word of mouth marketing agency relationship should be determined alone. It’s the very […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright On a long trip to Oman I had a chance to catch up with the news and read about the college entry scandal. An article by Ashely Reece chronicled the social media journey of influencer Olivia Jade Giannulli, daughter of actress Lori Laughlin. A few findings: Red flags Olivia was already the […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright Today is the birthday of Pluto and I thought it would be fun to explain why the foundational principles of word of mouth marketing are exactly like discovering a planet. Not the Disney dog, although he is sort of cool too. The existence of an unknown ninth planet was first proposed by […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright Many companies try to create word of mouth marketing efforts on their own, and they should. As I describe in my book, Fizz, with focus, discipline and a little practice, a word of mouth marketing strategy is within reach of almost any business willing to commit to the effort. But when WOMM […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright I have true admiration for Gwyneth Paltrow. I am deeply in love with how she is using her advocate personality to create an authentic and trusted business. Gwyneth is building her company goop based on her ability to share things she loves. And we pay attention to her because we have this […]

By Ted Wright

I know what you’re thinking,  “Who are these elusive Influencers everyone’s always talking about anyway?  What makes them special? How do you know one when you see one?”  And most importantly, “How can I get them interested in my cause?” “Influencer” is a term bandied about a little too loosely these days. In this short video, Ted […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright At the core of Word of Mouth Marketing is the crafting of the story that you’d like each of or brand advocates to share with their friends. Over the last 18 years of focusing only on Word of Mouth, we’ve found that a story has to have three components to be shared […]

By Ted Wright

In this short video, Ted Wright discusses the efficacy of word of mouth marketing as a strategy on low-value items versus high value items. How would word of mouth marketing impact the purchase of a bottle of water? Of a college education? An interesting view of purchase price as a factor in the word of […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright Like the Roman colosseum, Word of Mouth is a timeless marketing strategy that will remain solid through the years. Word of Mouth Marketing may not always be glamorous, but it’s stable and unbreakable. Defining Word of Mouth Marketing Word of Mouth Marketing has come to mean something broad for many people, so […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright I’ve never met a business leader who told me they had too much money for storytelling or marketing. Luckily, smart leaders using Word of Mouth Marketing can depend on influencers to cost-effectively carry their story. Word of Mouth Marketing is all about sparking conversations, and most companies already have marketing materials that […]

By Ted Wright

If your company has been following a traditional marketing path for awhile, getting started with a Word of Mouth Marketing process may take an adjustment of your mindset. There is no such thing as a grassroots change of a company culture. Most companies like sticking with the playbook they’re used to, because, let’s face it, […]

By Ted Wright

Ted Wright talks about the percentage of WOMM conversations that take place  face-to-face versus online and he probes us to think about what distinguishes a campaign from a movement. [vimeo 22943018] Brand tattoos? Why people get excited about word of mouth marketing ideas! Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright While trust in companies and advertising is on the decline, trust in friends, experts, and entrepreneurs is up. People trust people. If Word of Mouth Marketing has always worked so well, why aren’t more business professionals using it? Simple because Word of Mouth Marketing is hard work. More time. More effort. It’s also […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright For a story to be shared widely by brand advocates (aka “real Influencers”) the experience that the advocate has with the brand has to match the story. The following is an example of when that doesn’t happen: Story: Adidas is taking plastic waste, hand-harvested from ocean trash, melting it down then spinning […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright As times change, company strategies should too. Many have adopted social media marketing in recent years, but Word of Mouth Marketing, when done right, is one strategy every company has access to, and should experiment with. If you’re looking for a guaranteed overnight spike in business, you may want to find another […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright It’s official, Influencer Marketing is dead. When Urban Outfitters makes fun of the marketing strategy you sold just six months ago as “The NEW New Thing,” you have problems. Debate me in the comments if you’d like, but I don’t want to be the person on stage when the SVP of Marketing […]

By Ted Wright

By Ted Wright As you’ve heard me say many times before, Word of Mouth Marketing at it’s core is all about sharing stories. The more people share your story, the larger the impact it can make. Also at its core, Word of Mouth marketing is about people organically sharing stories. So, without being pushy, how […]