Word of mouth success depends on whose mouth is whispering

Word-of-mouth buzz is said to be golden, worth more than any advertising. We all do some form of it, as consumers and as leaders. We talk about everything and everyone who we like and dislike. If it's good word-of-mouth, it really helps out. But, getting people to talk about you or your product is the hard part. Where do you start? Who do you start with?

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania marketing professors Raghuram Iyengar and Christophe Van den Bulte think they have an answer to those two questions. The pair of researchers worked with University of Southern California preventive medicine professor Thomas W. Valente on a research project for a pharmaceutical firm to determine just who is the best carrier for their message within groups of doctors.

I would assume that the more well-known leaders within the doctors' group would be the best targets. Convince them and they would convince others to use your drugs. Makes sense, right? Maybe not.

According to an article in Knowledge@Wharton, it's actually doctors within a subgroup, and not necessarily self-reported leaders, who are the most influential. What distinguishes these doctors? The researchers identified one doctor, "Physician 184," who was not among the most prominent of doctors. Physician 184 did not think of himself as an opinion leader. However, he was well-known among doctors for working with patients suffering from the disease the pharma company was targeting with its drugs. He was also seen as someone who "worked tirelessly and closely with colleagues to solve problems and get things done."

What is different in this work is that the researchers did not try traditional marketing techniques to identify the most influential. They used a more anthropological approach to determine who was doing the heaving whispering in other doctors' ears.

The self-reported opinion leaders, it turns out, lagged behind the "Physician 184" types at adopting new therapies for treatment. "Physician 184" types were more attuned to the latest methodologies in their area of interest and were seen by others as more knowledgeable than the self-reported leaders.

The article has a a link to the down-loadable research report published in the Marketing Science Institute Working Paper Series.

While you may not have the money for a complete research project like this one, you should start to think about who you are targeting for your word-of-mouth campaigns, regardless of your business or social marketing goals.