We know that word of mouth is the best and most trusted form of marketing. Consumers love to hear from ‘someone just like me.’
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But does this apply to BtoB marketing too?
Yes, says a study by the market research firm, Keller Fay Group which was sponsored by experiential marketing agency Jack Morton Worldwide. Word of mouth is the #1 influence on business purchase decisions.
50% of the respondents polled reported that they were highly likely to buy a product or service based on word of mouth; while 49% passed on what they’ve heard to others. The study goes on to say that “Business decision-makers most value communication channels that provide two-way dialog.”
So conversational marketing will work for BtoB just as well as it does in BtoC.
There are a slew of social networking sites like Linked In that connect business people with each other. But can social media marketing be done on a larger scale in BtoB? Many firms are providing spaces online that create these dialogs with prospective business customers.
Cynthis Trevino at Small Business, Big Image offers this example:
Chordiant Customer Experience Solutions uses wikis (web sites that visitors can add to/edit) to both shorten and improve their new product development process. They have a select group of customers that collaborate on the private wiki with Chordiant’s product engineers. The customers help define features for the next product release.
eWeek wrote a good article about how wikis are working in the enterprise.
Sun Microsystems attributes the revival of their brand to blogging.
There must be something to this online conversation thing.
