The expression “word of mouth” refers to the oldest, but still very effective, form of advertising, word of mouth.
Although often, even in reference to this form of advertising, people talk about marketing strategies aimed at turning top customers into ambassadors for a brand, in reality it should assume spontaneous activity on the part of customers and consumers describing products and services to new potential customers.
The term “word of mouth” is, in fact, also often used in relation to buzz marketing: in this case, however, a clarification is in order. While buzz marketing originates as spontaneous word of mouth, in the second case, word of mouth is also strengthened and propagated by a presidium activity in the process carried out by the company/brand.
For simplicity, three types of Word of Mouth have been identified in the literature:
- organic inter-consumer influence model: that is, a word-of-mouth model that develops among consumers in a completely natural and spontaneous way;
- linear marketer influence model: this type was born later than the previous one and is more related to the realization by companies that they can play a primary role in stimulating word of mouth by choosing influential consumers. It is a step toward true Word of Mouth and a more primal form of influencer marketing;
- network coprodution model: it involves direct involvement of the company in building and targeting word of mouth.
