Word-of-Mouth
Word-of-Mouth, or more precisely, viva voce or word of mouth, is simply the transmission of information from one individual to another through oral communication, which may be as simple as saying 'Good morning, how are you?' to someone else. In most cases, storytelling is an ordinary form of word-of-mouth conversation where one individual tells others a tale about an actual event or occurrence. It can be on a topic of everyday living such as the weather or a current event; it may also be a serious subject like a death in the family or personal problems like divorce.
The success of word-of-mouth marketing lies in its ability to pass from one person to another by simple notification of the receiver. When you wake up in the morning and tell yourself that you have to go to work but you don't have to do anything, you are already a great success because you woke up someone else who will have to tell someone else or pass the message across. The same principles apply to the supply chain management of any large corporation. For example, if a company manufactures widgets but has no where to purchase them when they run out, they won't have any place to sell their widgets and will find themselves sinking.
The whole point of word-of-mouth marketing is that it is an oral tradition passed on from generation to generation, from social circle to social circle, and sometimes from one individual to another. You can measure how successful a particular oral tradition has been by how successful the people who use it are. In addition, you can also measure the success of that oral tradition by analyzing whether it is repeated in various forms of communication, by looking at the cultural material available to those who use it, and by analyzing the results of those cultural materials. This is why a company should not just focus on developing brand awareness through advertising and marketing.
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