One needs only to take a walk pass the new Apple store at in Boston at 8AM to see how important word of mouth is to Apple and their new iPhone.  Apple is legendary for their marketing (customer service is another thing  - I waited close to an hour last week to get an iPhone, in which time Apple was only able to service ONE person).  Their integrated marketing campaigns are amazing, from the traditional print, packaging, television, and branding components; to their forward thinking viral and word of mouth campaigns. 

To get a large group of people to evangelize about your product or service is the end goal of any marketing campaign, and it’s something that my friend Dave Balter knows a lot about.  In 2002, Dave founded BzzAgent, a word of mouth media company that currently coordinates 450,000 volunteer “agents” in the US, Canada, and the U.K..  Dave recently wrote and self-published his second book on Word of Mouth marketing, creatively titled “The Word of Mouth Manual Volume II.”  It’s a great read, illustrated with examples from the Grateful Dead, Crocs, and of course, Apple.  The book is for sale for $45 on Amazon, but Dave’s provided the book to a few folks for free, as a PDF download, available here.  If you’ve ever been curious about how or why word of mouth marketing works, or how to get folks to start talking about your own product, I recommend you check it out.

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