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| View Larger Image | Grapevine: Why Buzz Was a Fad but Word of Mouth Is Forever | Paperbackby Dave Balter (Author)
| List Price: | $15.00 | | Price: | $11.70 | | You Save: | $3.30 (22%) | | | Available: | Temporarily out of stock. Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your credit card will not be charged until we ship the item. |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Portfolio Trade | | Page Count: | 224 Pages | | Publication Date: | June 24, 2008 | | Sales Rank: | 1,579,784st |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Word of mouth is an amazingly powerful force — but how does it really work?.Businesses have become obsessed with stimulating word-of- mouth to counteract the declining effectiveness of advertising. But it’s easier said than done. As the founder of BzzAgent, a community of more than 400,000 people who volunteer to talk to friends and acquaintances about products they genuinely love, Dave Balter is a successful practitioner, not a theorist. And he’s figured out how to measure and harness word-of-mouth without corrupting it. In Grapevine, Balter shows why honest feedback – about books, restaurants, gadgets, or anything else – is more believable than any paid endorser. And he answers some of the most elusive questions in marketing, such as what makes word-of-mouth very different from “buzz” and “viral marketing.” |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 67 reviews)
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A blurring of the lines by The Marketing Guy Who Drives Sales (Charlottesville, VA United States)  3 Stars
October 15, 2009
In this book Dave Balter talks primarily about his BzzAgent word-of-mouth agency experiences and details how the agency conducts campaigns for clients. He generously peppers the text with actual feedback he's gotten from his "BzzAgents" on numerous campaigns with which they've been involved. We get some insights as to how his agency helps these "agents" form their opinions and how they are provided a framework and context within which they are to create a story to tell others about the products they are helping to promote on behalf of his agency's clients.
As such, the book is interesting in that Balter talks about how to shape first-generation opinions about products and how to track the way those get transmitted to second-generation receivers and how they then pass the word along. By asking these agents to provide written reports about how they engage in word-of-mouth marketing, Balter has gained some genuine insights about consumer behavior and how and when people are motivated to talk about brands with which they connect. There is some real value in this book. It is actually a pleasant, interesting and engaging read.
But there is a fine line between genuine organic word-of-mouth marketing, fertilized word-of-mouth, murketing and just plain shilling. The author chooses to see his methods as fully transparent and ethical (although he admits it did not start out that way) but many others will see it differently.
If agents are given free products to try before they are widely available and if their opinions are "shaped" by such an agency then one must wonder if there is an expectation that they talk favorably about these brands and how transparent the process actually is in reality as they go about talking about client brands in their day-to-day lives. While the author stresses the need for his agents to be completely open about their involvement it doesn't quite seem reasonable to accept that they start each conversation by stating, "I'm a BzzAgent and I've volunteered to talk about this brand in exchange for some free stuff and I'd like to tell you...". I just don't see it unfolding that way in real life despite what the author chooses to believe. Buying an army of people to generally speak positively about client brands is not exactly what I consider to be good marketing or solid, long-term brand building.
If you are into creating manufactured or fertilized buzz that is anything but objective then you might take a deep interest in this book.
If you are a marketer seeking ways to create strong brands that generate organic, positive word-of-mouth in their own right then you will feel a little dirty after reading this book.
-Review by the author of the e-book, "How to Build and Manage Your Brand (in sickness and in health)."
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A Valuable, Entertaining Read by Lois Lain (San Francisco Bay Area, CA)  4 Stars
February 02, 2009
An excellent take on word-of-mouth marketing from a leader in the field. Through a step-by-step account of a fictional marketing campaign and real-life anecdotes, Balter conveys the realities, limitations, and pluses of WOM. Entertaining, funny, and easy-to-read. And not just an add for the BzzAgency. Well done!
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How to get your product or service into the national dialogue by MissStickBug (Fresno, CA USA) 4 Stars
January 05, 2009
It doesn't take very long to see that word-of-mouth is really what drives our purchases. Everything from the employee recommendations on the wiki to amazon's user reviews, from technorati links and twitter posts to watercooler chit chat and youtube videos, we're actually making more of an impact talking about products and services than marketing them. In this visionary book, the author serves up anecdotes and 'common sense' examples on harnessing the very fabric of community -- word of mouth -- to be the most successful marketing tool. Interestingly enough, a large portion of this book is on 'what not to do,' like silly ploys, shill marketing, and expensive but underwhelming campaigns. Why? Because we're honestly communicating every day about every possible thing. Get your product or service into the national dialogue and you've got a recipe for success.
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Essential read for SME owners by Starting Out (Australia)  5 Stars
August 26, 2008
Grapevine is a book peppered with case studies and practical information from start to finish. It is a business book that you want to read cover-to-cover and what I found most interesting is that the premise of Word of Mouth marketing is logical, reasonable and credible. There is no 'secret', no 'slick' marketing hype - just example after example of how and why W-O-M works. There is no 5 point plan on how to commence your own campaign yourself, but for owners of a SME, it provides numerous ideas of how an effective W-O-M marketing campaign can drive business for little spend.
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Consumer evangelism how-to by Ilya Grigorik (Toronto, ON, Canada) 4 Stars
January 26, 2007
Grapevine is centered around the idea that people are naturally inclined to talk about products. David Balter stresses importance of word-of-mouth, and even more importantly, the role of every consumer in this process. He tip-toes around the idea of empowering consumers and offers some great advice from experience.
However, I don't think it's the inclination to talk about a product as much as it is about 'social currency'. Mark Hughes, in his book 'Buzzmarketing' nailed this concept. It's not the about the product, it's not even about your company, it's about the consumer and what you give him/her through your marketing. People like being listened to, to be on the 'inside', to have the scoop, this gives them 'social currency' - it makes them more interesting. In many ways, this is what Grapevine communication is all about, even if David Balter never put it that way.
The book touches on a number of interesting aspects: value of transparency, consumer evangelism, word-of-mouth as storytelling, and even the power of blogs. It's an easy ready with some interesting insights; overall, a worthwhile investment.
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, Revised Edition
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Who Is Talking About YouMaster the art of word of mouth marketing with this practical hands-on guide. With straightforward advice and humor, marketing expert Andy Sernovitz will show you how the world's most respected and profitable companies get their best customers for free through the power of word of mouth. Learn the five essential steps that make word of mouth work and everything you need to get started using them. Understand the real purpose of blogs, communities, viral email,...
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| The Influentials: One American in Ten Tells the Other Nine How to Vote, Where to Eat, and What to Buy
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One American in ten tells the other nine how to vote, where to eat, and what to buy. They are
The Influentials Who are they? The most influential Americans -- the ones who tell their neighbors what to buy, which politicians to support, and where to vacation -- are not necessarily the people you'd expect. They're not America's most affluent 10 percent or best-educated 10 percent. They're not the "early adopters," always the first to try everything from Franco-Polynesian fusion...
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| The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition
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| The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media (Books To Build Your Career By)
by Paul Gillin (Author), Geoffrey A. Moore (Foreword)
Exploring how and why online forums such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs have gained such popularity—and credibility—with consumers, this practical guide offers proven strategies for organizations to leverage these new internet-based social media outlets. The differences between traditional and new media are explored, as are simple ways business owners and marketers can use these new resources to communicate with their customers. Practical tips on gaining the...
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| The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II
by Dave Balter (Author), Seth B. Minkin (Illustrator)
Why is this book $45.00?
* Only a few thousand have been made
* It includes all of the material from Volume I
* Its cover is entirely water resistant and sized to be used as a rainhat
* There's a monkey on the cover (of course)
* Each comes with a one-of-its-kind bookmark, cut from a massive piece of artwork by BzzAgent Artist-in-Residence, Seth. B. Minkin.
Of course, if you don't want to pay for this fantastic, water-resistant version, you can get the entire book for...
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