by Jennifer Laycock

Almost anytime I talk about viral marketing, the subject of offline word of mouth verses online word of mouth comes up. People ask questions like which is more powerful, which has more potential and which leads to higher conversions and purchases. The truth is, it depends on the campaign and the product. Still, two new sets of data have been released about word of mouth marketing that are worth looking at.

Jackie Huba covers them over at Church of the Customer today in a thought provoking post on the difference between online and offline word of mouth. In it, she talks about the studies that examine the way people spread ideas and advice about products and services they've used.

Here's the data:

	Active online researcher	All adults
Regularly gives advice	47.0%	29.4%
Occasionally gives advice	49.8%	63.4%
Never gives advice	3.2%	7.2%

Source: BIGresearch, SIMM 11 (December 2007)

After searching, how do you communicate with others about a service, product or brand? (Check all that apply)

Face-to-face	72.7%
Email	63.2%
Telephone	55.0%
Cell phone	35.3%
Instant messaging	17.7%
Text messaging	13.1%
Online communities (e.g. MySpace, Facebook)	11.8%
Blogging	6.8%
Other	1.8%

Source: BIGresearch SIMM 11 (December 2007)

Jackie writes:

"Apparently, the value of eye contact, voice and perhaps even non-verbal communication provides a boost to credibility and the likelihood that we'll do something about what we've learned," said Brad Fay, a study co-author.

Here's what I consider a flaw with that thinking: The frame of credibility. Being credible isn't dependent solely upon the medium in which a recommendation occurs. Credibility comes from an established position of trust, whether it's in-person or online, or from a preponderance of independent evidence, such as a collection of reviews on a product site like Amazon.

I tend to agree with Jackie here. We build up a level of trust based on our past history with someone. Credibility is gained over time as we demonstrate our ability to make solid recommendations and we're able to establish shared interests, tastes and connections.

That said, I see the potential for some of this data to be misconstrued and used against those of us who push companies to explore online word of mouth, or viral marketing.

Here's the comment I left to Jackie's post:

The Keller Fay study says:

"75% of word of mouth occurs in person, 17% on the phone, and just 7% online using instant messages, chat rooms, email and blogs"

But if I understand it correctly, they are looking at this from the perspective of the person doing the WOM and not the person on the receiving end.

I'd be curious to hear it switched around and see how those numbers look, i.e. how do you HEAR about recommendations.

Here's why...

When I tell someone something via offline WOM, I'm generally telling one person at a time. Occasionally I may tell a handful of folks at a lunch or dinner. Once a month or so, I may tell a few hundred something at a speaking gig.

But overall...the impact in terms of my WOM going out is minimal. Sure, I do more telling in person, but the impact of each WOM action is small.

On the other hand, if I make a recommendation via Twitter, I'm reaching 1600 people. If I send it out in my newsletter, I'm reaching 30,000. If I post it on my blog? Half a million or more.

Thus, you can't really compare my offline WOM actions with my online WOM actions and tip the scales in favor of offline. I can reach more people with a single blog post than I will in an entire year of offline WOM.

So even if you disregard the issue of trust and credibility (which is obviously still important) I have to think even that limited amount of online WOM is having as much or more of an impact as that large percentage of offline WOM interactions.

I find the data interesting, but in my mind, it only serves to reinforce how important word of mouth marketing is becoming.

There's already a lively discussion going on in the comments, including some debate about exactly how much extra weight an "in-person" recommendation carries.

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