Is Word of Mouth (AKA Referral Marketing) Worth the Effort?

Courtesy of flickr.com

By Hector Cisneros

I have been directly engaged in word of mouth marketing (AKA Referral Marketing or Social Networking) for more than 35 years. I often hear business owners say that they tried networking at Chamber of Commerce events and even hard contact networks (exclusive membership organizations), and they felt that the return on investment was poor or nonexistent! Well, this statement can be true and false at the same time. It has been my experience that, for the most part, you can only get back a return based on the time and effort you put into any endeavor.  In this episode of Working The Web to Win, we will take a hard look at organized word of mouth marketing, to see if high returns are real, luck, or just fancifully marketing on the parts of the referral organization's marketing department. So get ready to learn my firsthand experiences as to whether referral marketing works and if so, what makes it work and how can the reader minimize the investment in time, money, and energy to get the maximum return for their marketing dollars.