By Brad Fay/Managing Director, Roper Public Affairs
Word-of-mouth is the newest tool in the communications arsenal, and it should be the PR that leads its use... particularly in the areas of marcom, advocacy and public affairs.
As addressed by my colleagues Ed Keller and Jon Berry in their recent book "The Influentials," one in 10 Americans tell the other nine what to buy, where to eat, and how to
vote. Word-of-mouth strategies leveraging the Influentials are being aggressively pursued by many of the major political campaigns in 2004, but the same approach will work for
virtually any kind of campaign, whether in marketing, issue advocacy, or crisis management.
The rise of word-of-mouth owes a debt to several factors. The first is the decline in the effectiveness of advertising. Long term Roper Reports trends show that the power of
personal recommendations has risen by 37% since the 1970s, while advertising has slipped by 6% and editorial content by 15%.
Another key factor is the rise of the Internet, which offers tremendous speed and efficiency to "word of mouse" campaigns. In part due to the power of the Internet, the number
of word-of-mouth recommendations has been growing rapidly in categories as diverse as restaurants, movies, travel, magazines, computers, and TV shows.
Word-of-mouth political campaigning received a huge jolt when Howard Dean's Internet-based word-of-mouth nomination campaign raised record amounts mobilizing grassroots
supporters in an unprecedented fashion. And he is far from alone in the political arena.
The Kerry campaign is also having tremendous fundraising success by focusing on Internet-enabled activists; at the opposite end of the political spectrum, President Bush's
campaign is leveraging Influentials as a core element of its election strategy. Bush Campaign Manager Ken Mehlman was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, "The Influentials
will be indispensable filters and promoters of the attitudes and arguments that will frame the choices voters make this fall."
A new report out from the Institute for Politics, Democracy, & the Internet at George Washington University finds that while the number of campaigns using an "Influentials"
strategy in 2004 is small, they are among the most prominent in the country including Senate campaigns for David Beasley in South Carolina, Barbara Mikulski in Maryland, Harry
Reid in Nevada, Barbara Boxer in California, Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, and Bob Anthony in Oklahoma.
Whether your objective is in politics on Main Street or on Wall Street, following are five tips for engaging the Influentials:
>> Influentials are activists: ask for their help, tell them what you need, give them official roles.
>> They are joiners and networkers; build a community for them, give them material to disseminate, invite them to events.
>> They are news junkies: feed their habit through articles and newsletters, organize blogs and chats.
>> They are opinionated: help them articulate their views with information and talking points they can quote.
>> They are busy, so make it easy: offer 24/7 access to a forum where they can be heard, give them contact information for media editors and call-in shows, send them
kits for organizing meetings.