1: Word-of-mouth (WOM) Marketing
Disillusioned consumers -- those who've lost trust in marketers -- now turn to each other for trustworthy product information. This consumer-to-consumer "buzz" naturally occurs without the intervention of marketers -- 46% of North American consumers often tell friends and family about products that interest them. When marketers get involved to stimulate WOM activity -- like P&G did when it offered to donate money to an energy-saving charity if Tide Coldwater users sent along product samples -- they must relinquish the control they would have had over a traditional campaign. But this is a small price to pay for the increase in consumer trust created by WOM marketing. While Tide created a buzz arou! nd Coldwater based on environmental awareness, Burger King's successful "Subservient Chicken" Webcast created a humorous buzz for its BK Tender Crisp.

2: Blogs
Blogs (think: online journal) provide a venue for marketers and consumers to open a dialogue and facilitate WOM marketing among consumers. Blogs can be a space where corporate executives post their musings and consumers respond, marketers solicit consumers to post reviews of products, or consumers connect and recommend products to each other. Blogs about kids' issues help Stonyfield Farm create a dialogue with parents. Vespa's blogs give its consumers the opportunity to share Vespa scooter experiences.

3: RSS
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an XML standard that gives consumers the opportunity to aggregate all of their information into one location. RSS provides marketers with many options to reach consumers: Feed sponsorships, ad placements within feeds, and ad headlines are only a few. Though current adoption of RSS is relatively low (only 2% of North American online adults use RSS today), those who use this technology now are the valuable, information-hungry consumers of tomorrow (see figure above). Marketers like Purina and Apple use RSS to inform consumers about new products, send updates about product support, and disseminate consumer-generated content from their Web sites.

4: Podcasting
Like RSS, podcasting separates media from a single channel, delivering audio content in a new way. For marketers, podcasts provide opportunities for sponsorships, on-air ads, and original product-specific content. The upside? A captive audience. The downside? A small audience (only 10% of online adults are familiar with podcasting) but a growing one, especially with the addition of a podcasting library in iTunes, which lists more than 600 podcasts about technology and 100 about travel. Marketers looking to repeatedly reach a valuable, younger, tech-savvy crowd should actively explore this new medium. [출처 : 포레스터]

입소문 마케팅. 구전 마케팅, 바이러스 마케팅이라고도 불리는 요게 참 재밌는 이유는 '안 될 것 같은 제품이나 서비스에서 간혹 큰 성공을 하기 때문이다. 사례들을 살펴보고, 사람과 사람을 어떻게 잘 연결시킬 것인지, 로컬 네트워크를 어떻게 공략할 것인지 고민해 보면 재밌지 않을까?^^