In 2005, Seth Godin wrote the FREE PRIZE INSIDE. It's essentially a guidebook for creating remarkable products and services. As marketers we know when remarkable things get remarked about ... word of mouth happens.
This 2-minute video ditty I posted on the All Things WOM blog shares two word-of-mouth worthy free prizes I experienced while staying at the Hotel Burnham in Chicago. (Yes, I mispronounce the hotel’s name in the video. My bad.) Enjoy.
RSS Readers … click here to watch the video.
Very nice - I love the statement "Free Prizes aren't what make people buy your product, but they are what make people talk about your product."
And, I'm heading to Chicago in August, so now I know where to stay.
Posted by: Brett Duncan, MarketingInProgress.com | June 24, 2009 at 08:42 AM
Great simple video! Its amazing how little things can make someone's day to get people talking. As more companies in the U.S. catch on to become more service oriented, its interesting to compare that some countries need to catch up on providing great customer service to spread WOM as well. KIT if you are back in Vegas. I still have your body tag business card on my desk from when you and Jackie came by our marketing department.
Posted by: Mig Pascual | June 24, 2009 at 11:08 PM
Nice job John! Love Kimpton.
Posted by: Jackie Huba | June 25, 2009 at 04:21 PM
John,
Your video shows my favorite type of "Dear John" letters. Also, the Goldfish is a swimmingly great idea.
Okay, I promise to stop with the attempt at matching metaphor linguistics.
Today, I became aware of your blog. I know, I'm late to the party.
I just wanted to say I really love how you share information to all of your readers.
Thanks for really caring enough to make your message matter.
Matthew Ray Scott
The Strategic Incubator
Posted by: Matthew Ray Scott | July 20, 2009 at 05:11 PM
And it works the other way around - if a company messes things up in any way then you will not only be taking your business somewhere else, you will make every effort to get your friends to do the same.
The wonderful thing is that this can also be corrected using the "Free Prize" method in most cases.
By the way, for a blog that covers WOM you should make sure to get the 'Share This' button to work.
I would offer you to have a look at DonateMate.com - an incentive based WOM tool that supports charity.
Posted by: Yuval | July 26, 2009 at 11:42 AM