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Saturday, January 21, 2006
The 'Word of Mouth' conference
So it's all over. Two full days of full-on talks and talking about word of mouth marketing for 420 people from all over the world (but mainly the US).
For those of you who don't know what this is (that's ok, it's pretty new), WOM is actually all about customers doing your marketing for you by simply telling their friends and family about you. Obviously, they'll only do this if they like you. And only certain types of people will be bothered to recommend things to friends and family. But it happens all the time and has been happening for years.
So the newness of all this is the ability to stimulate and facilitate this exchange of opinions about you. Blogs, forums, discussion boards, focus groups, 'tell a friend', viral marketing campaigns... all this stuff tweaked to achieve the ultimate goal: loads of people who like you telling loads of their friends who'll then tell loads of their friends...
The first day started at 8am and went on till 6pm, and was non-stop. The variety of talkers, from inspiring creatives to dull number-crunchers, was incredible: there was a bit of everything. At 6pm we all got on 7 coaches to go to Disney's Animal Kingdom for an African feast (whihc was delicious: I had turkey, lamb, and some weird stuff I couldn't see because it was dark and couldn't tell what it was by the taste, but it was nice).
The second day was more of the same, but we finished at 4pm. If anything, it was even more packed, with sessions lasting 25 minutes each. Again, the variety was mind-boggling.
It was knackering and I was exhausted at the end of it all!
I've learnt so much, it's amazing (to me). And I managed to schmooze the whole time, and actually did it quite well.
Aside from the learning and schmoozing, there was a guy who gave a cool talk about approachability - Scott. He left a conference in November 2000 and decided not to take his name tag off. He's been wearing it 24/7 now for over 5 years, and it's not only taught him stuff about approachability, but formed the basis of his career. Cool career.
And now I'm in my room, watching some TV, typing some stuff, and just taking things easy.
What shall I do tomorrow I wonder?
.....posted at 3:38 am permalink
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