How easy is it for people to talk about what you do as a company? Are you giving them reasons to do just this? Are you crafting customer conversations with your marketing or are you still trying to buy your way into their minds? Well, if you’re like most of today’s marketers, you're struggling to tap into the power of word of mouth marketing.

With me on today's show was Andy Sernovitz, author of the book Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking. He’s written what is being hailed as the most practical book on word of mouth marketing available and I have to agree.

"Traditional advertising is the price of being boring," says Sernovitz. After reading his book, and listening to his truely simple approach about how to make word of mouth (WOM) marketing really work, I think he's right.

It boils down to this -- First, WOM is about giving people a reason to talk about your product, service, company, whatever. That means you have to do something remarkable, be unique, be noticeable. People don't comment on the mundane, they talk about the unexpected and the meaningful. Second, it's about making it easy for people to have the conversation actually take place. Using the right tools to aide people in initiating that conversation (and Sernovitz lists gobs of great tools in his book) is paramount to spreading the good word.

Fantastic show and one that is only bested by his book. Listen, buy, and then go tell others. Yep, it's that simple.

-- David Kinard, PCM