Word-of-Mouth Marketing, Redux

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Jamba Juice recently held a two-week promotional campaign that drove traffic with some old-fashioned coupons and word-of-mouth techniques—or at least, with coupons and word-of-mouth techniques of the social media age.

Using SocialTwist’s Tell-a-Friend marketing platform, Jamba Juice distributed a buy-one-get-one-free coupon to its 400,000-plus Facebook fans, including the option for fans to share it with their friends.

Vijay Pullur, founder and CEO of SocialTwist, says the Tell-a-Friend campaign accounted for 7–10 percent of Jamba Juice’s total traffic during the two weeks.

“That means the referral traffic was a significant percentage apart from the 400,000-plus Facebook fans that would have seen and clicked on that,” Pullur says. “The click-through rate [for referrals] … was 120 percent. There were more clicks than the number of referrals.”

SocialTwist’s platform lets brands promote a specific deal to online users, who then have the option of sharing the same deal with friends through 85 various social media and online channels.

Pullur says this form of word-of-mouth marketing is especially effective because users do not tend to share deals blindly.

“Referral click-throughs are more valuable because as a user, when I am spreading it, I’m bringing back high-quality users,” he says. “I know the person reading my message will surely be interested in what I’m sharing.”

In the age of social media, Pullur says platforms like Tell-a-Friend are critical because they combine technology with simple human emotions.

“Sharing is a very fundamental psychological phenomenon among human beings, and now, if you look at the social networks and the social platforms becoming more popular, sharing is the fundamental thing there as well,” he says. “What used to happen from person to person now is happening through social media.”

By Sam Oches