How to reach the world, in six easy steps

Word of Mouth is Nuclear Marketing, not Viral Marketing.

Word of mouth can spread at explosive rates, not the usual “viral” rates that most people think in terms of.

Yes, sometimes, the word spreads slowly at a very small “infection” rate, spread by many contacts, until it reaches a “tipping point” (see the explanation in the endnotes of The Tipping Point). This is the viral model, and it can infect an entire population pretty fast. If every person only infects one person, there is no growth. But if one person infects an average of 1.01 persons, the whole world will get infected pretty fast, as long as there is a lot of contact.

That’s the model that most word-of-mouth marketers are stuck on.

But it’s the wrong model most of the time. When an idea spreads initially so slowly, it’s usually because it’s not exciting, extraordinary, unusual, remarkable — WOMworthy. People don’t talk about such things very much. You don’t get spread. The idea fizzles out.

The real model is not the geometric progression that Gladwell talks about, but the explosive model of the nuclear “chain reaction.”

You can't begin to understand the explosive spread of word of mouth until you get it. This may help. As you follow along, first remember the Power of WOM:

• You are exposed to thousands of commercial messages a week and only act on one or two.
• You are likely to act on about one in 3 recommendations from friends, colleagues and trusted advisors.
• Therefore, WOM is hundreds to thousands of times as powerful as conventional messages from advertising and salespeople.

WOM spreads at a rate that is almost unimaginable, but let’s try:

Let’s say that 25 people tell 25 other people about a new product.

1. That’s ONE cycle of 625 people — that’s the Neighborhood. Now, everyone in the neighborhood tells 25 more people.

2: 15,625 — that’s he average Town. My town of Nanuet, NY is about that size. So now, the whole town knows. They each email or call 25 other new people.

3. That’s 390,625 people, the size of a medium-sized city like Minneapolis or Oakland. Now the whole city knows. (Also, that’s half of all the doctors in the country. So, it only takes three cycles to reach all of the doctors who write substantial amounts of prescriptions!) Now, the whole city emails their 25 friends in other cities.

4: Now we have 9,765,625, the size of a Megalopolis like New York. Now, everyone emails 25 more people.

5: That reaches 244,140,625 people, roughly the adult population of the United States.

6: That’s 6,103,515,625, the population of the entire WORLD

So, to market to all doctors, or to an entire city, you only need three cycles of 25 people telling 25 people! In the pharmaceutical industry, all you would need is 25 clinical investigators telling 25 super-specialists, telling 25 specialists or generalists, and you’ve got it covered, with multiple hits from trusted colleagues instead of distrusted salespeople. That’s why I wrote the letter to Pharmaceutical CEOs that’s getting sent around and why that letter will make a major impact.

To reach everyone in the US, all you need is five cycles. Actually, 3 or 4 cycles are all you really need to reach everyone who is worth reaching, multiple times. Realize that these aren’t the usual “hits” from advertising. These are meaningful conversations among trusted friends, who have no reason to lie to each other.

Now, I realize that in real life there are many duplicates, creating the impression that “everyone is talking about it,” — which they are —' making action even more likely.

So, rather than a mathematical table, think in terms of the Silverman Six Easy Steps to Reach the World:

25 X 25...

Neighborhood' > Town > City > Megalopolis > Country > World.

For the mathematically inclined:

1. 25 ² = 625 -------------------- Neighborhood
2. 25³ = 15,625------------------Small town -- Pearl River, NY
3. 25 ⁴ = 390,625---------------Medium City -- Minneapolis
4. 25⁵ = 9,765,625-------------Megalopolis -- NYC
5. 25⁶ = 244,140,625----------US Population
6. 25⁷ = 6,103,515,625------- World Population

This is pretty astounding, and worth passing on: So, can I get 25 of you to pass this on to 25 people? ;-)

George Silverman
Word-of-Mouth Marketing Speaker and Consultant
Author, The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
www.mnav.com''''' wordofmouth.typepad.com

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