Word of mouth (WOM) and viral marketing is a critical success factor for new businesses with no advertising money. A Lucid Marketing study looked at how consumers use WOM to determine how businesses can better market their products. They found that key influencers had high household income and full-time employment.

Keyfindings:

"Although the men surveyed made more daily contacts than the women, women were more likely to share a positive experience with a business (91% to 83%) or recommend an enjoyable product (95% to 89%). Full time employees made substantially more daily contacts than those not in the workforce. Those with household earnings of more than $100,000 were more likely to make recommendations than those earning less.

As an example, the study showed that women tend to prefer verbal communications to other forms of contact, whereas men tend to prefer email. Thus WOM campaigns should be communicated to each group according to these preferences."

Additional conclusions

" * Marketers should consider employment status when allocating resources for targeting consumers. Full time employees make as many daily contacts as part time employees and stay-at-homers combined! A consumer package goods manufacturer might consider sampling its products in or near their targeted consumers' workplace rather than, or in addition to, traditional in-home sampling. For purposes of the study, "contact" was defined as "any type of direct communication a person has with another person including spoken to in-person, by phone, or written via email, or instant/text message."
* Stay-at-homers tend to make more daily visits to chat rooms and message boards. Including web site addresses and promotion codes in marketing efforts, making it easy to pass this information along online, is a tactic that works well with this group -- provided there is perceived value.
* Marketers often use household income of $75,000 as an affluence threshold but, in this study, there was no apparent increase in WOM activity for people with incomes from $75,000 to $90,000. The results showed an acceleration in WOM likelihood for households earning $100,000 and above.
o As expected, but not to this extent, technology has a significant influence on how different generations foster WOM. Here's a glimpse into the future, as well as today. Younger generations are creating personal online media to a greater extent, with nearly half (49%) of Gen Y having built a website and one quarter having their own blog. When reaching out to their peers, one-quarter visit chat rooms or message boards daily and 17% of their contact activity is done through instant or text messaging.
o Gen X and Boomers tend to use email more often and are more likely to spread positive WOM. These groups are ripe for viral email campaigns.
o An overlooked and interesting area for marketers is reaching SilverBirds through message boards and chat rooms. They have more activity in those areas than Boomers and nearly equal activity to Gen X. This is likely due to their desire to reconnect with family and friends, and to discuss health, medical and other issues of aging with peers and professionals."