Oprah Winfrey is a Wimp
18. Feb, 2008 
5 Comments
Oprah Winfrey is considered one of the most powerful and influential people in America. One mention of a product on her TV show can drive millions of extra sales and guarantee overnight success. But there is one force so powerful, that it makes Oprah look like a wimp in comparison… what is this mysterious and mighty force?
Word of Mouth is the force…
Word of Mouth is now officially more powerful than Oprah, even in her strongest department (Books), word of mouth still triumphs.
Take a look at these stats from Global Marketing Insight regarding book buyers:
Recommended by a friend or family member 55%
Best sellers list 34%
Reviews from African-American critics 20%
Essence best sellers list 18%
Recommended by a book club 17%
Recommended by Oprah 12%
Reviews from non–African-American critics 12%
Recommended by Oprah’s book club 11%
Reviews from a non–African-American newspaper 9%
Reviews from an African-American newspaper 8%
Other 25%
As you can see, Oprah has an impressive 12%, but word of mouth claims top spot with a mind-blowing 55%.
Amazingly there are many businesses that would pay millions of dollars just for a quick mention from Oprah, yet word of mouth is almost 5 times more powerful, valuable and effective.
What can we learn from this?
If you want to make sales and drive traffic, there is no more powerful technique on the Internet. Word of Mouth has a trust element that simply cannot be bought. If you are not already using buzz marketing and word of mouth marketing in your business, then you are missing out, so stay tuned and we will provide you with some tips and techniques to bring Word of Mouth Marketing to your website or business.
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People want the mention on Oprah as it is a launching pad to then spur referrals. If no one knows about you in the first place, no matter how good you are, you will not get referrals.
I cant believe you said that in the title! You will get sued lol.
Buy your right, word of mouth is so much better.
Interesting post as always with you Dean
I would have to say your right in a lot of ways, John Chow could send you 12% of your traffic but compared to a 55% you could get from word of mouth. Word of mouth is more important, will look forward to seeing a post about Word of Mouth Marketing.
Michael – That’s a very accurate comparison, John Chow and Oprah. A mention on one’s blog/show will definitely raise awareness, but only for a while, but word of mouth marketing is where the real money is at.
Yeah, word of mouth is absolutely great, but it does take time, especially with so much buzz going around already. The best thing is to do your best to come up with something with supreme demand that will storm the internet……then go with word of mouth. As for Oprah, I think she’s almost untouchable in every way. I wonder what her real secrets are LOL!
Awesome post,
JAP