Word of Mouth Advertising

In my short time here in Chile, I have been exposed to numerous types and amounts of advertising. Advertising through T.V. ads, posters, people outside restaurants asking me to try something and finally word of mouth, which has by far been the most powerful. I understand that in traditional marketing knowledge word of mouth is the most powerful thing people will encounter. However, nearly everything that I have ended up trying, from restaurants to night clubs, has been passed to me through word of mouth. So I have to ask: Why here, amongst the extranjeros, is word of mouth such a powerful thing. It could be because we are not familiar with the culture and environment, or that we can't speak the language and some of our most basic questions need to be answered by somebody who lives here in Chile.

To give an example, my favorite place to get completos, (of which I am now addicited too) was recommended by one of my teachers. I never had the desire to try one at the millions of places that I passed, until a person I trusted, said "They're good. Try one". That was all I needed. In contrast, a person in the United States would have to be much more convincing for me to follow through. In my country, I could simply find my own place for completos or get enticed by other forms of advertising. Liquor stores are also places here that run on word of mouth advertising. The other week, a Chilean friend here told me of a liquor store that was better than the rest, both cheaper and quicker. I doubted it of course, because every liquor store I had seen had been exactly the same, except for a name and storefront. However, when I arrived there on a Friday night, the line was out the door. What was interesting was that the store did not seem any different than the others I had seen. There was no large sign signaling a sale, nor a person trying to get people to purchase there. It seemed that everybody simply knew that this was the place. Somebody told them to go here, to this specific hole-in-the-wall, to purhase their liquor. What was even more intriguing, was that the customers consisted of as many Chileans as interchange students. More likely than not, the extranjeros were told to come here by somebody else. This liquor store, in addition to lower than normal prices, was able to achieve more through word-of-mouth advertising than any other way. Especially to get the extranjero students to shop there. This is why places in the tourism industry always do best when they get featured on websites and travel guides with people validating their business. If I were a small restaurant, or liquor store or travel guide looking to bring in more business, I would focus hard on trying to pick up word-of-mouth advertising. They could make promotions where if you bring a friend or recommend somebody, you will receive some sort of discount.

In conclusion, I have come to believe that the single most powerful from of getting foreign students to try something is word-of-mouth. I do understand that word-of-mouth could be considered outside the realm of marketing, something inevitable that could help or hurt a business. However, it is such a good form to get people to shop, that any marketing or business plan should include strategies to develop word-of-mouth exchanges.