Park&Co

WOM strategy for developing buzz about Goodwills need for donations

Imagine a large box is delivered to your door. It comes off the truck just like any other delivery. You sign for it, bring it inside, rip it open and discover - nothing. No special surprise or gift. Just emptiness and a small map showing you the way to the nearest Goodwill. Would you instantly fill it up with donations? Maybe. Maybe not. But would you tell everyone you ran into that day about receiving a giant empty box in the mail? You bet. That's the real payoff behind word of mouth.

Word-of-mouth marketing may seem complicated, but at its core it's quite simple. After all, it's been around as long as we humans and is still one of the most effective ways to reach people.

It's all about giving them a reason to talk about you. In this case, the reason was a big empty box delivered to the door.

But boil it down, and this campaign is really just a direct mail piece. The difference is that instead of giving the audience a card or brochure, we gave them something inherently shareable. And that sharing can have an incredible multiplying effect on your marketing effort.

At Park&Co, we make word-of-mouth a key element of every campaign, so that every communication generates a conversation beyond the initial impact. Of course, it's easier to produce a print ad that just asks people to donate to Goodwill. But would anyone talk about it? Not that we don't love telling stories ourselves. It's just so much more effective when others tell them for you.

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