Have You Heard?

It's true that the most effective form of marketing is still, and always will be, the word of mouth. Not only are you usually getting useful information needed in choosing a product, but it is usually coming from someone that you trust, or hold in some sort of high regard. If your friend tells you about some new soda that is the best thing they've ever had, chances are you are going to at least buy it once to try it. The whole method of sponsoring athletes or famous people to promote products is a form of indirect word of mouth marketing. I know for me personally, word of mouth is the only form of "marketing" that has a presence in my head when I am debating making a purchase or not. Word of mouth will make or break any business or product.

Yesterday I took my mom shopping at the mall in honor of mothers day. While we were walking through the large marble corridor that is the Sunrise Mall, we saw a shoe store that seemed kind of commercial, and not the kind of place that I would go in to even look at shoes, let alone buy them, but my mom wanted some sandals, so we went in there to take a look. While she was looking at some sandals, I went to go look at the 4 different styles of vans they carried with very low expectations. One of the pairs they carried I had never seen before, and they were exactly what I was looking for in a shoe. If I had to wear one pair of shoes for the rest of my life, It would probably be these shoes. So I bought the my mom some sandals, and bought myself some shoes too.

Later on that day, I met up with a few of my friends at the skatepark, and they too have never seen the shoes that I was wearing, and were asking me where I got them. When I told them, you could see the look of confusion on their faces, because they too would never go into that store to even look for shoes.

Guess how many new customers they are going to have today looking for Vans?

The Cyberspace Salesperson

Some times the “world wide web” feels just like that; it is a world wide web of lies and deception. People do and say things that they never would even consider logical in a real-life encounter. People lie about their age, wealth, and pretty much anything that would make one seem more desirable to the general public. Some people even lie about who they really are by displaying pictures of models or people of higher attraction than themselves. Hoping that some sucker will bite the bait and then get whatever it is they want from you whether it be money, time, or simply to be acknowledged.

The same goes for conducting business on the web. You see it all the time, “pin the tail on the donkey and win a free ipod” “lose 20 pounds in a week!” “free one-year membership”. When was the last time you were walking through the mall and some dude was just standing there handing out ipods to everyone that could perform a task so remedial that 3 year olds can do it? What about the last time you saw a gym just handing out free memberships to everyone that walked up to the door?

Just like most people, the cyberspace salesperson will make them and/or the product they are selling to be the greatest thing in the world so they can get what they want from you, and that’s your money. I would say that they want your business, but unless you consider business screwing innocent people over, it’s just stealing. They will say whatever they have to just to get you to click on the dotted button. Screwing millions of people on a daily basis, and as long as they keep paying x amount of dollars to website x, it’s just business as usual, or should I say stealing as usual.

What if there existed a world within a world, a world where business were ranked on legitimacy as opposed to their advertising budget. A place where people can honestly display their business, but not when they want to, but when you want to. A place where businesses are held accountable for doing similar atrocities and can’t get out of it by paying ridiculous amounts of money. A place where a mom and pop shop is just as easy to find as a corporate chain store. This place is WOWzzy.com and it is coming to a computer near you soon.