First, the strategy: Anna Gerard wrote up a nice story about a fish market near her home in Australia.
"People here have this deep belief that the closer the seafood shop is to the water, the fresher the seafood."
Read how her favorite seafood shop has closed the loop and made the customers feel like the water has come to the shop.
Now, the Society: I joined the Society for Word of Mouth last week. SWOM (members are Swommies) was started about a month ago by Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell of Church of the Customer fame. It’s free and it’s a fun group of people. The SWOM website uses the Ning platform so it’s full of social niceties. You get to build your own page and contribute to forums and a group blog. Come on in, the water’s warm!
Word of mouth advertising is a great long-term strategy but it still takes a proactive advertising to kick it off. Businesses with a small advertising budget can take advantage of sites like http://www.adwido.com and social networking to get the exposure they need.