Here’s a simple example of “word of mouth” advertising in practice.

A few months ago I published a novel about my favourite football team. It is set in 1910 – the year in which they went bust. (Fortunately they did recover, and came back to greater glories later).

Faced with the problem of getting publicity for the book, I set up a Google Alert so that every time someone mentions the name of that team in a blog etc, I get an email, and can go and look at the article.

Of course I get a load of false leads (people using the name but not talking about the club), but a lot of them come up good – and about two or three times a day I can get onto a site (be it a national newspaper or an individual writing his/her own blog) which talks about this football club in the past.

Since blogs generally include a comments section, I go in, and add some information that the writer of the original didn’t have, and then say, “there’s more about this in my book”. I then tell them the title and how to buy it.

So each day, my book gets another few mentions on the internet, and my website gets the same. As a result a few more people buy the book. But better, the web site address for the book gets established further and further – and since readers of each of these sites is there because of an interest in the club in the first place, the awareness grows.

The key point to remember here is that all this is cumulative. If four people get notes about my book today, then by the end of the week I might have 20 items up. Those items stay there and can be found by anyone next week and the week after. After a year there might be a couple of hundred extra mentions.

That will have the effect of improving the ranking of the web site on the internet, and some of those mentions will be seen by others who will pass them on to friends…

Now some people say that this is a ludicrous approach since it is so expensive. In fact, in terms of its effectiveness it has been proven to be about one tenth of the cost of Google Adwords.

If you would like to talk to me further about this sort of approach, give me a call on 01536 399 013 or alternatively email Tony@hamilton-house.com