Word-of-Mouth Metrics Glossary
Action
: What participants do to create, pass along, or respond to a WOMUnit; actions can be measured on their velocity, distribution/spread, and source diversity.
Amplified
: A structured and planned word-of-mouth campaign that a company facilitates.
Buzz
: Multiple simultaneous or continuous conversations about a related topic or subject.
Clarity
: A measure that determines if a message is understood by the receiver in the way it was intended by the sender.
Consumption
: The receiver absorbs the information, but takes no action.
Conversion
: The receiver completes desired action.
Credibility Effect
: Attempts to identify whether the information provided by the participant’s conversational partner made information heard from another source (such as the media) more or less believable.
Depth
: The amount of visual, written, or verbal information included in a WOMUnit that is presumed to increase message persuasiveness.
Episode
: A single individual unit of conversation or buzz.
Influencers
: The 10% of your market or industry who influence the majority of the purchases within your company. They could be customers, shareholders, other companies, market makers, analysts, researchers, or media.
Inquiries
: Identifies the likelihood that a person will seek additional information after a WOM episode, such as visiting a Web site.
Organic
: A natural (or organic) conversation among customers about your product or service.
Participants
: Creators, senders, and receivers; participants can be measured on their propensity, demographics, credibility, and reach.
Pass-along likelihood and behavior
: Ascertains the extent to which the participant will tell other people about the product or service.
Polarity
: A measure of the positive vs. negative content of the WOMUnit.
Purchase Likelihood and Behavior
: Assesses the likelihood of the participant to purchase or use the product or service.
Recreation
: The receiver creates a new WOMUnit.
Relationship Consequences
: Questions whether the WOM episode had an effect on the participants’ relationships when they engaged with their friends and family.
Relay
: The receiver redistributes the WOMUnit.
Return on Reference
: Shows the impact of satisfied customers on recruiting new customers.
Sentiment
: On a one to five scale, sentiment reflects the degree to which consumers are feeling negatively (1) or positively (5) toward the brand and attributes associated with the brand.
Thinking Change
: Assesses whether the episode resulted in a change of thinking or ideas about the product or service and the action(s) they plan to take.
Timeliness
: A measure of whether the WOMUnit arrived in time to be relevant to a specific campaign.
Topicality
: The degree to which the marketing message is contained in the WOMUnit.
Venue
: The medium or physical location where the communication takes place; venues can be measured on their total potential population vs. the actual audience the episode received.
WOMUnit
: A single unit of (media-agnostic) marketing-relevant information.
Word of Mouth
: To enlist target consumers to become senders of marketing-relevant information to other consumers, who will ultimately (hopefully) go on to buy products and services.
