Writing and research

International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2014 1 ISSN 2250-3153

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Word of Mouth and Its Impact on Marketing

Fatima Naz

Department of Business Studies, Kinnaird College for Women Lahore, 93-Jail Road Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract- As a result different aims were drawn; the initial aim of

this research is to study the attention of the customers in word of

mouth to power their online purchasing activities. The next aim

is to analyze the people influenced by interest of word of mouth.

The following aim is to examine the marketing behavior bearing

in mind the internet progress and word of mouth, their

consideration for word of mouth marketing.

In the form of research questions the aims of study are:

 How community utilizes and multiplies word of mouth information about online purchasing experience?

 How communities perceive word of mouth marketing?

 How marketers take word of mouth phenomenon and how they handle it?

Index Terms- Belief, Power, Inspiration, Self expression,

Positive attitude to online marketing, Forwarding of contents,

Purchasing decision and Standard marketing.

I. INTRODUCTION

xact from the start, humans have constantly communicated

with each other, sharing and talking about everything,

everywhere any time. In this mode, it is really easy to share point

of views, experiences, disagreements, or constant advices and to

build up informal communications. Therefore, people can easily

explain their last experience without any trouble and give their

experience about the product, the website, the eminence of the

service etc. The past thirty years have seen the fast progress of

the Internet and the different way to communicate with each

other building sharing of information easier and more efficient.

Within a high-speed moving globe and in our modern customer

society, where everything is altering rapidly, where products and

services are fast becoming out of date, and where firms suggest

to the customers an ever more diverse collection of products and

services, customers need to face the brutal competition that

engages companies to magnetize customers. Consumer buying

behavior is becoming more observant what they buy. (Lange&

Elliot, 2012). Even if most of the time they will license the

cheapest ones with the top quality, it is not actually simple to be

sure that it is the good one. People gather concerning information

and opinions about product from people before purchasing.

(Attia et al, 2012)

‘’Word-of-mouth is defined as any positive or negative

statement made by customers experiences about a product or

company, which is made available to a mass of people and

institutions using the Internet (Hennig- et .al. 2004). Word of

Mouth (WOM) can also be clear as the method of

communication between two noncommercial people and without

benefit in the business they are talking about (Taylor et. al, 2012)

Following consuming the product, more and more

consumers are keen to response, creating an exchange of

information between consumers and increasing more and more

the Word-of-Mouth fact. Appreciation to the Internet, consumers

have the widest likely cause of information to be successful in

this way. A bundle of blogs, forums and social networking

websites in the World Wide Web present customers the means of

getting and sharing this kind of information (Chu & Kim, 2011).

Thus, the Word-of-Mouth trend developed firstly through Face-

to-face communication's way is now also available by means of

all the technologies together with the Internet, most important

consumers to the e-Word-of Mouth trend (Fakharyan&Elyasi,

2012). The Internet enhanced the technique to be in touch with

people around you or around the world. Online word-of-mouth

became more admired with better use of online social network

tools such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. Communication

vehicles such as face-to-face connections, phones, mobile

devices, and even e-mails are replaced by social networks (Ho, J.

Y., & Dempsey 2010).

Marketing is a significant division of the companies'

strategies. These strategies are more and more inventive and

disturbing in people lives. Currently, Word-of-Mouth is also a

great aspect in marketing and more above all in e-Marketing. The

diverse tools used by marketers in order to pass on information to

likely customers are present everywhere on the Web, from

advertisements to opinion on blogs or forums. (Hung & Li,

2007). Whether companies like it or not, people chat online about

a variety of products and services. Companies frequently are not

successful in trying to stop public online discussions of their

products by limitation the use of their company names and

brands in discussion groups (Huang, J. H., & Chen, Y. F,

2006).WOM also called E-WOM (Electronic Word of Mouth)

can be originating in effective communities: consumer reviews,

blogs, forums, and social networks (Yi-Wen Fan & Yi-Feng

Miao 2012). Communal norms or opinions in the effective

communities affect approval of eWOM, mainly between regular

internet users (Kozinets, et. al. 2010).

It is ever harder to make a choice to purchase a computer or

even a coffee machine. Many people take friend’s advices and

remain alert of all the substitutes given to them. Many analysts

say that the person can make the accurate and stable decision

(Ren et al, 2013). Most persons found that social set-ups have a

greater influence on others than themselves, and that third person

influence undesirably on individual’s behavioral aim related to

word of mouth communication (Cengiz& Yayla,2007).. Online

word of mouth occurs just among few people, but a message is

sent by people on various discussion platforms where many other

users notice it directly.

E

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II. LITERATURE REVIEW & HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT

Early studies on WOM have shown that it has an important

impact on customer decisions (Allsopet al.2007), and helps to

present a good post-purchase wakefulness. Word-of-Mouth

might have different kinds of special effects in the present world.

Initially, it could be optimistic or unconstructive effects.

Secondly, it could have an effect on the product, the brand, the

service or even the employees' performance within the company

(McGriff, J. A, 2012). Word-of-Mouth's effects might have

dissimilar targets. A successful product sharing could be affected

by positive word of mouth and lack of negative word of mouth

(Mcgriff, J. A, 2012). An additional target could be the entrance

of a brand in a fresh market. If the brand has not a good

representation by the Word-of-Mouth distribution, it will be

really hard for the company to set off its products and services in

this fresh market.

In the earlier period, online shopping has crossed the space

to become primarily well-known, particularly among the little

and wealthy (Chai, S., & Kim, M, 2010). Nonetheless, due to the

quality concerns and other customer supposed risks (Thorson

&Rodgers, 2006), the challenges of e-shopping, mostly with

respect to awareness and doubt, have begun to surface (Sharma

&Arroyo, 2012). Consumers who want to purchase products

from online markets, they need positive, dependable, and honest

evaluation about products. Online systems and electronic-Word-

of-Mouth (e-WOM) help customers make such up to date

decisions.

At present new technologies are all over the place around

us. These new technologies altered our way to communicate and

to interconnect with people. People now use more technology

platforms such as email, chitchat, phone or social networking

websites (Herr et. al. 1991) than previous to, when they used

face-to-face communication or mails. Usability of these

technologies makes them more eye-catching and facilitates

people's communication. The communication's technology,

which is the most motivating for Word-of-Mouth, is the social

networking websites in World Wide Web. These kinds of

websites could be finding in the form of blogs, forums or

personal pages such as Facebook or MySpace (Vilpponen et al

2006). They are typically created by some people who broaden

the site to their own personal networks and steadily the number

of people following and concerned in this site grows up

(Thurauet. al. 2009). (Brown et. al.2007) studied the impact for

an individual to control another individual by social networking

websites. They accomplished in the importance of this

technology to share out an idea from individual to individual and

then from this individual to one more individual. Furthermore

they ended that someone with few friends will have a better

impact on his friends when he will pass on a message than

someone with a lot of friends (Brown et. al. 2007).

In corporation, a significant effect of Word-of-Mouth is the

customer purchase (Osmonbekovet. al. 2009). From short-range

effect to lasting effect, Word-of-Mouth communication is a good

way for enterprises to catch the attention of new customers. It is

achievable to measure it thanks to Word-of-Mouth referrals and

to the sign-up processes (Thurauet. al. 2009). If customers never

heard about a brand or if they never thought to buy a product or a

service by this brand, the actuality that some connections suggest

this brand to them will most likely affect their behavior and

guide them to choose this brand over another one. A lot of people

seek out recommendation from other people before buying

something. The first persons that you will talk with are family

members, and then you will give more response to someone with

experience and information in this field. The persons most

affected by this are people in towering uncertainty-avoidance

culture (Osmonbekov.et. al. 2010), who need to be more at

easiness and who will ask advice from their dependable relatives.

One of the strongest networks of communication in the market is

word of mouth (Allsop et al). Word-of-Mouth has a dissimilar

impacting people that are without a fundamental knowledge of

this part of business .When you do not have any experience in a

part of business you will be more biased by someone who will

tell you something positive or negative about a picky brand.

(Goldsmith, R. E., & Horowitz, D 2006).Alternatively if you

have your own standard brand you will be less tempted by

another brand that a comparative advises you to purchase.

Though Word-of-Mouth communication about the brand that you

are usually using is negative you will be perhaps extra affected.

H1:Customer perceived belief, power; inspiration in their

links is absolutely associated to their engagement in WOM

behaviors in making decision on the basis of marketing

H2: The self-expression of WOMmessage has a straight

positive outcome on the possibility that the message will be

mutual with others.

H3: High (versus low) perceived WOM interactivity will

give way further positive attitudes to the online marketing i.e.

website, impressions of the applicant, and voting intentions.

H4:The need to belong will positively affect the forwarding

of Contents through all possible means of communications i.e.

electronic media, print media, social media etc.

H5: Word of mouth positively affects the purchasing

decision and standard marketing

III. METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research design:

Impact of word of mouth on purchasing behavior of

communities will be seen in this research. And for that

descriptive study will be done on consume attitudes and

behaviors in relation to shopping, personal productivity,

advertising, and entertainment.

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ISSN 2250-3153

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3.2 Population and sampling:

To confirm that the sample selected is representative of the

population, stratified sampling will be used in this research

where the population will be broken down into categories, and a

random sample will be taken from each category. For this study,

a well-designed questionnaire will be exercised. The

questionnaires will direct to 150 respondents constituting the

sample size.

3.3 Data collection:

Data will be collected through the use of primary or

secondary sources. Primary research design will be included both

quantitate and qualitative method ie structured questionnaire and

unstructured interview will be conducted. Questionnaire will help

to view the public opinion more broadly. Interview will give an

excellent result due to respondent’s expertise experiences.

Secondary data will be included help taken from articles,

research papers, blogs, etc. related to word of mouth impact on

purchasing behavior of online communities.

3.4 Procedures and measures:

The questionnaire will be circulated to different respondent.

The respondents will be from two different ecommerce websites.

The interview questions would be like marketing behavior of

company, word of mouth impact on overall marketing, changes

in marketing due to awareness of internet. Questionnaires would

be like how customer responds to changes of new

product/services. The second questions would be like customers

are satisfied from marketing purchasing experience, the last part

would be like how customer perceive word of mouth, and they

can give any additional comment regarding word of mouth

online purchasing behavior. Responses will be used to test the

hypothesis

The respondents will be given four options to choose one

from 4.ordinal scale will be used and Likert scale will be used

whether they agree or disagree with the statements.

IV. CONCLUSION

Impact of word of mouth on marketing arises due to social

media where people see comments of the people who did

shopping from such places. They see whether or not it would be

effective for them to buy such things or not.so maketers become

aware of people choices now and they try to improve or produce

better quality,due to customers loyalty.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We authors would like to thank respected Dr.Fareeha Zafar

for her valuable guidance through understanding of subject and

professional guidance which help us in the completion of this

term paper.

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AUTHORS

First Author – Fatima Naz, Department of Business Studies

Kinnaird College for Women Lahore, 93-Jail Road Lahore,

Pakistan. Tel: +92-42-9203788