Today we live in a world where we are bombarded by numerous forms of communication; internet, television, print, radio, buses hoardings, posters, bus stops, the underground and the list goes on. Marketers today find themselves swamped with the pool of choices they have as opposed to a decade or two ago. However, despite the fact that marketers of today have more ways than one of reaching their target consumers, informal communication is still regarded as the most effective means of communication and creating a market buzz, and this is even more so now since tools like internet blogging provide the facility for expressed opinions to be communicated instantly and globally with a huge audience.

Our daily conversations are very product oriented, whether we are complimenting a friend on her dress or complaining to colleagues about a bad customer service at your local bank. Whatever, the topic of discussion maybe, we can constantly find ourselves engaging in word of mouth communication. This form of communication has proven to be an efficient marketing tool and can prove to be of great advantage for small businesses.

Information obtained from those we know tends to carry more weight than those received through informal channels such as the television or print advertisements. Today 80% of all buying decisions are influenced by someone's direct recommendation. The more positive information a consumer receives about a product or service from his friends or family the more likely he is to adopt it. Furthermore, the strongest predictor of a person's intention to purchase a product is the number of person's he knows who are using it. Most of the times it is the influence of others? opinions which holds more value than our own perceptions.

Word of mouth recommendation is especially powerful in cases where the consumer is relatively unfamiliar with the product category or services involved. Although most word of mouth campaigns take place spontaneously occasionally marketers create an intentional ?buzz?. However, sometimes the intentional buzz created results in bad buzz. For example, recently Microsoft launched its new Windows Vista software. In order to create a buzz Microsoft sent free laptops with the new software to influential bloggers in an attempt to get them to write about the new software. Instead however, the bloggers discussion was far from Windows Vista but focused on unethical marketing, morality and ethics of word of mouth recommendation.

So how does one make use of this new marketing tool and benefit from it?

Multinational companies such as Nestle, Sony and Nintendo have already started cashing in on this low cost form of advertising. It is now the smaller firms who struggle to be talked about and have their presence felt in their target markets.

For small businesses to capitalise on this method of marketing it is important to understand some of the fundamental drivers that cause people to chatter.

The following are some factors which drive word of mouth recommendation:

Person highly involved with the specialised type of business and enjoys talking about it.

Person might be knowledgeable about a product and use his knowledge in conversations to inform others ? often used to enhance ones ego and impress others on their expertise.

Person may initiate a conversation of certain products solely out of a genuine concern for someone else ? we often find ourselves motivated to speak about products we may generally not talk about to ensure our loved ones invest their money in the right products. This can be either to recommend or warn against.

The big question which now follows on is how one aligns public relations and marketing strategy to maximise word of mouth marketing.