My Granny Flo was a Baker in two ways. Firstly her maiden name was Baker, and secondly she helped to run the Village Bakery. She was born in 1888 and died one month off her ninetieth birthday in 1978, always wore a flowery apron and walked with her feet facing 10 to 2.
In her day "word of mouth marketing" was the only way to advertise. Back in the early 1900's, as a woman it was pretty unusual to drive the bread van, her bread was delicious, the service reliable and so the bread round thrived.
Her customers told their friends because the bread was worth talking about, and on a local level she enjoyed success. Word of Mouth marketing has continued to play its part but we have had the power of advertising to dilute it somewhat. For the last few decades it hasn't necessarily been the bread thats worth talking about that has succeeded, its been the bread MOST talked about in terms of advertising. The brands that have won out have been the ones that advertise more often - the ones with the biggest budget.
We now get so much more variety in terms of conventional media channels and the online media explosion it is not so easy to just blast a message out there through a couple of channels. Gone are the days when "The Two Ronnies" had regular viewing averages of 17 million people! (Got any hose?)
These days if you want to watch a video about "Maintaining a Wormery" (!!) on YouTube, its no problem. "Word of mouth" marketing is gaining momentum again - not necessarily in physical communities but certainly in online communities where you can be on either side of the world but talk about a product or service to your community just as if you were stood on the side of the road having a chat and waiting for the Baker.
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