Word-of-Mouth Influences Eating Out the Most
People don’t trust advertisers, but they trust their friends.
According a Myers Publishing study conducted in 2007, 17 percent of respondents said they trusted advertisers. A Gallup poll conducted in 2008 found that just 10 percent of respondents said advertisers could be trusted.
On the other hand, a Bridge Ratings survey conducted in 2007 found that U.S. consumers viewed their friends, family and acquaintances as their most trusted sources of information. A TNS poll conducted in 2009 found that recommendations made by friends were the most trusted source of information across all media.
Of all purchases U.S. consumers make, the food they eat at restaurants is influenced the most by what they hear from their friends, according to BIGresearch in an October 2008 study.
According to the study, 52.9 percent of all respondents said word-of-mouth influenced the restaurants they ate at. This was followed by electronics (44.4 percent), grocery (40.7 percent), home improvement (35.2 percent) and apparel/clothing (34.3 percent).
This order was the same for white consumers, though for African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics, apparel/clothing purchases were influenced more by word-of-mouth than home improvement purchases.
“Leveraging word-of-mouth marketing initiatives might matter more to some retailers and product sellers than to others—but whether to a greater or lesser extent, word-of-mouth matters, always,” said an eMarketer post about these findings.
eMarketer also highlighted a survey conducted by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business which was commissioned by the American Marketing Association in late February.
The survey found that excellent service was the top customer priority in the next 12 months according to U.S. marketers, with 70 percent of the response.
This was followed by building a trusting relationship with 65 percent, offering superior product quality with 60 percent, low prices with 55 percent, superior innovation with 27 percent and brand with 25 percent.
According to a survey conducted earlier this year by AdMedia Partners, 77 percent of respondents said they would boost their spending on word-of-mouth and social media marketing initiatives in 2009.
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