Inbound Marketing and Buzz Marketing are both just labels placed on a particular marketing strategy.  So what are the big differences beween Buzz Marketing and Inbound Marketing?

1. Buzz Marketing creates curiosity, but may not easily draw people into the sales funnel the way you hope.  Inbound Marketing is usually going to be more focused and lead people into a relationship.
2. Buzz Marketing depends on word of mouth and social media to spread the buzz.  Inbound Marketing is more strategic in publishing and search engines, although it also can benefit from social media and Word of Mouth.
3. Inbound Marketing is more likely to produce leads that are further along in the sale cycle.  With Inbound Marketing you are trying to help people that are looking for your product or service find you and learn from you.  Buzz Marketing will reach more people, but because it is buzz they may not be likely to purchase anything.  It is more of a welcome distraction.
4. Buzz Marketing (generally speaking) has more ups and downs.  Inbound Marketing is more strategic, measurable and gets better over time.

These are just some of the differences between Buzz and Inbound Marketing.  If you want to see what makes Inbound Marketing different, sign up for our Inbound Marketing Demo.

Buzz Marketing and Viral Marketing are great ways to drive traffic.  However, they are hit and miss strategies that will sometimes under produce and sometimes explode your visibility.

Many people I talk to think that Buzz Marketing and Viral Marketing are the answer to their problems.  This is very far from the truth – because you have to know what you want people to do before you try to get their attention.  You might not get two shots.

So you have to work backwards.  Start with the outcome that you want.  Probably it is lead generation and/or online sales.  If this is the case, spend your time perfecting your lead generation tools online before you worry about viral marketing or Buzz Marketing Campaigns.

You may even have to go back further.  Have you done the proper market research?  Do you know what the real problem your potential customers want solutions for?  You do not want to sell what you want to sell, you want to sell what people want to buy.

If you have a lead generation process online and you know that it is converting at 5% or 10% or 20% …. then you are ready to explore how to increase targeted traffic to your website.    If you are trying to do viral and buzz activities, this may take a few trys, but you know that when one of your viral marketing campaigns hits big, it will actually create customers and revenue.

If you skip this step and hit big with a viral marketing campaign, you might feel good about the great traffic, but without converting some of those to dollars what good did it really do?

This is a post from the past – While I could have just deleted this old news, I really wanted to continue to have it posted someplace.  We are very grateful to the people that helped us launch Buzzoodle many years ago.

Who is interested in generating Buzz for their organization using employees?

Over 100 business owners and key employees got introduced to Buzzoodle at a release party near Cleveland, Ohio on May 24th, 2005.

Free Coaching, Free Shirt and Free Food.  What can be better than a launch party!

With no knowledge of what was to be presented, over 100 people came to the event to see what all of the buzz is about.

The event ended at 9:00 and by 11:00 Buzzoodle had about 100 new users committed.  These are people that want to see their company soar.

This is the first of what will be many fun, interesting events.

The List

It is great if people market you. One way is when they talk about you / refer to you, but what I am talking about is real, intentional marketing. If you can become part of something that people care about, then they will actively market you and you will just soak up the benefit.

The key for doing this is to help and participate in a win-win relationship. Here are some ideas for example:

• Help write a book – The author promotes the book and people read about you in the book.
• Guest write an article or post on someone’s blog or website.
• Promote someone else via a testimonial, and they will frequently point to your testimonial or blog post to enhance their image.
• Free eBook or white paper – as part of a give away on another website.
• Speaking – You are the speaker. The event coordinator is out promoting the event and the speakers.
• Offer a service that enhances someone else’s product or service. They will upsell you to get a sale themselves. (For example, we are frequently part of other marketer’s proposals just for the Buzz Marketing aspect, and those marketing people always win the work.)

These are just some of the ways that you can leverage other people’s marketing efforts to get more visibility for yourself. If there is one common thread, it is the importance of a win/win relationship where you are providing value to someone that they can pass on.

What are some of the issues that can lead to holding back and not creating buzz?

• Not taking the time to identify some good stories to tell. – Know what makes you and your organization special before you need a story.
• Feeling that no one will want to hear what you have say. – People talk endlessly on meaningless stuff, some even blog on it. Just open up to people more frequently and it will get easier.
• Don’t like to sell. – Creating buzz is not like being a sales person. You do not have to convince them to spend money, just convince them to think about you and talk about you.
• You are shy. – If you do not like to talk to new people in person, I would suggest you work on getting more comfortable by achieving small successes. In the mean time, the Internet can be a better buzz tool anyway, so start there and work your way to personal buzz.
• Worried your organization will not approve of the message. – This is a sticky point if you are in a highly regulated environment, but if you take the time to plan out what you can say in advance, you can run it by your boss and be ready.
• Don’t like your organization. – If you do not like the place you work, start working on getting out. One way to do that is to create positive buzz about yourself and where you work, despite how you feel. Remember, few people hire a complainer. The positive attitude and great buzz you create for yourself will help you achieve your goal and your employer will still benefit.

If you have barriers to creating buzz for yourself and your organization, keep at it in little ways and build up your confidence. Creating buzz is fun once you make it a part of who you are.

No smoky rooms with lava lamps here.

Instead, consider having a Monday After-work buzz marketing party. Everyone volunteers to stay one hour and create some buzz. Break up buzz items among each other, here are just some examples:

• One person writes a press release
• Article writing for article repositories
• Website updates
• Mail hand written cards and letters
• Blog posts
• Seminar planning
• Podcast

Maybe the employer would like to provide some food and drink and use this as a team building exercise as well as buzz creation.

Here are some basic principles that will help you be more successful with buzz challenges. These success secrets are centered around building quality relationships and being generous. Keep these in mind when buzzing and you will be building good will and standing out from the crowd.

• Talk less than half the time. A good listener will always stand out more than someone that dominates a conversation and does not give others a chance to express themselves
• Build a personal network even if you do not need it. You may not be in sales and you may not need to know lots of people, but start behaving like a network is essential to your job and success. A strong network will always pay dividends eventually.
• Don’t be afraid of Link Love. Link to other people’s websites, blogs and other online resources and they will often link back to you.
• Don’t hold back. Connect with people when you have the chance. Say hi and smile more. Don’t wait for someone else to break the ice.
• Give generously. No, don’t give away your money. Give people value by making introductions with people they will benefit knowing. Give people information they will like reading. Give value and knowledge without worrying about how you are going to make money that day.

Buzz depends on people talking to other people. It starts with you. Build good will and great relationships and creating buzz will be a much easier task.

In business, we know that by focusing on a niche we can often be more successful. It is essential to Internet Marketing. If you try to be everything to everyone, you are a watered down jack of all trades and no one will see you as a specialist.

Many small business owners water down their attitude as well. They are afraid of offending someone and loosing sales.

By no means am I suggesting you go out and upset people, but take some time to figure out what attitudes make you who you are and take pride in them, even if not everyone agrees.

For example, I have an attitude that many business owners do not like. I believe that if an employee is not willing to spend 5 minutes a day on their own time creating buzz for where they work, it is grounds to fire them. I believe that is the owner’s responsibility to provide guidance, encouragement and incentives to do this, and that employees along with owners and management must do it. Period.

You would be surprised at how many owners have said “But my employees hate working for me…”

Then stop worrying about buzz marketing and fix that problem first.

That is my Niche Attitude. Love it. Hate it. I don’t care. (And yes, I know it is easier said than done.)

What is your niche attitude? Use the comment option on this blog to let us know, if you are brave enough.

This post is my personal opinion on the differences between Buzz Marketing, WOM – Word of Mouth Marketing and Viral Marketing.

There is so much overlap, that some people think that it is all just word of mouth marketing. Some people think Viral Marketing takes place only on the internet. Some people think Buzz Marketing is when you go out and pay people to fake buzz.

WOM – Word of Mouth – Word of mouth is really people recommending something to someone they know or writing about something in a public place, like the internet. Referrals from a friend are very likely to trigger a purchase, and this is the goal.

Viral Marketing – Making something viral does not necessarily mean someone is willfully recommending the product or service, as in word of mouth marketing. It could be that the message attaches itself to something that someone does, such as an email footer for hotmail, and spreads. Or it could be something that is easy to spread and people enjoy spreading it. Viral marketing spreads very quickly and with little effort once the marketing virus is released.

Buzz Marketing – Buzz Marketing I refer to as word of mouth marketing with the volume turned up. It is the art of getting more people to talk about you more often. Word of Mouth Marketing experts are often trying to do the same thing, but buzz has a stronger focus on increasing volume and passion about the topic.

Good Internet Marketers will use all of these to be successful on the web. Their Internet Marketing Strategy will include:

• Word of Mouth Internet Strategies such as a Refer a Friend website feature
• Viral Marketing Internet Strategies such as a video that is funny or options to easily Digg a page.
• Buzz Marketing Internet Strategies such as creating more content and connections that get people to link to them, write about them, reference them and email about them. One way is to be controversial or exciting, another way to achieve this is with volume of smaller buzz efforts.

With Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing, we prefer a disciplined approach to creating consistently more buzz over the long term with your existing advocates. My  book will address how to do this on a limited budget.

Sales leads can be generated with buzz marketing only if you are prepared. Buzz Marketing is not going to make people come and get in line to buy your service. It is going to create curiosity that will cause an investigation. If you are trying to generate sales leads with buzz and word of mouth marketing, consider the process a prospect will go through for your particular product or service.

To increase sales leads with buzz marketing:

• Make sure your website has clear, easy to find information about the product or service.
• Make sure it is easy to purchase online or request to request more information.
• Make sure your product or service name is memorable and you are ranked high on search engines when people start investigating.
• Have every staff member know how to handle a call from a sales lead.
• Make the purchase an easy to understand decision with multiple ways to find out about it.
  Acknowledge and reward people that do a referral and generate a sales lead for you.
• Be ready for a sudden increase in sales.
• Don’t let your buzz die. Keep generating a steady stream of buzz and word of mouth. When people hear about something from multiple sources they are more likely to investigate.
• Follow up with your sales leads quickly and multiple times. More than likely the buzz has made your lead curious, but you are not their top priority.

If you take the Buzzoodle approach and keep generating a steady stream of buzz, you will generate more sales leads. Be prepared to educate and handle the leads well, or you may be wasting your time.

- And yes, this is one of those many things I have learned the hard way.

Sales leads can be generated with buzz marketing only if you are prepared. Buzz Marketing is not going to make people come and get in line to buy your service. It is going to create curiosity that will cause an investigation. If you are trying to generate sales leads with buzz and word of mouth marketing, consider the process a prospect will go through for your particular product or service.