A brilliant group of marketers from brands, agencies and vendor platforms descended on Miami for the WOMMA Summit 2015. Here are the top 10 lessons we walked away with, but only because there wasn’t room for the uncountable lessons actually learned.

1. Top 10 Lessons from
WOMMASummit 2015
Melanie Taylor & Laura Graham
November 2015

2. Word of Mouth (WOM) is
too important for us to keep
ignoring it.
1
A $6 trillion dollar impact that
organizations don’t support with
dedicated staff, and that agencies and
vendors often make up metrics.
- Nate Elliott
Forrester Research

3. On the street WOM can
drive huge social response.
2
Three key steps:
1. Make people stop
2. Make them want to take pictures
3. Make it easy to share those images.
- Walter Levitt
Comedy Central

4. Content is about to explode
for brands.
3
• As more take the publisher role seriously, they
are re-staffing teams.
• There’s no ad-blocking for content.
• CMOs are thinking about content in all areas of
the business including reducing selling costs.
- Stephen Diorio
Forbes

5. You look AWESOME in a
museum!
4
And good storytelling helps spread
word of mouth. Great storytelling
helps grow business.
- Nick Gray
MuseumHack

6. Leveraging influencers is
important.
5
But it must be AUTHENTIC – in their voice, no
scripts.
Brands have to partner with influencers, not HIRE
them. It’s not a media buy where you are pushing
your message, but a collaboration to spread positive
word of mouth for the brand. There’s a clear
difference.
- Bethany Mota

7. Strong legal compliance
matters.
6
Because lying about material connection is
deceptive to consumers and the FTC is not
screwing around. Mentioning your connection to a
brand in your bio or in the YouTube description is
NOT enough. Be upfront, be clear, be transparent
and authenticity will win.
- FTC

8. WOM and social media influence
varies by category and buyer
journey position.
7
High heart and high effort categories are the
most influenced (like vacations) – which
means it’s hard for toilet bowl cleaners.
And the beginning and the end of the
journey is where social and WOM has the
most influence. Funnels be damned.
- Halverson Group

9. Communities matter more
than reach.
8
Finding the right voices to amplify your
message can be more effective [and cost
effective] than depending on high reach of a
star. That allows brands to join the
conversation, rather than interrupt it.

10. Things that DON’T work.9
1. The post and pray method (often need
paid or at least a strategy)
2. Hijacking irrelevant hashtags
3. Paid reviews and recommendations (also
against the law)
- Nate Elliot
Forrester Research

11. We live in streams.10
And often visual streams.
Listening, though important, is not enough.
You have to watch.
Watch what users are doing on platforms,
watch the content they are creating and
sharing. It is more than just text.
- Seth Rogin, Mashable
- Beau Avril, Google