A study on word of mouth communication as a marketing strategy

Although there are lots of word-of-mouth communication studies, arising in the marketing literatures in recent years as an important topic in the marketing, in marketing literature abroad, there is a lack of studies on word-of-mouth communication carried out in Turkey. Word of mouth communication is a type of communication occuring naturally without an effort, about products and services, which occurs between customers, and effects consumers? purchase desicions. There are two groups of consumers in relation to word-of-mouth communication. One of them is market mavens who are more sophisticated and capable of struggling in the marketplace and likes to share own experiences with others and eager to continuously give advice to others regarding shopping chores. The other one is made up of those consumers who are likely to take advice, instead of self-search, in their purchase desicion. This thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter examines marketing communication issues in marketing, the second chapter is devoted to examine word-of-mouth communication process more specifically and the last chapter presents the findings of survey carried out on 916 respondents from six different cities in Turkey. According to the findings of the study; 1.The frequency of the consumers using word-of-mouth variates according to the type of the products and services. Additionaly it?s observed that, word-of-mouth communication is quite influential on the consumers? purchasing decisions. People usually choose to transfer their feelings of dissatisfaction to other people via word-of-mouth communication, instead of complaining to the firm. 2.It?s possible to classify consumers in two groups according to their use of word-of-mouth communication. One of these, named market mavens, are more informed about shopping. The others are more inclined to take advise of others and relatively less informed about shopping. Many statistical differences were observed between these two groups of consumers.