Call it buzz or viral marketing...citizen marketing...or creating customer evangelists. By any name, word of mouth is the oldest, most trusted and, now, the fastest growing segment of last year's $254 billion marketing-services category.

Word of mouth marketing is anticipated to reach $1.3 billion this year, up almost 33% from $981 million in 2006, according to this study by PQ Media, an alternative media researcher. Spending on this emerging discipline was $76 million in 2001, PQ reports, and is expected to approximate $3.7 billion by 2011.

PQ Media defines Word-of-Mouth (WoM) marketing as "an alternative marketing strategy supported by research and technology that encourages consumers to dialogue about products and services."

Brand marketers have begun increasing their WoM media budgets, and are moving from test phase to implementations that support their integrated marketing campaigns.

Trends Driving Growth

One of the better Web 2.0 primers that helps set the stage for the current new frontier of business and marketing, is here at O'Reilly.   This snapshot nicely unites a slew of related concepts that all contribute to today's business climate:

For lots more explanation, and a comparison to the preceding web, read the full article.