Abstract:
Undermining the effectiveness of traditional marketing communication tools leads companies to seek
alternative ways to reach customers. Consumers appear increasingly to lack confidence in
advertising content, therefore the reliability of the advertising message decreases. So far, literature
on the subject of word of mouth (WOM) has been largely devoted to the process of WOM
communication from the consumer’s point of view. But since companies are able to stimulate, as
well as employ word of mouth as one of the instruments of marketing communication, they may be
perceived as both senders and receivers in this process. Therefore, the question is – can companies
manage the process of word of mouth marketing within the framework of marketing communication
structures, and if so – how can they do that? The aim of this article will be to identify various ways
of taking advantage of word of mouth by companies on the basis of source literature and own
studies. Own research will be conducted using the CATI method on a nationwide sample of 500
representatives of the polish companies. For the classifications of enterprises due to their activity in
the WOM management k-means cluster analysis (quick cluster) will be used, assuming 4 clusters.
The project was funded by the National Science Centre on the basis of the decision DEC-
2012/07/D/HS4/01761.
