Improving referral management by quantifying market mavens’ word of mouth value

Market mavens reportedly play important roles in the purchase decisions of other consumers, but this assumption has never been tested empirically. Prior research has profiled mavens and explored their motivations, without ever considering actual referral behaviour. This investigation applies equity theory to the question of referral behaviour; it also represents the first empirical research into the referral value and customer lifetime value of market mavens. A large-scale survey of 2700 customers enables the authors to identify mavens and non-mavens and determine how they differ in terms of their referral value. The results indicate that market mavens, compared with non-mavens, engage in stronger referral behaviour that leads to more new customers and revenue for the firm. Theoretically the findings offer a better understanding of referral behaviour; managerially, they can help firms amplify their new customer acquisition efforts by indicating which customer groups they should target with referral reward programs.