Word-of-mouth marketing to emerging black middle class women in South Africa

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Word-of-mouth is fluid and happening everywhere. Networks are invisible and sensitive to organisational behaviour. The post-modern consumer is sceptical of advertising messages. Friends' advice is trusted more. People love to be entertained and for a story to travel it needs to be sticky i.e. have simplicity, credibility and value. The product or message must be relevant and appropriate to their lives. Influencers exist in every product category and marketers could utilise them authentically to infiltrate network hubs. However, a contagious product is needed from a trusted, loved company with a solid reputation first before any buzz or referrals could commence. Communication between the company and the subject ought to be ongoing and personal. Companies must not just aim to please, but exceed expectations in an innovative way to gain attention. A clear differentiation from competitors stated in an unconventional and memorable way is a potent combination to make an impact and be remembered.Although the black middle class presents itself as an ever-growing goldmine, this buoyant part of the South African market is still underplayed and sometimes ignored by marketers. They are indeed different from the white middle class due to their frame of reference and the context of their background and should be approached differently in a marketing sense when truly gaining insight into their attitudes, values and belief systems. Coming from a tripartheid background, black middle class women are gaining economic and influential ground by the day. Word-of-mouth is an integral part of their life and network culture, especially standing with one foot in a Western world and another in their traditional African roots and culture, thus trusted advice from relevant sources is now more needed than ever. Understanding her dreams, being able to catch the fleeting moments which provide her motivation and collaborating with her is imperative for marketers to understand if their product or brand wants to be taken with her on her success journey. As she embraces technology more and gains access to the virtual world, creating and upholding digital interaction with her becomes increasingly important.In trying economic times, conspicuous consumption by the black middle class consumer is being put on the backburner, yet it would still remain a priority for this segment of the market for years to come as the quest towards self-actualisation is ongoing. Brands must be educated to follow up on their word-of-mouth campaigns, and provide support and appreciation to their pool of network influencers. Although measuring word-of-mouth is difficult it could be measured by objectives like sales-targets, with online activity being much easier to measure. In trying economic times an insightful and impactful word-of-mouth campaign could have a much greater return on investment than utilising the same old traditional media approaches.Media planning should commence from the customer‘s point of view and not from the company‘s point of view. By doing this the customer is treated like a true stakeholder of the company. When doing media planning, historic ways of making target market contact should be ignored and planning should be done on a completely clean slate thus to enable media planners and marketers to think innovatively. By incorporating these healthy media planning practices the door is opened for a possible word-of-mouth initiative to commence and thus a competitive advantage could be gained.The purpose of this literature study, which includes expert interviews, is to explore current word-of-mouth literature and tools available in light of globalisation enabling virtual communities and overlaying this with psychographical models available in South Africa, particularly focusing on the black middle class woman‘s evolvement sustaining cultural roots and traditional networks yet opening up to a changing media environment. The research question for this study thus is: How can brands and organisations utilise word-of-mouth marketing to reach and resonate with the modern emerging black middle class woman in South Africa today?