Story By Joe Zlomek

When real estate licensees serve their clients well -- really well, with over-the-top satisfaction -- the word-of-mouth endorsements they'll receive practically guarantee them future business. And when clients are poorly served, prospects who've heard negative reviews about agents' lousy performance end up remembering and avoiding them.

Those are common-sense conclusions, surely, but they're also bolstered by the results of two new studies, one done at Miami University of Ohio, the other at Texas Tech University, 

The results from both were announced yesterday (Dec. 13, 2007), and both are being published in this month's edition of the Journal of Advertising Research. The two studies were conducted independently and, to be honest, deal with topics other than real estate sales. But their importance in understanding how people assimilate what they hear about the job performance of others has wide-ranging implications that can be extrapolated to real estate or almost any other career field.

First, about good news.

The Miami University study concludes that old-fashioned word-of-mouth has high value in advertising, particularly in a digital world. Its findings indicate consumers respond more to messages that are unique and trusted ... in other words, that come from people they know and whose opinions they respect.

In addition, the folks in Ohio say, everyone likes to spread the word. People know they can influence the consumer behavior of others through word-of-mouth -- what new-age marketers think of as a form of viral communication -- and so are "eager and willing to pass along well-designed and relevant messages."

To be sure, study co-authors James Coyle, assistant professor of marketing and interactive media studies in Miami’s Farmer School of Business; Elizabeth Lightfoot of CNET Networks, and Ted Smith and Amy Scott of MedTrackAlert, all had a bigger picture in mind.

Their work compared the effectiveness of widespread viral communication to messages distributed by a handful of people who should be "in the know," elite groups defined as "highly connected influencers." Trying to track down influencers, notably those in online social networks, takes a lot of effort, and relying on them ultimately may limit the power of an advertising campaign. Personal viral techniques like word-of-mouth, complimentary instant messages, and e-mails that urge "You gotta try this!" were far more successful. Their conclusions are based on a survey of website visitors, in-depth interviews, and analysis of website usage patterns.

There's no new ground being broken here, co-author Coyle acknowledges. “It’s always been this way," he says. "What’s changed is that digital media makes it so easy for everyone to forward messages to contacts within their social networks. For most everyone, digital media just extends a very human desire to help others.”

The study debunks a popular and current advertising practice called influencer marketing. It claims to be able to sway the masses toward a product or service based on recommendations from a few thought-leaders. Co-author Smith, who also is MedTrackAlert's president, derides influencer marketing as "mysticism."

Next, about bad news.

The Texas Tech study  looked at negative political ads, and determined they worked because they had both physiological and psychological effects on voters. Negative advertising engages "emotional circuits" that help people avoid unpleasantness, says Samuel Bradley, an advertising professor at Texas Tech’s College of Mass Communication.

Bradley worked with James R. Angelini of the University of Delaware and Sungkyoung Lee from Indiana University. They focused on the preattentative reflex of the eye, known as the "startle reflex." When exposed to negative political advertising, test subjects experienced larger reflex reactions, indicating their desire to move away. Reflex reactions were far smaller when subjects were exposed to positive or neutral ad messages. It's "the very beginning of the fight-or-flight response,” Bradley says. “The body is saying, ‘This is bad.’ So the preattentive reflex is bigger and the body starts preparing to move away.”

Moreover, people remember negative ads because the brain finds them arousing, Bradley adds. Because viewing the ads isn’t a life-or-death situation, the brain has time to store the messages and recall them for future reference.

So, in summary, whether it's online or in print: If people speak well of your performance, that's a very good (and profitable) thing. And if people say you aren't worth their time because you don't deliver what you promise, that's a very bad (and unprofitable) thing.