Best referrals come from word of mouth. What is your experience with word of mouth marketing?

Again, I'll go first: I have an small creative boutique ... All the projects we developed so far with this small business are the result of word of mouth referrals. I got phone calls from people I never met, who said that a friend of mine recommended that they call me to help them build an info website, an on-line store, a 3D logo, an e-mail or other type of communication materials. I'm always so happy to get these calls!
The learning here is: be passionate about what you do, be consistent in offering good services/products to your customers, let them tell your stories and learn from them.

I've had some experience with word of mouth marketing, but viral marketing has given me my best results. I'm not too familar with marketing jargon, so, is viral marketing part of word of mouth marketing.....................

Hi Lisa,
Marketing has gone crazy in terms of vocabulary -- all in all, word of mouth is when people choose to speak about your offering in a way which pursues other people to embrace your offering. There is positive WOM and negative WOM. Most of the time, positive WOM is the one who does the trick, but not only. I will write an article about this -- for there are some interesting observations about the effects of negative WOM.
Viral is most often done via internet, but not exclusively. E.g.: the video commercials that are being picked up by people from different websites and e-mailed to their friends.

Lorena,

Thanks for the info. I've had very positive experiences with both viral and word of mouth marketing.

I'm sorry it took me so long to respond. I've been away from Work it, Mom for too long. I'm looking forward to getting back into it...................