A year or so ago I emphatically rejected the idea of using shills to conduct paid word of mouth marketing for your law firm.  Why?  Because I believe that to be positioned at the top of your market you must endeavor to conduct all aspects of your business in an authentic and genuine manner.  I still believe that.

 However, I intend to further investigate the concept of paid word of mouth.  It is a hot trend in the advertising/marketing world and a burgeoning industry.  What is happening in many agencies is that armies of teen-agers are paid to go into internet chat rooms and promote products and services as well as movies and celebrities.  My big objection is that they do not reveal that they are paid shills.  Therefore, this particular application does not interest me.

There are a few more examples that I believe have better viability because there is an honesty in that the “workers” are obviously paid to promote the word of mouth.  For example, to promote USA Network’s TV series “Traffic” (about drug cartels) they hired a NY agency (Media Kitchen) to affix stickers with the show name, logo and air date to 50,000 real $1.00 bills and get them into circulation in bars in New York and Los Angeles beginning early January.

Trump’s show “The Apprentice” also utilized this strategy when they paid to have 5,000 fake $100.00 bills with Trump’s face handed out on New York City streets two days before the show’s premiere.

I am contemplating the potential for combining our Client Advisory Panels with motivated word of mouth initiatives.  However, I firmly believe that as we test this strategy it must be conducted in an authentic and genuine manner.