Generating exposure through recommendations

[jmjinks]

I was wondering something, and wanted to know how realistic this.

I've read about and heard about different studies which pertain to e-commerce. Some of the studies indicate that the best exposure in not necccessarilythrough the search engines but word of mouth. Women in particular account for the majority of purchases on the internet. A good share of purchases are not from sites they find through searching Yahoo but because someone recommended a certain site or product to them.

The comapny I work for (shall remain nameless to protect the innocent ) is an online shopping network and we have generated a good amount of exposure through this method. We run and operate an
e-mail reminder service. People will fill out a form and ask to be reminded about birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, corporate events, etc. Ten to fourteen days before hand, the person gets the reminder and a few possible gift suggestions. Women, in particular, are seeing the recommendations, and clicking and buys gifts this way.

My question is, has anyone here used such a service, and did they find it useful?

Does anyone feel that there woudl be a way to use this marketing technique to promote services or content?

Just curious.

[RKuhle]

Sorry, I'm not understanding your question. Well, I understand it fine, but it seems like the system that your company is using is working out great, which answers your question.

What am I missing?

[jmjinks]

My main questions was, can you think of a way to implement a similar system but have it geared towards services?

Since people are requiring a gift and that's why they use the gift recommendations. But services would not neccessarily apply as a good gift item. I was wondering if you could think of another way to use a similar service but to offer services that you would recommend.

[KeithMcL]

I think the only way you will get people to recommend your service or the services you provide on your site, is if they are invaluble to people, which is not easy. It wouls probably also to need to be a free service, because if it's not, someone else will release a free version sometime or another.

[MartyWinston]

There's another way to accomplish this.

PR.

(If I say any more, I'd be spamming).

[jaiem]

I've seen scripts that can act as a reminder service for visitors. Usually chron-based. Of course that opens issues of spamming accusations. But a clever idea for gift services.