University Study: Facilitating Smartphone Sales Through Word of Mouth

This report investigates the influence of word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing on smartphone sales, analyzing its impact on consumer behavior and brand reputation. The study, based on a survey of 100 respondents and a review of existing literature, explores the strategic advantages of WOM, particularly in the digital age where electronic WOM (eWOM) on social media plays a significant role. The research examines the effectiveness of WOM compared to other promotional strategies and considers the evolving nature of consumer interaction in the smartphone market. The report's findings highlight the importance of positive customer experiences and online reviews for driving sales, especially among younger demographics. The analysis includes both quantitative data analysis using SPSS and qualitative analysis from secondary sources, concluding with recommendations for smartphone brands to leverage WOM effectively and insights into future research directions. The report also includes an introduction to the topic, a literature review, methodology, data analysis and findings, and a conclusion.

Running head: ARE SMARTPHONE SALES FACILITATED BY THE WORD OF MOUTH
Are Smartphone Sales Facilitated by the Word of Mouth?
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1ARE SMARTPHONE SALES FACILITATED BY THE WORD OF MOUTH
Abstract
In word of mouth promotion or marketing the users of a particular product brand share their
experience with their family members, relatives, friends, co-workers and even neighbours.
The theory of strategic business marketing defines that the word of mouth implies the
improved brand reputation when an existing user recommends another potential user to use a
particular product or brand. Therefore the aim of this research is to examine whether
Smartphone sales are facilitated by the Word of Mouth. The focus of this research is both on
the influence of word of mouth on the consumer behaviour for Smartphone brands and the
potentiality of getting benefited from this strategy from the perspective of any Smartphone
brand or business organisation.
Total 100 responses were chosen randomly to conduct the survey for collecting primary data.
The analysis methodology of this research is based on a mixed approach, where the primary
data collected from the survey have been analysed numerically and the supportive secondary
data collected from literature review have been analysis by qualitative method. The
quantitative data analysis of this study is based on the descriptive statistical analysisas well as
the Pearson’s correlation analysis. For quantitative analysis the SPSS version 2.0 data
analysis software has been use.
It has been found from the primary or field based results that youth population is more
dependent on the electronic word of mouth rather than conventional face to face review
sharing. Therefore, a confident brand can increase their sales through allowing more users to
share their review through online platforms such as social media.

2ARE SMARTPHONE SALES FACILITATED BY THE WORD OF MOUTH
Table of Content
Chapter1: Introduction...............................................................................................................4
1.1 Background......................................................................................................................4
1.2 Problem Statement...........................................................................................................5
1.3 Research Aims Objectives...................................................................................................6
1.4 Rationale and significance...............................................................................................6
1.5 Research Structure...........................................................................................................7
Chapter 2: Literature Review ....................................................................................................8
2.1 Introduction......................................................................................................................8
2.2 Word of mouth.................................................................................................................9
2.3 Consumer behaviour in Smartphone purchasing...........................................................10
2.4 Other effective promotional strategies to stimulate sales..............................................12
2.5 Modernisation and further evolution of Word of Mouth...............................................13
2.6 Summary........................................................................................................................16
Chapter 3: Methodology .........................................................................................................17
3.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................17
3.2 Research philosophy......................................................................................................17
3.3 Research Approach........................................................................................................18
3.4 Research design..............................................................................................................18
3.5 Data collection process..................................................................................................19
3.5.1 Primary data collection...........................................................................................19

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3.5.2 Secondary data collection.......................................................................................20
3.6 Population and sampling............................................................................................20
3.7 Data analysis techniques................................................................................................21
3.8 Ethical consideration......................................................................................................22
3.9 Summary........................................................................................................................23
Chapter 4: Data analysis and Findings.....................................................................................23
4.2Quantitative data analysis for survey..............................................................................25
4.3 Findings and discussion.................................................................................................31
Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendation ..........................................................................33
5.1 Conclusion......................................................................................................................33
5.2 Linking with objectives..................................................................................................33
5.3 Recommendation............................................................................................................34
5.4 Limitation and future scope...........................................................................................35
References:...............................................................................................................................36
Appendices...............................................................................................................................38
Appendix: Survey Questionnaire.........................................................................................38

4ARE SMARTPHONE SALES FACILITATED BY THE WORD OF MOUTH
Chapter1: Introduction 2000
1.1 Background
Word of mouth is one of the most strategic and powerful marketing method. In
strategic business marketing the word of mouth implies the improved brand reputation when
an existing user recommends another potential user to use a particular product or brand
(Berger, 2014). Smartphone industry is on the other hand one of the major part of electronics
industry that needs effective marketing or promotional strategy. Word of mouth is a In word
of mouth promotion or marketing the users of a particular product brand share their
experience with their family members, relatives, friends, co-workers and even neighbours.
Surprisingly, this experience sharing triggers the socio-cognitive psychology which further
develops trust. From the business aspect word of mouth has a significant strategic advantage
(Berendt, Uhrich & Thompson, 2018). The strategic advantage of word of mouth strategy is
that it does not cost any extra expanse from the business organisation. However, to maintain a
good reputation in consumer filed the customer relation has to be stronger, that costs very
little when it comes to having a huge amount of profit from sales. With the evolution towards
digital lifestyle the definition of world of mouth has been also changed to some extent. In this
digitalised era where almost all people who have access to electronic devices are heavily
involved in social media based information sharing, the preference of using a particular brand
is also spread easily across the globe. Nowadays, how consumers interact with each other has
massively changed, due to the vast change in technology and wide spread of the internet that
facilitates to consumers to share consumption-related advice by getting engaged in online
activities.
It is not just consumer products that are highly pleased customers recommend; they
are quotes holders for B2B companies. Mental construction and up-to-date memoirs for

5ARE SMARTPHONE SALES FACILITATED BY THE WORD OF MOUTH
clients are important components for creating favourable phrases. It has also been discovered
to form your mind and to build social ties with potential customers, thanks to an increasingly
small publicity consumption, mixing mobile tours, promotional deals on the estate with gifts
and marketing. Thus the internet brought up a less personal source of communication yet a
universal one called electronic word of mouth. In this era word of mouth could affect a
business reputation in positive as well as negative way. A positive feedback through word of
mouth can easily sprayed across the globe making a huge number of potential customers
interested to purchase a particular brand. On the other hand, a negative feedback either by
user experience or by social media based negative marketing can also be spread first across
the globe reducing a significant number of existing customers, who are planning to purchase
a product of a particular brand. Therefore, word of mouth is very strategic as well as very
risky tool to be used for brand imaging. When it comes to electronics brand, according to
Chen & Ann (2016), only 65% user experience sharing through online platform are being
done regarding the electronics brands and their quality. In this situation as an electronics
product Smartphone may have higher dependency on word of mouth.
1.2 Problem Statement
As discussed in the background word of mouth is one of the most effective business
strategies, which can also increase the risk as well. However, how it could be effective or
risky is transparent for electronics industry, because of several available research papers on
this very topic. On the other hand, there are very few researches on the effectiveness of word
of mouth for smartphone brand. As a result both business organisations and consumers are
anticipating a double-standard impact of this emerging business strategy when it comes to the

6ARE SMARTPHONE SALES FACILITATED BY THE WORD OF MOUTH
Smartphone business. On the other hand with the enhancement of globalisation in almost all
Smartphone brands the competition level also left the regional or state level and reached the
international level. With international level of competition, a new strategy is highly
acclaimed in an business industry, especially in Smartphone manufacturing industry. This is
why the marketing strategies and the Smartphone brands are two essential part of this
research. In this situation a research on this topic would be very helpful for any business as
well as the potential consumer to realise the theoretical as well as the practical effectiveness
of word of mouth for Smartphone brands.
1.3 Research Aims Objectives
As discussed earlier the problem is currently highly emerged in unknown facts about
word of mouth and its effectiveness in the marketing as well as purchasing behaviour for
Smartphone brands. Therefore the aim of this research is to examine whether Smartphone
sales are facilitated by the Word of Mouth. Hence the focus of this research is both on the
influence of word of mouth on the consumer behaviour for Smartphone brands and the
potentiality of getting benefited from this strategy from the perspective of any Smartphone
brand or business organisation. For this, the research further aimed at the finding the next
possible effective solution for utilising word of mouth marketing strategy for the benefit of
the business in a long run.
According to the aim of this research the following objectives are developed where
each of the following objectives acts as a milestone:
 To explore the practical evidences of utilisation and effectiveness word-of-mouth
 To examine the effectiveness of word-of-mouth on the Smartphone sales
 To find out strategic implication word of mouth as a marketing tool for Smartphone
brands

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1.4 Rationale and significance
Currently, almost all the brands of electronic devices, especially Smartphone brands
are using social media and other digital platform based promotional method as a major
marketing tool (Elseidi & El-Baz, 2016). At the same time, the implication of digitalised
word-of-mouth cannot be neglected. However, some confusion is still distorted the picture
that can signifies the validity of word of mouth strategy over the other indirect marketing and
promotional strategies. Specially for Smartphone sale the effectiveness of word-of-mouth in
terms of conventional process as well as using digital platform, is still not clear because of
very limited number of research on this topic. Very few researches have been done on the
effectiveness of word of mouth to influence sales margin of Smartphone brands. As a result,
the relationship between these two factors and the underlying factors that are acting to
formulate the outcomes are still unknown. Hence this research will help to understand
whether there is any significant interrelation between word of mouth and the sales margin of
Smartphone. After having clear perception, it could be recommended if word of mouth could
be used as major marketing and promotional strategy to increase the sales unit of Smartphone
brands.
1.5 Research Structure
This research or this final draft of the dissertation contains mainly 5 sections namely
Introduction, Literature review, Methodology, Analytic Results and conclusion. This
introduction section discusses the purpose and rationale of this research. In the next section
the secondary data collected from the litterateur review will be presented in thematic format.
After literature review the methodology of this research mentioning the instrument, research
strategy will be discussed. After the methodology section the data analysis and findings will
be presented followed by the discussion section. The fifth and the most important part of this
research is the conclusion where the research will show the final verdict or outcome of this

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research with primary and secondary evidences. In the following diagram this sep by step
procedures are presented.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
The purpose of this literature review is to collect the secondary data from various
secondary resources such as article, journal, books, news reports, industry reports, marketing
researches and others. The literature could be done in systematic review, thematic review,
narrative presentation and other types of secondary data review styles. However, the literature
review has been done in this section with the help of thematic presentation. At first the
secondary resources was collected and the data was sorted based on the subtopics. These
subtopics were marked as the themes. On the basis of these emerging themes the following
literature review has been developed for this dissertation paper. In this brief literature review
the major themes are the word of mouth, consumer behaviour while purchasing Smartphone,
Evolution of word of mouth strategy and other promotional activities except word of mouth
to increase sales. The aim of this literature review is to collect relevant secondary data based
Chapter1Chapter2Chapter3Chapter4Chapter5

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on the objectives on this research. This literature review section also consists of the literature
gap that is presented at the end of this literature review section.
2.2 Word of mouth
In word of mouth promotion or marketing the users of a particular product brand
share their experience with their family members, relatives, friends, co-workers and even
neighbours. Surprisingly, this experience sharing triggers the socio-cognitive psychology
which further develops trust. People, who receive more positive information through their
regular life communication, show more interest of using that product. Word of mouth can be
indirectly stimulated through specific promotional activities where consumers can be more
emotionally bounded (Berger, 2014). Sponsoring social event, social media based marketing
can also influence the word of mouth to some extent. With the evolution towards digital
lifestyle the definition of world of mouth has been also changed to some extent. In this
digitalised era where almost all people who have access to electronic devices are heavily
involved in social media based information sharing, the preference of using a particular brand
is also spread easily across the globe. According to King, Racherla and Bush (2014), this
phenomenon is also known as social media feedback based marketing. Considering the
theoretical concept of word of mouth, this social media based recommendation is also
considered as a modernised method of Word-of-Mouth.
Any organisation that can encourage individuals to share data on a item, trigger or
company can market word-of-mouth. It is helpful both in profit and in non-profit activities
such as political campaigns. For example, a business that manages apartments can encourage
locals to take their buddies and relatives back to the business if they are present on the ground
to stay. If a person refers to the Management Corporation enters a fresh lease, the business
can offer encouragement for these references by providing the owners a money reward or

10ARE SMARTPHONE SALES FACILITATED BY THE WORD OF MOUTH
another gain (Chen & Ann, 2016). Word-of-mouth is also a common medical method used to
communicate clients among various experts. A doctor might suggest a certain dental
procedure for nurses just as this can introduce clients to experts such as orthodontists and oral
surgeons. Often this is focused on the current networks of physicians and dentists and the
notoriety of each practitioner. In particular, political campaigns rely on word of mouth. They
also promote people to speak to others about doing the same thing besides persuading people
to register for one specific applicant or problem (Faustine, 2015). This is often done by
offering material to individuals such as e-mail newsletters, internet photos and social
networking sites. The strategic advantage of word of mouth strategy is that it does not cost
any extra expanse from the business organisation. However, to maintain a good reputation in
consumer filed the customer relation has to be stronger, that costs very little when it comes to
having a huge amount of profit from sales. With the evolution towards digital lifestyle the
definition of world of mouth has been also changed to some extent. In this digitalised era
where almost all people who have access to electronic devices are heavily involved in social
media based information sharing, the preference of using a particular brand is also spread
easily across the globe.
From the business aspect word of mouth has a significant strategic advantage. The
strategic advantage of word of mouth strategy is that it does not cost any extra expanse from
the business organisation. However, to maintain a good reputation in consumer filed the
customer relation has to be stronger, that costs very little when it comes to having a huge
amount of profit from sales. On the contrary, the limitation of word of mouth strategy is that
it can act against the business as well. According to Wilson, Giebelhausen and Brady (2017),
A bad consumer experience could also be spread very fast while making huge reduction of
brand reputation as well. Hence, to maintain the effective benefit from word of mouth a brand
also needs to focus on resultant experiences of the users. Nowadays, how consumers interact

11ARE SMARTPHONE SALES FACILITATED BY THE WORD OF MOUTH
with each other has massively changed, due to the vast change in technology and wide spread
of the internet that facilitates to consumers to share consumption-related advice by getting
engaged in online activities (King, Racherla & Bush, 2014). Thus the internet brought up a
less personal source of communication yet a universal one called electronic word of mouth
2.3 Consumer behaviour in Smartphone purchasing
Consumer behaviour is a significant consideration for measuring the potential
business growth. The consumer behaviour depends on some external influences and some
internal influences as well. External influences are perceiving promotional advertisements,
gathering feedback about a brand and others. The internal influences are the customer needs
and expectations (Elseidi & El-Baz, 2016). At the same time the previous experience of a
customer also influences their behaviour on a particular product of brand. For choosing a
Smartphone brands the basic needs of a consumer could be the technological features of a
particular product such as the camera quality, the screen resolution, memory and processing
power. On the other hand, for choosing a Smartphone brand consumers has some other
expectation regarding the durability, consumer support and others. According to Faustine
(2015), the choice of a consumer can also vary depending on the socio-economic and
demographic background of the customer. On the other hand, from the beginning of 20th
century the emerging electronic brands has been creating elevated amount of market
compaction, which has been also increasing the urge of using more effecting marketing
strategy to increase brand reputation among existing and potential consumers. Currently the
Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, LG, Nokia, are the most popular Smartphone brands.
According to Chen and Ann (2016), in 2012 consumers around the world said they trust
recommendations from friends and family (earned media) above all other forms of
advertising in case of choosing a Smartphone brands. After focusing on the rapid