A few weeks ago, Glenda blogged about Khan, a statistics “god” who saved many people from the evils of not understanding stats. In her post, she mentioned how second year students found out about Khan Academy through word of mouth. The friend who I found out about Khan from heard it from another friend. And once I learned about it I started telling other friends, and the chain just keeps going from there. I agree with Glenda when she says, “because of [Khan’s] high quality service, their users did the marketing for them.” I definitely would not have found out about Khan if it weren’t for word of mouth.
So, I ask myself again: what does this mean for marketing? Word of mouth means free marketing for companies. However, word of mouth can make companies either worse off or better off. Companies would of course prefer if word of mouth is to their benefit, but they have to deserve positive word of mouth. Khan Academy is only known to students as being a very useful resource because it clearly explains concepts and problems related to statistics. If Khan was just another one of those irrelevant stats-related YouTube videos, students would not refer Khan Academy to other students. Khan deserves its reputation, and it is definitely well deserved. According to Khan Academy’s Wikipedia article, “Khan Academy is a not-for-profit educational organization … with a stated mission of ‘providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.'” And, notice what I just did, without even realizing it? I am promoting Khan and suggesting that you should refer to him next time you are stuck on the various topics he has to offer: algebra, arithmetic, biology, calculus, chemistry, cosmology and astronomy, finance, geometry… the list just goes on. Let’s just say it’s worth it to check out Khan Academy yourself.
Here’s a clip of Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, on TED.
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