Ron Butman's Page

Over the past several months, we’ve surveyed almost 5,000 consumers in 26 major markets to learn more about how word-of-mouth affects consumer decisions.  It turns out that word-of-mouth is three times more important than any other factor we measured (and 15 times more influential than advertising). In fact, 74% of consumers say a friends recommendation [...]

Buzfactor is my third startup which I guess officially makes me a serial entrepreneur.  I founded my first company PFN, Inc. in Cambridge, MA in 1994.  While at PFN, I pioneered the development of policy-based networking and distributed directory services which became the building blocks for many of today’s peer-to-peer communication networks.  These technologies represented [...]

Despite billions of dollars being spent on advertising, direct mail, promotions, and countless other marketing techniques, 78 percent of Americans say word-of-mouth recommendations — especially from family and friends — most influences where they shop and dine. Recognizing the impact word-of-mouth has on their business,  more than half of small business owners feel customer recommendations are more effective than [...]