Article: Word of Mouth Takes Hold in Bank Marketing; To cut through the clutter of traditional advertising, many banks are employing word-of-mouth marketing strategies. Free pizza, anyone?

Byline: Anthony Malakian

Close is only good in horseshoes and hand grenades - well, and marketing, too. If a company gets a five percent response on a direct mail campaign, odds are the marketing department will be thrilled. For TV it's worse.

But there's one marketing strategy that is almost guaranteed to get a 100-percent response rate: free food.

If a man calls Paulie's Pizzeria, asks for a large pie and finds out the pizza is gratis thanks to a local bank, that man is going to remember that bank's name. And it's quite reasonable to expect that he will tell his friends and family about the free pie. Pretty soon his Aunt Beth has told her ...

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