While adoption of formal word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing campaigns has been relegated to a few organizations, a new study suggests that a second wave of advertisers and marketers are prepared to employ a WOM approach to their efforts.

The study, Perceptions, Praactices and Ethics in Word-of-Mouth Marketing, was released today by WOM marketing agency BoldMouth and Osterman Research.

According to the study, 34.7% of respondents said they plan to u se WOM marketing. That could grow the total WOM activity to more than $1 billion. Challenges remain, however, as more than half of the organizations participating in the study said they couldn’t track the performance of a WOM campaign. Nearly 60% of organiations said they’d keep their WOM efforts in-house and not tap into outside expertise.

The 55-page study is available as a downloadable PDF file. BoldMouth also issued a press release covering more of the top-line statistics.

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