An Analysis of Comparing Effectiveness of Word of Mouth and Electronic Word of Mouth on The Registration of New Students at Bali State Polytechnic

This research goal is to analyze the effectiveness of traditional word of mouth (WOM) on the registration of new students at Bali State Polytechnic. The idea of word of mouth (WOM) communication has received a lot of attention both in business and academia. WOM traditionally involves personal communication between family, friends, and other people that knows each other. At present time, the rise and spread of the internet has lead the emergence of new form of word of mouth, electronic word of mouth (EWOM) which is nowadays considered as one of the most influential informal media among consumers, business, and the populations at large. While traditional word of mouth (WOM) and electronic word of mouth (EWOM) have both been shown to highly impact consumer behavior, there is deficit in recent research of how they compare to one another. Understanding which is more effective can be an input for the Bali State Polytechnic in determining a better promotion strategy to increase the number of students' applicants in accordance with the ideal ratio standard for admission. The sampling technique is probability sampling using the proportionate stratified random sampling method to establish criteria for respondents, the new students that is registering at Bali State Polytechnic. 94 respondents collected as sample in this research. Online questionnaire via GoogleDocs is used for collecting data and the analyzed using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results shows that there were differences in the effectiveness of WOM and EWOM methods on the registration of new students at Bali State Polytechnic. From the descriptive table, the average of WOM method is 14, 95 and EWOM is 14, 18. The results indicate that WOM is more effective than EWOM on the registration of new students at Bali State Polytechnic.