…

I know and we’ve put together an extensive offline plan (but alas we can only bring the horse to water) which our client has to now follow-through on.

If I had a nickel for everytime they didn’t…

As a matter of fact everything starts with the brand identity (soul) and ends with the brand identity. Which is why I named the company “Brand Identity Guru”.

As far as ROI goes I say it depends. It depends on the message, target audience, list etc. If all those things are on target then 4% would be very small. But usually people screw something up and that’s why the average is low.

I still believe in a multi integrated branding campaign (which includes word of mouth).

And you’ll be happy to know that we’ve taken your Fiskars model and applied it to one of our new clients. Once things get closer I’ll let you know but I like what you’ve done with them and we’re trying something like it with a twist.

We don’t focus just on WOM. But we aren’t a “full service agency.” We are an identity company. Because of that, everything starts with digging in and finding the soul of a company. If a company comes to us and says, “I want a website.” We tell them that we can do that, but only as an extension of an identity development engagement. In other words, we aren’t a website company. If they just want a website (or enter DM, radio spot, etc. here), they’ll be better served by a web development company. Make sense?

If you’ve looked at our portfolio, you can see that we have done traditional forms of advertising for our identity clients throughout the years. But sparingly. It’s for AWARENESS. Word of mouth is for CREDIBILITY. Besides that, the average ROI for those things is less than 4%. Not very effective in most cases.

“Our motto is we fit the best strategies and tactics into the clients budget but we never play favorites. This separates us from ad agencies and marketing companies.” I challenge that. All of the 76,000 marketing and advertising agencies in the US will tell you the same thing. They have no favorites between print and broadcast because they still make money on the placement of those traditional forms.

We are a brand identity company as well and as you know we see things somewhat differently most of the time so I’ll pose a question.

Why do you focus just on word of mouth as an identity company? Other tactics do make sense for clients. Like Direct mail, radio, outdoor advertising etc.

Our motto is we fit the best strategies and tactics into the clients budget but we never play favorites. This separates us from ad agencies and marketing companies.

Am I wrong or do you offer more tradional services as well?

It’s a positive step in the right direction of a company and it’s representatives have a focused “elevator speech”, vision statement, mission.

Being in a similar business I have discovered on of the biggest challenges and opportunities is getting content from clients in order to develop their marketing pieces. Before we even begin the technical part of the process we make it a point get to know our potential clients. It’s worth it to take a little extra time at the beginning of the process instead of facing potential misunderstandings later on.

BTW, I found your “26 years” at the beginning interesting. For a long time I thought BOF was a result of name change or evolution or focus or partners. I had been familiar with Phillips and Goot and then it became Yellow Dog in the mid 90’s. (I actually interviewed their in during that time) Interesting the BOF is older than I thought.