Author: Ben Hartman

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As a writer for the Pen Crew, I’ve interviewed all types of business owners about their brands and the way they interact with my client’s brands and or services.  I’ve spoken with a gallery owner, a crime scene cleaner and even a man who makes hand made premium leather gun holsters.  For every business owner I’ve spoken with I’ve learned a great deal about their unique business and what it has to offer its’ customers.  In some cases I’ve learned about companies that I never would have thought existed and I most likely would not have learned about without having had the opportunity to interview them.

One of my favorite examples of how the power of word of mouth advertising can work effortlessly, actually has to do with the man who makes gun holsters.  I recently had the pleasure of speaking with David Prince of Prince Gun Leather, about his business’ interactions with a client of mine’s company.  After having had a pleasant conversation with David about his custom made gun holsters, I went ahead and checked out his website.  It was designed well and ended up being incredibly informative.  I don’t own a gun and I’m not in the market for one soon but I couldn’t help but watch a bunch of Prince Gun Leather’s Youtube videos as well.  A couple of days later after having corresponded with David some more I became inspired to reach out to a buddy of mine who is an avid marksmen just to direct him to David’s website.  I just wanted my friend to know that there was a friendly guy out there who was hand making his products and they seemed to be of excellent quality.  I knew that since Mr. Prince runs a one man operation, I figured there wasn’t much of a chance that my buddy would have heard about the company.  He messaged me back a couple of days later excited that I steered him to the site.

I would consider the exchange of info with my friend a great example of word of mouth advertising as well as a great example of what I consider passive advertising.  It wasn’t a commercial, banner ad or radio commercial that convinced me to reach out to my friend to share a product with him.  There was no call to action but I still reached to my friend.  What is even more interesting is the idea that in some cases the way organic forms of advertising propagate can be more effective than any search engine algorithm.  My buddy may not even have been considering buying a new holster but he now thanks to my third party verification he will most likely consider buying a Prince Gun Leather holster the next time he is in the market for one.  As an added bonus of the passive advertising, there is now a chance that he may pass on the brand’s info to a friend or relative and the cycle could repeat over and over.

At Pen Crew we focus on helping people tell their brand’s story as well as the story of businesses’ who use our clients’ goods and services.  We believe that sharing these stories with a larger audience will ultimately generate increased web traffic and leads because people inherently want to know about quality goods and services that are available for sale.  The days of consumption metrics for banner clicks are over and the era of sharing metrics is here.  No longer will advertising consist of shouting the most and the loudest, it will consist of communicating a brand’s total identity, including the identity of it’s customer base.  Our job is to take people’s thirst for information and fill their cup with valuable insights into the story of our clients’ brands through customer review marketing.

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