Woden

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the former CEO and founder of Clear Ballot. Then, I became a partner and senior VP of strategy at VOATZ, a company that worked on online remote voting.

What challenge were you trying to address with Woden?

VOATZ hired Woden to help us create a communication plan. Online voting was a controversial topic, and we needed their team to help us blunt the opposition to online voting.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We did a series of initial briefings with Woden as the first part of the engagement. Our team provided them with information we gathered; we also gave them links to articles that were written about us and about the problem of online voting. It was extensive since we wanted to bring them up to speed on the issues within our industry.

Then, we worked on the project using their methodology, which they called the Hero’s Journey. It was a standard method of telling a story, and their output was almost book-length — it had a couple of hundred pages. In it, they broke the project down into various strategies. 

These include website and advertisement strategies, though we didn’t use the ad strategy. Their team also provided a storyline for each of the strategies. Meanwhile, the communication plan took the reader through a series of steps that followed the Hero’s Journey. Simply put, they provided content that allowed us to tell our story through stories. 

How did you come to work with Woden?

When I was the CEO of Clear Ballot, I received unsolicited emails. Most of them talked about marketing services, but VOATZ was the only one that clicked with me. When I retired from Clear Ballot, I contacted VOATZ to find a position where they could use my services. Then, I found Woden through them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $20,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our project lasted from December 2018–July 2019. 

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We were happy with what we received from Woden. Our company wasn’t driven by traffic, but the project helped us sharpen our focus and reorient the way we addressed our market. In that sense, Woden helped us more with strategy as opposed to simply marketing and advertising. They gave us a fresh set of eyes to look at a thorny problem. 

How did Woden perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated through emails, Zoom calls, and phone calls. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Woden had a clear approach to explaining strategies and stories. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there weren’t any. I was truly happy with their work; in fact, I’d use them again.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you have a complex service or product offering that’s hard to position with customers, then Woden can help. Their approach to storytelling is an excellent way to explain your product to customers. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of an independent claims adjusting firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with Woden?

We needed someone to tell the story of our company.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Woden has been providing us with branding and creative solutions to better represent our company to prospective clients.

We went through a discovery phase to give them a better understanding of what we do, so they can develop our story and brand guide, as well as our marketing materials.

What is the team composition?

I believe there are five people assigned to our account.

How did you come to work with Woden?

I wasn’t part of the onboarding process, but I do know that they worked with one of our clients and they were presented to us as a reference.

We decided to hire them because we felt comfortable with how they took the time to know our company better.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $23,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in July 2021.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The feedback from our team has been very positive, and the information that Woden has provided has been really easy to digest and put into actual practical use — so overall, the partnership has been wonderful.

How did Woden perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re fantastic from a project management standpoint, as they’re able to deliver their tasks on time.

Additionally, their communication has been excellent, and we’ve never really had any questions about the progress of the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were impressed with how much effort they invested in understanding our company during our initial conversation. The team that they brought to the project is also outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any constructive criticism at this point in the relationship.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to just be open with them and provide them with access to your internal team, as well as your carriers.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a professional services provider for the property and casualty insurance industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Woden?

We needed help with marketing and advertising. We had to work on the formal outing of our story and how we’d structure content to deliver it. We’d engaged with other companies, but as the business leader, I didn’t have the time or capacity to do it. I felt it’d be more effective to outsource that work.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We just finished the initial phase with Woden. They delivered the storybook with 100 pages of information and branding. The process was personal; they interviewed everybody in the company and summarized what we do. They engaged with our team to ensure that the story they delivered was truly our own.

We’ll then start working on the website and various campaigns. They’ve begun recommending the content for the site.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 5–6 people, including Rachel (Creative Services Director) and Logan, Fred, and Andrea (Brand Storytellers). Andrea was our project manager, but she transitioned and took a different opportunity.

How did you come to work with Woden?

Fred reached out to me. I get many solicitations on LinkedIn, but he stood out. Honestly, I was the worst person to market to, but he worked extremely hard and stuck with it.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in September 2021, and our partnership is currently ongoing. We’ll have to pause with them because we just hired a VP of business development. We want him to get a bearing on everything that Woden has done to date and then have him leading our work with them in the future.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

From a time standpoint, we haven’t had the opportunity to move the project forward — that’s not their fault. However, I’m confident it will create a tangible outcome when we utilize it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have spent my money.

Overall, Woden exceeded my expectations from beginning to end.

How did Woden perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management has been fantastic. Honestly, I’ve been awful at communicating with them. Nonetheless, they’ve been agile in their communication methods — they’ve emailed, called, and texted. Woden’s team has found the pattern to best communicate with me.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their personal engagement is outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there isn’t anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Prepare yourself to invest time. Also, you need to be open to seeing the culture within their organization. The process can reveal massive deficiencies through talking with employees.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CMO of a military support platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Woden?

We needed someone to provide us with brand research to make our company story more succinct.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our project started with a discussion among our internal team and stakeholders concerning our branding problem. Woden then took all of our feedback from each individual involved and presented us with a brand story, guideline, and messaging.

What is the team composition?

We worked with their CEO and accounts executive.

How did you come to work with Woden?

We came across their company through online research.

How much have you invested with them?

I believe we invested around $12,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2017–April 2018.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

It’s hard to define the impact they contributed, but we’ve been able to grow our revenue and increase our NPS after working with Woden.

How did Woden perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was quite good, particularly with how they managed multiple internal and external stakeholders.

We mainly communicated through email and phone.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were impressed with how they understood our needs to deliver a solution and how they engaged our various stakeholders.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they could improve on as we were quite happy with our experience working with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise involving your external stakeholders in the development of your branding, as they can be an important part of the process’s success.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of strategic programs for Rollins, a parent company for a family of global pest control brands. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Woden?

We wanted to clarify our mission and purpose. We’ve been in business for decades, and we’ve evolved quite a bit over the last 20 years. We’ve grown from serving only one brand to supporting a family of brands around the world. Because of that, we felt it was time for us to revisit our mission statement. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Woden used the art of storytelling to figure out our brand’s purpose; they basically turned it into a science. To elaborate, they initially conducted extensive research, looking into our brand and the publicly available materials from our company. 

The team studied not only our brand but also our marketplace and competitors. On top of that, their resources conducted additional research by interviewing 50 of our employees. Then, they surveyed 4,000 respondents from our workforce. 

At present, we’re still in touch with Woden. Although we’ve finished the main part of our engagement, we’re still wrapping things up in the project. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with one person who serves as our main point of contact; this person is our day-to-day and week-to-week project lead. Our team also works with Ed (Managing Partner). A team of several other people also work on the project. 

How did you come to work with Woden?

I stumbled upon Woden online, and I wasn’t even exactly looking for them. I simply came across one of their content assets. That was how we started the engagement. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $50,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

While we can't put an ROI on a brand story, we’ve achieved a much more clarified purpose after working with Woden. Our company now has all of the essential building blocks for our story, which they’ve helped uncover. 

Moreover, the value of their work for us is huge because if people don’t know our story, our company won’t know what business strategy to use. In other words, Woden has truly helped us cement our purpose and evolution. They’ve also uncovered what’s compelling about our firm.

How did Woden perform from a project management standpoint?

Woden’s project management was great. They’re on top of everything, and the team has done a good job. To communicate, we’ve used a combination of methods. We’ve had Zoom meetings, emails, and phone calls. Our engagement has been intensive, and a week doesn’t pass without us engaging actively with each other. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re truly passionate about building a compelling and authentic brand story. They’re not an agency that does 17 other things; they truly specialize in telling a brand story. Overall, their background in this field has lent them much credibility. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re larger and more complex than most of their clients. As a result, Woden needs to consider some things for us that they may not have to think about for other companies. We’re a parent company of various brands, and they can do better at accommodating our complexity. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Invest your time in the engagement. Branding doesn’t equate to superficial marketing taglines or gimmicks. Rather, it’s something that has a lot of permanence, and it requires you to think hard and deep about your organization. Given that, the more active you engage with Woden, the better your results will be. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of strategic marketing for an early-stage medical device company. We have developed a highly innovative and sophisticated technology platform to alleviate key symptoms for patients suffering from chronic Rhinitis in the physician’s office.

What challenge were you trying to address with Woden?

Our company was founded by CEO Brian Shields and CTO David Townley, culminating from their work at the BioInnovate Ireland program at the National University, Galway. Brian and Dave had a great vision for the company and the technology. As we grew in size and moved closer to commercialization, we wanted to effectively distil that vision and imbue it within the growing team. Finally, we wanted to give a common voice to our story as we started to interact with our customers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Woden was engaged to help us extract and verbalize our unique brand story with the backdrop of a highly competitive commercial landscape. The Woden team did this by methodically engaging internal and external stakeholders including our key advisers, potential customers, and team members.

What is the team composition?

We primarily worked with Ed (Managing Partner) and Andrea (Brand Storyteller). Ed and Andrea assembled and brought in a team of five other Woden team members with specialized skills to assist with the project at various stages of the engagement. 

How did you come to work with Woden?

Ed had connected briefly with Brian, our CEO in 2019/2020 and introduced the concept of the brand story and Woden. In early 2021, we decided that it was a good time for us to explore the concept and shape our brand story as we built our commercial strategy.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested under $25,000 for the project. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the actual work in March 2021, though we did have prior conversations back in 2020. We have completed the brand story phase of the project that we originally set out to do. We are exploring opportunities for future engagement as we embark on our commercial journey later this year.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Since the project is about crafting a brand message, quantifying its success is hard. We have a more qualitative assessment of their work, and we’re happy with the overall messaging we currently have. All of us feel that we’ve captured the essence of the company. 

Woden has helped us distil that essence and articulate it in a simple and elegant manner. The brand story has also focussed on differentiating us from our competitors. Overall, our team is very pleased with our brand story.

How did Woden perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management process was highly professional and efficient. All expectations, deliverables and timelines are laid out and well-executed.

As the project lead, Andrea ran the process efficiently. Any delays or deviations from the schedule were largely due to ever-changing schedules of key participants in the COVID environment. Overall, the project was managed extremely well and a pleasure to work with.  

Given the COVID-19 pandemic, we made the best of video and telephone conferences phone calls. While it would have been beneficial to meet in person for a couple of key sessions, I think that we effectively accomplished our project objectives through virtual meetings. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

As an early-stage company with limited resources, we constantly evaluate the timing and value of services at every stage. Woden focused on understanding our immediate needs and concerns. Based on that they crafted a phased project proposal that was attractive to us from a time and risk perspective. Ed and his team have demonstrated their ability to effectively tailor their approach to companies small and large, and across varying sectors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

None currently, I am very satisfied with the overall execution of the project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clearly define your expectations and more importantly your concerns. Ed and his team do a wonderful job of listening to your needs and concerns while crafting the project proposal and plan. Timely, honest and decisive feedback is very critical to the process. While Ed and his team can expertly extract your story weave a creative narrative, the final outcome is highly dependent and only as good as your input.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of sales for an IT managed services company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Woden?

We were looking to create a new brand for our company because it was quite outdated.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We engaged with Woden for their branding services, and I was brought in to strategize a marketing approach. They help us create what’s called a story strategy, and it gives a comprehensive look a what’s called the hero arc — this helps us better understand our customers’ pain points.

We’re currently working on a full story guide and rewriting the copy on our website’s narrative.

What is the team composition?

I work with Ed (Managing Partner) and Andrea (Brand Storyteller).

How did you come to work with Woden?

I found them on LinkedIn and I partnered with them because I liked their approach and strategy.

How much have you invested with them?

The total of the contract we have with them is roughly $30,000 USD.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in July 2021.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They’re professional, responsive, and organized, so the results of the engagement live up to the quality of their work. Woden goes out of their way to make sure they’re listening and refining what we need, and it’s been such a positive experience.

How did Woden perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform very well from a project management standpoint and they meet all their deadlines. We typically communicate through email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re very impressed with their commitment to excellent customer service.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise being very clear with what you’re trying to accomplish and educate yourself on the story strategy approach to get the most out of your engagement with Woden.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of marketing and customer experience at an insurance company. We’re a regional property and casualty insurer based out of Pennsylvania, and we focus solely on insuring multifamily housing habitational properties.

What challenge were you trying to address with Woden?

We were having a tough time nailing down our purpose and mission statements. We had done quite a bit of work defining our values and understanding our culture, but we still struggled to articulate our purpose, positioning, and mission.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Once Woden kicked off with us, they requested us to send them documents that could help them understand our culture better. Some of the things we sent them were onboarding documents, marketing materials, various information about us, and more. After that, they applied the meta-analysis method to make sense of the documents we gave to them. They also conducted a couple of interviews with our employees to identify what made us unique. 

On top of that, they conducted customer, employee, and agent surveys, which allowed them to gain quantitative information about our identity and how we were viewed in the marketplace. Once they compiled all of that information, they came back to us with an example of what they believed our story to be.

Woden presented our brand pillars as well as our updated values, mission, and vision to our culture team. Once our culture team approved what they had developed, they created recommendations on how we could incorporate our brand identity into various tactics we were going to implement in our operations in the future.

The team continues to support us in a consultative fashion as we implement their recommendations. This month, we’re focused on rolling the brand to all employees, so they’re helping us create a PowerPoint presentation and brand cheat sheet to reinforce our story. In any process that we’re in, their services range from designing, editing, and conceptualization. We’ll continue to work with them on a monthly basis until it no longer makes sense to partner with them.

What is the team composition?

Normally, we interact with two primary contacts, including a project manager and Woden’s owner. They also have 6–8 folks behind the scenes who usually drop in on certain meetings.

How did you come to work with Woden?

My CEO saw something about Woden, and I did some follow-up phone calls to understand what they were offering and what their process was. I had been doing brand research for 20 years, and I paid a lot of money for research that wasn’t actionable and that wasn’t implemented.

As a result, when I had great conversations with Woden, I felt that they would be a good fit for us culturally. I also appreciated their thorough process that I knew could help us in implementing recommendations in the future. Furthermore, they were committed to providing a framework for implementing all of our findings. Above all, their price was good, and everything seemed to line up well.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent $45,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We officially kicked off in February 2021, and we continue to work with them.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’ve just recently finished aligning the framework that would help us guide our decisions moving forward, so we don’t have any metrics at the moment. Anecdotally, the outputs that they’ve defined for us have been extremely helpful. 

How did Woden perform from a project management standpoint?

We frequently stay in touch through email, Zoom, or a web app. They’re the ones who are often waiting for me, so they are doing a great job holding me accountable — per my request. I wear many hats, so if something drops, I can count on them to keep me on track. I also know that I can send them an email and get a response from them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I come from a background where I deal with a lot of quantitative work, and Woden has come up with better results with less quantitative work. In particular, their storytelling narrative approach has been incredibly effective and unique.

Are there any areas they could improve?

A few deliverables we received had some grammatical errors, which when brought to their attention, they have fixed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust their process, and be open when they push back on things that you believe to be true.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

UpMetrics is a tech platform that targets impact organizations. Our key verticals are foundations, nonprofits, and impact investors, but it could be any corporation that works in their communities to drive change or impact.

We collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data to identify new areas of opportunity for these organizations. We see the impact they’re making and how that might affect how they talk about themselves to raise money or attract volunteers, or to see if they’re really making a difference where they intend to.

I’m the head of marketing, so I’m in charge of every facet of it. I work on branding, which is where we engage and do awareness work. I also work with sales, solutions, marketing, demand, retention, and more.

What challenge were you trying to address with Woden?

I started with UpMetrics in the fall of last year, and we were originally thinking about working with a more traditional agency. However, nobody knew us, so we were trying to start the journey of identifying our brand and increasing awareness.

It turned out we didn’t have any sort of data that would allow us to do that in an effective way, so we had to take a step back and ask ourselves who we wanted to be and what our core verticals were. We had to go through that, decide what we wanted to be known for, and really double down there. That’s why we pivoted toward Woden, who had more of a storytelling approach.

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we initially talked to Woden, they explained their trademark approach. They work with clients to build a story that follows the traditional hero’s journey. Then, they apply that story in different formats to all of the different touch points.

We started with a robust discovery period, which was exactly what we needed. They interviewed our clients and internal people to find out what they were saying about us, and they did competitor and general market analysis. Woden presented all of this information to us, which was very helpful.

From that, we got to the high-level story, where they told us what our mission, vision, unique value proposition, and client situation were. We engaged in collaborative sessions. The whole concept of storytelling and any marketing concept built from this idea of selling your brand through a story was very new to us.

Woden was very good at facilitating conversations, bringing in thoughts, starting questions, and having collaborative notes so that we could hear from everyone involved. We went through that exercise, and they went on from there to translate everything to a few core elements.

We’re currently working on the implementation of some of those items, and they support us in that regard and in the few areas where we need help with the next steps.

What is the team composition?

Hannah (Brand Strategist) is our main point of contact with the team. She’s great, and she’s very accessible via email. We’ve been through quite a few rounds of feedback with her, asking for clarification in her notes and so on.

They have different designers, copywriters, and people of various expertise to provide suggestions. We also had a pretty direct line of communication with one of the managing partners who took us through the importance of narrative and storytelling versus a more traditional branding campaign.

How did you come to work with Woden?

It was through a referral. I've gone through a few rebranding exercises in my past roles in different organizations. I've gone through it when I was in a tech company, and again in a nonprofit. I also did it when I was in publishing. While I was going through the pitches from other traditional agencies, I realized that we didn't have the information when we were going through those rebranding efforts. Some of them didn't go very well; we ended up not taking a lot of what was done because we didn't ask those key questions in the beginning and get that alignment across the organization.

The reason why I chose Woden is because they had a baseline information. Also, they traditionally work a lot with sales which is my key internal partner. Revenue is my biggest indicator of success.  I made sure that they were really brought along the ride in other organizations I've been in. It's more marketing and leadership, maybe PR, who does this branding effort, but that does not come across the organization in terms of transparency and collaboration.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $25,000–$30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2021, and the relationship is ongoing. They just launched a new offering where they’re available for additional help. In our case, since this is new to us, I think we have to go through the internal implementation to get that buy-in, but they do offer it. They’ve also recommended a service that they have, and they’ve connected us with third parties that they’ve worked with for things like website design.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

There are a few things that have immediately improved thanks to their work. First, we were inconsistent about how we talked about ourselves on the website and other sales places, and it was a pretty immediate advantage to have those conversations and internally decide how we wanted to categorize ourselves. Otherwise, it’d be a bit harder, since we’re still in the rollout stage.

Also, I’m using the main themes and points that came out of their exercise in new campaigns. I’m hopeful that those will resonate. Finally, we have been really taking advantage of their work to pin our pain points. The internal and competitor insights they provided directly translated into pain points that I’ve been able to map as different problem statements, and that’s informing all of our customer communication. There aren’t any metrics yet, but those are things that we didn’t have before at all.

In terms of implementation, we’re still a little early in that stage, but the branding has resonated really strongly. We knew what we did before, but we were able to nail down our unique differentiator and use their language to create a slightly more urgent variation that we really needed. We’ve definitely seen higher engagement in response to that.

How did Woden perform from a project management standpoint?

Our main communication method is email. We’ve used Google Drive to share documents so they can go through them and have a better idea of where we are and what needs to be improved. Otherwise, there have been a lot of phone calls, and I’ve had a few check-ins with Hannah. Most of the process has been pretty self-explanatory to me.

It’s been more about getting feedback and identifying where we’re stuck and want to go, which has been challenging for us. It’s been a big educational period; Hannah has actually joined an internal meeting to go through all the competitive research in order to be helpful across teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I think sales are their strength, and also applying templates to how we’re talking about ourselves and what we can do for content, social events, fundraising, and so on. We’re soon going to raise more funds for our organization, and they’ve done a really good job at bringing in examples and actual content that will be tremendously useful.

Also, they presented our competitors in a pretty interesting light, which made it easy to see how we compare to them. Those abilities on insight and sales were their biggest strength for me.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some of the marketing recommendations were a little robust to adjust, like on paid ads and content. However, it’s hard because we’re not paying them on retainer, so it’s not meant to all be done right at once. That’s why the recommendation is so large. Nonetheless, I think it would have been helpful to break it out.

Furthermore, I think ad copy could be a little stronger, but I think it comes down to their whole specialty. Telling a story is less direct-response than an ad, but we still kind of need it.

Any advice for potential customers?

Definitely think ahead of time of what internal coordination needs to look like. Think heavily of that strategy so you can figure out how to get people on board internally. Since I was somewhat new to UpMetrics, I was a little challenged at first.  I hadn’t worked with an agency that provided me with so much information, which has been great.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the current president of Clear Path Paper, and we’re a brand of consumer cardstock paper. We manufacture packs of cardstock for consumers in the crafting space who do things like card making, scrapbooking, and other types of crafting activities.

What challenge were you trying to address with Woden?

We were founded in 2016 and we wanted to better articulate what our brand was about, and identify our core, positioning, and brand values.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Woden provided us with a high-level brand strategy.

What they delivered is what they call a “story guide” — which is basically a brand standards document. Their process was to do a series of interviews, to try and learn how we’ve been talking about our company, brand, messaging, and value propositions. They also wanted to figure out where we were trying to take the brand in terms of perception in the marketplace.

They then internally worked in what’s called a “story kernel” — a type of marketing, branding, positioning, and value proposition statement that’s uniquely focused on narrative. They used this concept called “the hero of the story”, where you, as a service provider, are helping the customers accomplish what they need to fix their problem.

Going through a narrative process and coming out with a document that’s over a hundred pages long, is a really interesting process. The document really talks about our brand and how it can relate to our target customers through a narrative approach. They have a framework they work through, but it was highly personalized to our company and brand.

What is the team composition?

Outwardly, we worked directly with 3–4 different people, that included one of their principals, a project manager, and two writers.

How did you come to work with Woden?

They were referred to me personally by other people that I trusted. This is important because I tend to put a lot of stock in good referrals. Then in terms of the decision to do business with them, I liked their approach. A lot of times in the world of marketing and branding, things tend to be a little academic. Their approach appealed to me in a stylistic way — it’s much more humanistic, because it’s centered around the idea that your relationship with your customer is an ongoing story.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested approximately $15,000 in the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August–December 2018.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Brand strategy tends to be more qualitative than quantitative. However, I do have quantitative numbers, and our business has been growing since working with them. In 2019, our gross sales were up by as much as 67%. Obviously, the partnership contributed to part of it, but it’s hard to make a direct 100% association.

However, in the world of qualitative response, every time we worked with another creative resource — whether it’s a design firm or an advertising agency, the first thing I do is mail them a physical copy of my book that Woden developed. If they want to understand how they are going to convey the company’s message, they have to go through the guidebook.

We’ve gotten really good feedback from people saying it’s a unique and helpful way to communicate our brand. It tells other service providers what our brand is about and how they can approach it. The book also gives us a perspective on how to build an internal corporate culture. I still reference it frequently even though I already finished it almost two years ago.

How did Woden perform from a project management standpoint?

We typically communicated through email and phone. Back then, we used to meet in person. Luckily we happened to live in the same city located in Philadelphia. I’m not aware of what they used for project management, our engagement was all just done through emails with the project manager.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were impressed with how they approach a project, because it allows them to really get in-depth with the brand quickly. I realize it’s kind of a broad statement, but if you think about your brand as a narrative in a story, you very quickly get into the things that are important. It can convey emotions, how you want people to feel and think about your brand in a meaningful way — as opposed to a quantitative way.

They’re smart and talented people too, but the approach they brought was impressive and they were very professional. We could tell that their principal, Ed (Managing Partner), had a goal and drove the project towards that. Which was nice because, in high-level brand strategy situations, you could go off into the ether, and you’d be lost. I didn’t feel that way at any point in this project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When I was working with them, I requested to have more of a structured follow-up to the process. It would’ve been nice to continue working with them in the future because the story about our brand is always evolving.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Always make sure you have everybody, including the important stakeholders, involved and that they’re actually bought into the concept of the project in general — whether with Woden or anybody else. Since this project is qualitative, what you produce and what you pay for will just sit on a bookshelf if you only have one person who’s really enthused about it. It wouldn’t be effective if most of your team aren’t motivated to use or engage with it.