How FolioZ Gets Offline Clients to Budget Extra for Online Marketing

CHALLENGE
Atlanta agency FolioZ specializes in B-to-B marketing for technology companies. They realized theirclients needed to be advertising online, but as FolioZ’sInteractive Media & Services Director Philip Mowris toldus, “Our clients just don’t know where they’re going to get the money from. At this point in time it’s an incremental spend. It’s not necessarily money they can take from one program and put it online. They’ve got to raise their budget, because online’s not proven yet so they can’t decrease spending in another part of their mix to pay for it.”

CAMPAIGN
Instead of pitching a special, separate online campaign to clients, Mowris pitches an integrated campaign with a single price tag. “We package it all together so it works in multiple layers. We’ve got several tiers of nets cast using different media online and off.” Mowris also removes all hype from his pitch, presenting online ideas to clients in a common-sense tone they are most comfortable with. “We show them in very dry clear terms how we’re going to take them online; what we’re trying to accomplish; realizing it’s test and retest all the way along.”

RESULTS
Impressive. FolioZ has been able to persuade clients to raise or reallocate budgets in order to make substantial online investments. Mowris says, “We’re now seeing anywhere from 10-40% of budgets being spent online.”

Editorial Note: Recently when we were chatting with AIM’s Marketing Diva Alexis Bonnell, she remarked that partnerships between online and offline marketing agencies and service suppliers should be the next big trend. This Case Study certainly makes a good case for it!