Offline Word of Mouth Still King
“Hey, do you like your Samsung?” That was a question I was asked at a restaurant. 
That conversation is incredibly important in the social media, internet-connected age. And new research by Engagement Labs says that we can’t rely on online conversations alone.
Their research shows that word-of-mouth conversations drive 13% of consumer sales. That is twice the sales impact of online.
While there has been large growth in online brand conversations among all ages, face-to-face conversations hold steady from year to year. However, one of the biggest trends is people talking offline about what they see online. That has continually grown from 11% in January 2008 to 26.4% in 2015.
The top categories online and offline are: 1) Sports, 2) Media, 3) Personal Care and Beauty, 4) Retail/Apparel, and 5) Children’s Products. The list also includes health, auto and dining.
Many have predicted that word-of-mouth advertising is a lost art and a lost medium to us. But today, it is still king of the conversation about brands.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.