Great thread! How about "made with PASSION by " LOL Let's face it folks. 90% of the rodbuilding business is word of mouth advertising. You do good work, make a customer happy and they tell their friends. Repeat business is also a key. This is business 101 and very effective for a "custom" or "nitch" industry. The hard part and most important is getting the new people into the pipeline that will breed off new repeat business as well as referral business. This is what most companies spend 90% of their marketing budget on - getting the new people in the door. I have to agree that custom if anything is better than stock factory built rods. Especially if you build in a specific application. For example in Bass rods. Most of the manufacturers make very technique specific blanks. We as builders take these blanks and apply our own personal knowledge/expertise and make the best possible tool based on that blank for a specific application; be it a spinnerbait rod, flippin stick etc. Other than color, handle length and a few truly personal items the rod will be built pretty much the same. If a customer does not care about the color of the wraps and the handle length works for him heck let him buy it. BUT to be truly custom I think most customers want their names written on the rod. Hard to do that off the shelf. And if they can wait to have you put their name on it they can wait till you build one to their exact specs.

Dan you might be quite surprised at how many people I have put their names on off the rack rods and I am not speaking of custom rack rods or whatever the final terminology is.Some like the idea of identification and others are just vain it all equals income.
John

I agree Marketing has so much to do with building our Specialized rods. My first interest in rod building was ten years ago at the Chicagoland Fishing and Sport show. While there I saw first hand some one building rods. I was hooked. I have finally achieved my goal and started building rods. Now my point is, I seen that there are people out there who like different and if they have a rod specially built -That is different! Also at that same show, I was first introduced to the wrap around guides on a rod. It was there on display as a custom rod from Bud Erhardt fishin sticks. I bought one because it was different and to me it was custom because I never seen it before. Now I will just build one! So different is a marketing technique. You guys have been so great on this thread!!
If I keep adding my two cents on this topic I may be broke soon! LOL
Mark Schulte

John, Amen to that brother! Number one rule of business. Give the customer what they want! (as long as it's legal) LOL

After reading all of the replies to this thread, it occurs to me that another way to market these rods are to lable them as " custom quality" rods. Just a thought. Bob Vasko

You know Bob, that's exactly what some of the commercial rod producers have started doing. I have seen at least two brands this past year with the wording "custom quality" either on their labels or in their advertising.

One thing you have to give the commercial rod makers - they know how to advertise and market their product.

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