Oakpool
Oakpool is a marketing agency born about 7 years ago in the outdoor industry that builds and manages outsourced marketing solutions for companies & organizations ranging from GORE-TEX to Caesar’s Entertainment, and venture-backed FinTech startups to boutique fishing lodges in Latin America and The Bahamas.
In this Member Spotlight, Alex Ford of oakpool shares his thoughts on the fly fishing industry’s relationship with technology, what sets oakpool apart from other similar companies in the outdoor industry, and more!
Introduce yourself - What is oakpool?
I’m Alex Ford and I am one of the co-founders here at oakpool. Oakpool is a marketing agency born about 7 years ago in the outdoor industry. We build and manage outsourced marketing solutions for companies & organizations ranging from GORE-TEX to Caesar’s Entertainment, and venture-backed FinTech startups to boutique fishing lodges in Latin America and The Bahamas.
How did you find yourself working in the fishing industry? Do you fish yourself?
I started out as an intern at NBC’s ‘Meet The Press’ in 2014, and shortly afterwards went to Cuba for 2 months in an attempt to become a journalist. I wrote a lot of different pieces during my time in Cuba, but the only ones that got published were about the few days I spent fly fishing in the Bay of Pigs. When I got back to the US, the NYC based company (amberjack.com) that bought those pieces hired me as a full time marketing specialist and the rest blossomed from there! I now spend about 50 - 75 days on the water a year, all over the world.
What is the history behind oakpool?
When I got back to the US in 2015, I was working for a company called Amberjack that was trying to be the “AirBnb” of fishing guides and lodges. There have since been a number of iterations of that idea, with some of them finally starting to make it happen! My partner James Hamilton had started a similar company called GuideHire, so we met first as adversaries in commerce but quickly became friends in real life. The world wasn’t ready for the concept of on demand fishing trips yet, but we had both built these large audiences on shoestring budgets and saw a gap for fractionalized marketing services in the outdoor space. We agreed to go into business on a slow stretch of the Musconetcong River in New Jersey - the Oak Pool - and the rest is history.
What makes oakpool unique?
For the outdoor industry, it’s really our understanding of the space and the customer. I always use the example that we aren’t going to post a steelhead up on the rocks or someone lipping a trout, because we obviously know that would stop a brand in its tracks - not to mention the moral issues! In a nutshell, what sets us apart is truly authentic content and copy, customer knowledge, and communication. We are on call 24/7 for our clients, and no one needs to explain to us what kind of fish is in your marketing materials.
What issues have you witnessed the industry facing and how are you working to resolve them?
The fishing industry in particular always seems to be 3-5 years behind the technological curve, if not more. This is obviously a good market opportunity for us to come in and modernize a brand’s digital footprint, but it’s also disheartening to see some of the industry’s most iconic brands fall behind on this front. A legacy brand’s tech stack and how they speak to a younger generation keeps us up at night.
What projects or initiatives are you currently working on and excited about?
Internally, we are just starting to give out equity to our partners in oakpool, which has been an exciting development in the last few months. On the enterprise client side, we have a few activations coming up with GORE-TEX partners, and in early 2024 we started working on full stack marketing agreements with Goslings Rum and Bear & Burtons, Bear Holeman’s sauce brand! It’s always fun to work with brands who have fishing roots and a global focus. On the travel client side, we picked up a few destination clients along the Fly Fishing Show circuit and are just starting to see the effects of high quality social media, paid ads, and network marketing start to pay out in terms of bookings.
Anything else you’d like to add about oakpool, the fly fishing industry, or anything else?
Come work with us! We’re always up for a chat about the marketing needs of other companies in the fishing space, and worst case scenario we end up with some new friends or another partnership down the road. We prefer to chat over a beer, but email works too - alex@fordhamilton.com or reach out via our website.
