Resource Print Management (RPM) targets the type of customer some distributorships would consider a logistical nightmare. The Fort Worth, Texas-based company seeks large clients with decentralized operations. Approximately 80 percent of its customers are retailers with hundreds of stores. One prime product the distributorship provides is commercial printing, including marketing collateral and signage.
Although RPM supplies quality 4-color products, its success in commercial printing has more to do with service. One customer, ACE--America's Cash Express, proves this point. ACE is a check processing and short-term-loan business with 1,200 company-owned locations and 200 franchise locations. It orders a variety of items, including forms, roll products and promotional products. RPM also supplies the company with signs, pocket folders, rack cards and brochures. To assist ACE with its complex ordering needs, RPM relies on its sophisticated online ordering system, used by hundreds of the check-cashing company's employees.
ACE employees log onto RPM's secure web site and choose one of the check-cashing company's basic marketing packages. Depending on the package selected, up to five versions will appear on screen. For example, one version may depict letterhead, envelopes and two brochures, while another includes three different brochures. After selecting versions, ACE employees customize the marketing kits, adding logos, special offers and more. Employees also can add text to create custom marketing pieces.
Next, the online system creates a PDF file. It shows ACE employees on screen how the marketing pieces they created will look. After approval, an ACE employee uploads a Microsoft® Excel™ address list to RPM, indicating which stores should receive the materials. Then, the user clicks "submit" to place the order. The PDF file then is transmitted to a vendor for direct-to-plate production. "ACE can create a totally custom, one-to-one piece of marketing communication from their PCs using our technology," says Dan Michels, a sales representative at RPM. "It allows them to target their customers not with a shotgun, but with a laser beam."
RPM's online ordering system, along with its other print procurement, warehousing and distribution services, allows customers such as ACE to save money. "RPM's ability to provide efficient service levels with minimum inventory has increased our cash flow and reduced our exposure to obsolescence," says Barry Barron, senior vice president of operations for ACE.
Provide organized reports. "Most commercial printers can do little more than pull an item off the shelf, put it in a box and ship it," says Dan Michels, a sales representative at Fort Worth, Texas-based distributorship Resource Print Management (RPM). "Anybody in the world can do that." However, procurement, warehousing and fulfillment "generates a lot of information," he says. RPM provides detailed reports that clients use to analyze usage at their headquarters and branch locations. Michels says, "We provide reports in any format customers like," including electronic transmissions, faxes and documents sent via mail.
Act as a clean-up crew. Today, many companies rely on in-house designers to create marketing materials. Most distributors and manufacturers, however, are aware that customers' "complete" files aren't always complete. For instance, RPM may receive three disks for a project--one with EPS images, another Adobe® Illustrator™ file and a third that includes fonts. RPM then cleans up the files and builds a print-ready version.
Resource Print Management (RPM) provided these 4-color pieces for the opening of 10 new Eye Care Centers of America in the Atlanta area in June. The Fort Worth, Texas-based distributorship supplies signage to all the eye care retailer's 373 locations--a big job that RPM handles soundly, according to the customer. "We asked them to consistently produce and deliver high-quality products to our stores in aggressive time frames, and they always do," says Karen Villanueva, field marketing manager for Eye Care Centers of America.
FORMost Graphic Communications sold $1 million in promotional products last year. The Rockville, Md.-based distributorship didn't hit it big by selling little items such as pens and mugs. It offers these standard promotional products, but the company also provides value-added products and services--high-quality items, consulting, graphic services and more.
A recent order for one of FORMost's clients, a wrecking company, illustrates the distributorship's detailed approach to marketing promotional products. The client handles demolition and reclamation of historic buildings. For instance, it frequently preserves sections of old buildings or moves them to other locations. FORMost often provides theme-based shirts for workers on the wrecking sites.
The client's latest job involved renovating a 150-year-old government building. The company found drawings of the original building and provided the distributorship with scans of those drawings. FORMost modified the scans using QuarkXPress™, adding artistic renderings of some elements of the renovation job. The distributorship then incorporated the names of all the contractors on the job in the artwork.
The art became the focal point for approximately 250 T-shirts FORMost supplied to the customer. The back of the navy shirts featured the manipulated drawing of the historic building with the contractors' names. The image was screenprinted with double hits of white and off-white ink to depict subtleties and shadows. The company's name and logo appeared on the front pockets of the T-shirts.
Devote time and money to the market. "Just like you develop relationships on the print side, you have to do the same on the promotional side," says Jim Feldman, CFC, president of FORMost Graphic Communications. Three years ago, FORMost hired a full-time customer service rep for promotional products. With a background in ad specialties, the CSR fosters relationships with suppliers and works as an advisor to the distributorship's outside sales reps.
Think big. Many distributors complain that promotional products orders are small--500 mugs, 200 golf shirts and so on. But that isn't always the case. FORMost contracted with a flag supplier and provided 40,000 flag kits to a customer. The kits included American flags, flagpoles and mounting equipment.
Sell a package deal. Steal the marketing approach perfected by fast-food restaurants, and sell combos. FORMost provides a professional group with thousands of lapel pins annually. The pins are mailed to members in envelopes with membership cards and letters, also provided by FORMost. In addition, the distributorship handles fulfillment on the project.
Market double-duty products. FORMost's wrecking company client tore down Baltimore's Memorial Stadium, converting the front of the stadium into a historical memorial. The distributorship provided the customer's workers with T-shirts depicting a 4-color picture of the stadium on the front. The T-shirt was so popular the company placed a second order: The additional shirts were auctioned at a fund-raiser for the stadium's memorial.
Practice what you preach. Like many distributorships, FORMost uses promotional products as marketing tools and thank-yous to customers. But it tries to give products with subtle marketing appeal. "A lot of people don't like other companies' names on mugs and fleeces," Feldman says. "Their attitude is, 'Why should I promote your company?'" One of FORMost's giveaways--a holiday gift--was a fleece with the distributorship's diamond-shaped logo on the cuff and the client's name embroidered prominently on the chest.
Wearables are in high demand by organizations of all kinds. Promotional messages on jackets such as this one often are highly visible because the garments usually aren't hidden under other apparel.
Charlie Hiser, CDC, takes a holistic approach to medicine, but not in the New Age sense of treating a person's physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs. Instead, he provides hospitals with complete bar code systems to track patients' records, specimens and medical tests. "One of the things I've tried to do with bar codes is sell the whole nine yards," Hiser says. "Not just a label or a document, but the hardware, the software--the whole system."
To aid in this holistic approach, Hiser, a salesperson at Digital Document Systems Inc., a distributorship in Greensboro, N.C., became a reseller of BACKTRACK® asset and inventory tracking software. Recently, he helped the Department of Gerontology and Genomics at Wake Forest University's School of Medicine create an automated system for tracking blood samples.
The department conducts numerous medical studies, drawing blood samples from volunteers. The department places the blood in several collection tubes and later dispenses the blood into eight to 30 smaller storage tubes, called "cryovials." It labels each test tube and cryovial with a 6-letter coded ID for the volunteer, the date the blood was drawn, the study name and more. "Imagine the task for even one volunteer," Hiser says. "The department draws six test tubes of blood, then breaks each one into 15 cryovials. That's 90 tubes of blood."
In addition, the department places cryovials in storage containers withup to 100 slots, then places the containers in freezers. Sometimes a handful of cryovials are removed from several containers and tested. With hundreds of test tubes, cryovials and storage containers, the Department of Gerontology and Genomics faces a difficult task labeling and tracking all of the blood samples.
Previously, staff at the department wrote information by hand on the test tubes and vials--a tedious job considering cryovial labels measure only 1 1/4 x 1/2 inches. The staff then documented and tracked the test tubes and vials using a Microsoft® Excel™ spreadsheet. "The system they had quote-unquote 'worked,'" Hiser says. "But it was so labor-intensive. The issue was how to automate it."
Hiser visited the lab, followed its workflow and asked the staff questions about its procedures. Using staff feedback, he designed a system to track blood samples using BACKTRACK. BACKTRACK combines bar code technology with a series of configurable databases, a label designer and a report designer to track the blood (or other items or processes). Hiser designed cryovial labels with a special stock and adhesive to withstand conditions in the cryogenic freezers.
The roll labels feature a 1 1/4 x 1/2-inch rectangular label (placed on the side of test tubes and cryovials) and a matching 3/8-inch diameter circular label (placed on the top of the lid). Both include DataMatrix 2-D bar codes. Hiser also installed a Zebra thermal transfer label printer so the Department of Gerontology and Genomics could print labels on demand as volunteers arrived at the lab.
The bar codes are encoded with up to 60 characters of information, including the study volunteer's 6-digit ID, the study name, the test date, the vial number and more. "The whole system works because of the 2-D bar code," Hiser says. "The department had to get a lot of information on a very small label."
Specialize in a niche. "Bar coding is becoming a mature technology," says Charlie Hiser, CDC, a salesperson at Digital Document Systems Inc., a distributorship in Greensboro, N.C. "Most of the general stuff has been done--like bar coding a warehouse." Instead, Hiser suggests, "Look at vertical markets, pick one and become an expert at it." Most industries have councils that set up bar coding standards, dictating business-to-business communication. For instance, Hiser sells to a chemical company that adheres to standards decreed by the Chemical Industry Data Exchange. "Learn the requirements for a particular market, and go to companies in that industry as the expert," he says.
This bar coded tag helped parking attendants at Jacobs Field verify parking passes prior to a Cleveland Indians baseball game. More often, bar codes enable companies to identify and track products in warehousing or during shipping.
Courtesy of Compu-Print Inc., North Canton, Ohio
