I Spy Corporate Branding & Tailgating

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago in the Fall Kick Off post, the gang from BPI Media Group, has started the football season off with a tailgate tent at The University of Alabama. We hope you will join us! Our tent will be on the quad at every home game this season.

Look closely, and you'll spot all kinds of BPI swag. If your company has events coming up this fall and winter, we'd love to help you with your corporate branding and promotional items. There's no better way to help stay top of mind in the eyes of your customers and prospects. Promo items make great leave behinds for your sales team and give aways and trade shows.

Where else can you find BPI Media Group this fall? We'll be at booth 203 at the Greenville Business Expo on September 25th. If you're in the Upstate, please stop by and visit with us! We'd love to talk with you about how we can help with your marketing and communication needs.

Until next time...Elizabeth

Push for a Big Finish in 2012

Like most people in sales, having a strong last quarter of the year can make or break your yearly numbers. At BPI Media Group, the fall and last quarter tend to be a busy time, and for that, we are very grateful. But, if you're like a lot of companies who are season and fall isn't one of your strong sales seasons, we'd love to help you plan some things to change that and make it a great last quarter of 2012!

While running in a 5K Friday night called Midnight Flight, it got my wheels turning about how we all tend to start out strong since the first mile of that race was my best per mile pace. Then, we tend to "coast" a little or climb an uphill battle in the middle and then scramble at the end to finish strong. While my race time was respectable at 26:35, I have definitely achieved better in the past, and have to remember how I did it: disciplined training. The same is true for my sales, and I'm sure your company's sales as well. If you slack off for even just a little bit, it shows in those monthly and quarterly reports we see from our bosses. I personally get frustrated if I see my numbers slipping, whether it's in a race or in sales. So, let's make a pact to finish 2012 strong and stay disciplined for ALL of 2013, and not just have a great start and finish. Deal?

How do we stay focused and not let up? With the long weekend to enjoy the Labor Day holiday, I was able to get in an extra run on Monday at a local state park. Running the trails is the best time for me to think, so I spent the hour and nine minutes thinking about how I can stay focused, get back my fitness and sales momentum and never slack off...ever again. Here's what I came up with while taking in the phenomenal sights and sounds at Paris Mountain State Park:

• Develop a consistent plan to reach out to customers & prospects.
• Utilize BPI's resources of data analytics and mailing to execute this, especially with 1:1 communications.
• Follow up with customers & prospects to keep them from going cold.
• Maintain TOMA (top of mind awareness) with promotional items and face-to-face meetings.
• Use our website to share information about our company and engage prospects via relevant social media content.
• Stay focused on the end results: better sales and reaching goals!

If you want to commit to finishing strong and staying strong for the last quarter and all of 2013, drop me a note. I'd love for us to do this together! Until next time...Elizabeth

Fall Kickoff!

Like many Southerners, myself and everyone at BPI Media Group is ready for everything Fall brings: cooler weather, tailgating and football! Regardless of who your favorite college or pro team is, they'll be kicking off the season this Labor Day weekend, so there will be an abundance of food, football and fun. With BPI's headquarters being located in Alabama, you can imagine what a competitive atmosphere this is in the office between Auburn and Alabama fans during football season (and year round for that matter).

To help our staff and customers with the fun fall festivities, we ordered some of our very own promotional items that you can use whether you're backyard barbecuing for the game or on the quad of your favorite campus. It certainly isn't too late to order your company's promo items to get your employees, sales team and customers in the mood for football!

We always know football season is right around the corner when we start seeing requests for football programs coming in with deadlines being "the first home game." This has always been a time of year that is very exciting at BPI because we love football, and we love working with our local and regional sports teams and school on their programs. The team spirit and enthusiasm is always contagious/!

So whether you're Alabama, Auburn or the fan of any other team, enjoy the Labor Day weekend ahead filled with lots of football and time with friends and family celebrating the arrival of Fall!

Until next time...Elizabeth

What Can a Storefront Do for Me?

A prospective customer asked me this question yesterday during a meeting, and instead of giving a canned response of all the features and benefits, I told him it could help him have more time to spend with his kids (after observing numerous photos on his desk and wall of his family). He kind of looked at me funny, but after a little explanation, he shook my hand and is taking it under serious consideration.

Let me explain...BPI Media Group's storefront solution's #1 benefit is how much time it can save users. This time saved not only spares employers additional labor expense, but it also takes a degree of stress off the shoulders of marketers because they have a measurable means of managing their collateral, stationery and other print and promotional materials used by their company.

Aside from being a time and stress reducer, BPI's storefront solution also offers a way for marketers to view order history, utilize print on demand, variable data/personalization and even dimensional coating. All of these bonuses wouldn't be cost effective through a standard order, but through an automated storefront, they're simple add-ons that yield big bonuses for collateral.

Whether you're needing more time with your kids and family, more time to exercise, or just more time to focus on other work tasks, a storefront can help free up time for your marketing team to do these things. And as we all know, having more time to do the things you need and want to do, makes for happier people.

Until next time...Elizabeth

See How Easy It Can Be!

This week, I'd like to share another example of how BPI Media Group's storefront solution has helped another customer. Last week, I told you about an educational customer, but this time I'm writing about a heavy equipment manufacturer.

History: This manufacturer of heavy equipment has 12 divisions with not only a nationwide but a worldwide presence. They have over 120 items each with individual sku #s, and this number is constantly growing.

Problems:With so many sku #'s for print material alone, inventory management of these materials was out of control. There are also over 400 users, so with that many people ordering, there was no procedure for order history or to know which division or department was ordering which materials, how often and how many. Having materials printed in six languages also presented a challenge, but with sku# assignment and management, this process was streamlined.

Solutions: BPI's storefront solution provided a way to track order history, set up a dealer log in (present on their website) with a single sign-on that captured their log in from the company website and allowed them to view the items, order either print on demand or from pre-printed inventory, and have a means of maintaining inventory control levels of every item. All 12 divisions of the company have their own stationery items branded to their location, so each location can now only see their location's stationery and only have access to order that. This eliminated the possibility of someone mistakenly ordering the wrong thing, which had been an issue in the past. BPI suggested packaging materials in packs of 25, so this made pick and packing easier and also makes inventory management easier as well since counting packs rather than individual pieces is much quicker and more efficient.

Results: Sku #'s are better managed, inventory levels are maintained and flagged when "getting low" for pre-printed materials, and a transition is being made to move all items to print on demand to keep any materials from being outdated or obsolete. This hybrid storefront (some pre-printed and some print on demand) was a great solution for them to utilize their existing inventory of print materials. With administrative controls and an approval process in place for business card orders, management feels as though the print budget is being better utilized and this has alleviated a lot of stress surrounding their print order.

One additional benefit this customer has taken advantage of is dimensional coating on their print on demand pieces. Dimensional coating adds a texture to the printed piece that is unique to the image. While it isn't right for all customers, it was a nice add on for this customer and has been a huge success for their trade show marketing pieces to help them stand out and have better conversations with customers and prospects who are intrigued by the "feel" of their pieces. If you'd like more information on how easy a storefront can be for you to use and manage your print materials, drop me a note here, and I'll look forward to talking with you!

Until next time...Elizabeth

Problem Meet Solution = Happy Customers

As promised, I wanted to share an example of how BPI Media Group's storefront solution has helped customers manage collateral & stationery. I'd like to share one story of how this has benefited an educational institution customer.

History: The school had previously ordered certain collateral and stationery items in bulk at the beginning of each school year. The materials were stored in various storage closets across campus, and no one could ever recall how many were ordered or when without tracking down purchase orders. Materials would "run out" without warning, and if there was a change on any piece, they'd typically wait until the next year because there were so many already printed...somewhere...if they could find them.

Problems: As you can tell, keeping up with order history and inventory management were two of the biggest challenges the school faced. Another problem was the amount of time that was spent typesetting business cards every time a faculty or staff member needed to order/reorder. One more concern was having people from various departments pull items from the storage closets without recording which department took it, so it could be tracked.

Solutions: BPI's storefront solution offered a means to help with all of these problems and concerns. The storefront's unique log in/password for each pre-approved user helped limit those who could order and also put in approval processes for certain items, so that there could be a sense of checks and balances for each department to not "over order" any particular item. Inventory counts are managed and reorder points set, so that if a pre-printed item reaches a low amount, an email is sent out notifying the designated person who can then choose to reorder to replenish stock (which is held in BPI's warehouse). For items that are simply print on demand, this feature wouldn't apply. The order history reports can be viewed/downloaded as csv files and sorted by a wide variety of filters that allow the user to see who has ordered, what they've ordered and how many & how often. This information can be used in the future to gauge how many should be printed at the onset of each year. One of the biggest time savers is the ability to have a business card template with all of the static information and fields where the user can type in the name, title, phone, email, etc for the individual's business cards. A pdf proof is available on the fly to review, approve and send into production.

Results: The customer can track their usage, spend less time ordering, have storage closets for more than just stationery by allowing BPI to print/store/ship the materials as ordered, and better manage the inventory levels. By using print on demand for some items, this saved money out of the print budget over the course of the year. Money and time saved = happy customers.

Drop me a note if you'd like to learn more about how BPI's storefront solution could help your company put an end to similar headaches.

Until next time...Elizabeth