CBF Group's blog

At the moment it seems everywhere you go all you hear about is Social Media..Social Media..Social Media.

People are forever asking me; are you on Twitter, are you on Facebook, have you got a Pinterest account?

By the way for reference the answers are Yes, No and I am but not quite sure how & when it happened.

Anyway, for anyone who knows me personally or CBF as a business, will know that we are fairly partial to dabbling in the realms of Social Media. We focus on using every aspect of Twitter to create more leads and to spread the word that CBF are on the front line for providing print knowledge.

Being in the print trade I can tell you that social media is most definitely not killing off the need for printed materials.

It may sound controversial but yes, I am saying there is enough room on this planet of ours for social media and printed solutions to exist. If anything, I am saying that if businesses learned how to link the two together they would see leads and positive feedback like never before.

Here is an example of how this can be put in to effect. I would like to state because I am not a lawyer in my spare time and to be brutally honest I am not a huge fan of being sued no names are going to be mentioned in this example as it is based on a real case study.

There was a company that produced machinery for a much specialised industry. The industry was in fact so specialised, they only had a handful of competitors. However, to the Directors annoyance they were will not creating the sales they needed and the company was fast losing money.

The directors decided to do something about this and decided to bring in a Social Media guru to help them create a strategy to build their business. In short the amazing Guru told them to drag themselves into the present times and use the likes of LinkedIn, Twitter, to start writing a blog and create videos to post on Facebook and YouTube.

The company took the comments of the Social Media Guru and starting acting on them, although at first it did whip up a bit of a frenzy as the phones soon stopped ringing and the inquiries dropped.

In the weeks to follow, thought provoking chin strokes occurred and coffee fuelled all night meetings took place to try and come up with a solution to save the business. In the end a member of staff threw forward an idea that turned out to be a stroke of genius.

His statement was “why don’t we use the positive aspects of both print and social media to help point at our USP’s (unique selling points).”

Lots of Godfather style ponderous head nods followed, then eventually one of the directors set the employee the task of taking his idea and making it work.

Obviously, the case study did not give away all of the trade secrets but some that were mentioned were as follows.

He created a marketing pack that was sent out to all potential customers explaining who they were, what they did and why the customer should be looking at them to be their provider.

What he also included in the index of a brochure was a list of five or so YouTube links pointing the reader to videos showing certain aspects of their machinery and services they offer. Essentially turning what could be a fairly boring read into more of an appealing visual concept he also felt this would make their business seem more tangible.

He also introduced a similar idea to leaflets and booklets that were given out. Instead of simply stating on the material that they have a Facebook, Twitter accounts etc, he pointed out links educating the reader on how to become social media savvy themselves so they can interact with the customer. What is the point of telling someone you are on a social media website if they don’t know where to find you?

On the flip side, when using the twitter account he starting advertising to people to sign up to their newsletter that got posted out every 6 months and once again used social media to point at printed materials to create a more rounded, professional feel to the business.

Again, I am going to have to fudge the facts a little to hide the identity of the actual business but I can assure you the figures I am about to use are not a million miles away from the truth.

Within one year they increased their inquiries by “160%”, due to their customers have a clearer idea of the services which were being offered and they achieved a conversion rate of “80%”.

Needless to say the company is now thriving and is still growing rapidly to this day.

One thing I can say is that the company in this case study was a big company with a turnover of millions. This doesn’t mean that the structure put in place by mixing Social media with printed materials cannot be introduced into any sized business.

If you would like to learn more about how to introduce a similar structure in to your business, then why not book in to have a free consultancy with us? One of our team will work with you to make sure you are getting the most out of your business marketing.

Adam & the CBF team.

There are numerous types or print service that can be offered by a print supplier, ranging from short run budget flyers up to multi site print management.

There currently seem to be a lot of printers gearing themselves up for the cheap and cheerful, fast turnaround work and neglecting high quality Business Print.

What is Business print?

Like anything the term business print can be interpreted in many different ways but I believe it to be the print that makes you stand apart from you competitors. Professional companies for example solicitors, accountants, law firms and wealth management consultants are all well known in the industry for their business print.

With the industries being so competitive every single item of stationary, marketing or office materials have to be to the highest specification as it all represents the quality of their service. For instance you will never see a FIA with a Vista print business card (no offence Vista).

What kind of materials come under Business Print?

Essentially anything that may be seen by a client or potential client is business print. Some examples of business print are letterheads, compliment slips, personalised envelopes, legal corners, report covers, corporate brochures, business cards, document folders, invitations and so on.

What methods are there to help personalise my business print?

As business print is all about standing out from your competitor there is no point going for cheap and cheerful, this will not portray your business in the light intended. Some of the methods you can use to enhance the quality of your print are;

Using a thicker/higher grade paper stock * Using thermo graphical or foil block processes to literally make your print stand out * Watermark or watermark effects within the artwork * Personalising your materials * Making sure all you brand colours, logo’s and fonts are exactly the same on any print that goes out.

How can CBF improve your Business Print solutions?

At CBF we are all about workflow and with your Businesses printing it’s no different.  At any stage we can tell you where your materials are at and at what stage.  Couple that with the latest printing technology and colour accurate processes we have proven time and time again that we have all the tools to reproduce all print jobs accurately, on-time and within budget.

Do you have your artwork in the correct format? This is the start of the print process and can determine one not only how the end result will look but two, the timelines of completion.  If you have any doubts about the quality and format of your artwork all you have is drop us a line and we will happily steer you in the right direction.  Once your artwork is sorted and the price agreed make sure you understand the timelines and we are fully aware of the delivery instructions i.e. delivery address and the way you would like the boxes packed/labelled.

For the larger organisation and businesses that order various items you may need a larger solution, incorporating our online ordering software (OPC).  This facility works directly with your production sites to process all your orders be it, make to order items or held in stock items. All can be controlled and approved by you prior to production.  We have some of the most advanced online print tools around to help you manage you brand standards and control all your print purchasing costs.   So if you would like a demo or an answer to any print questions then we would love to hear from you, why not drop us a line.

This message was kindly attached when we received payment for the job.

Thank you for getting the table plan and wedding stationary turned around so quickly and to such a high specification in such a short space of time. Especially as this time of year on the run up to Christmas I know how hectic everything can be.

I hope you all have a relaxed and well deserved Christmas holiday.

There is a lot more work we will be asking for you to quote on in the new year.

Many thanks,

Sam

Firstly a quote from a very famous, very rich entrepreneur “If you don’t make selecting good suppliers a part of your business growth plan, you’re likely to regret it”..

A lot of people tend to forget that the suppliers that they work alongside on a day to day business are essential to maintaining their business. Without have the raw materials to make what you sell or help promote what you sell you will always have a tough time growing your business.

Business owners need to get out of the mindset that their suppliers are just a means of receiving raw materials at the cheapest possible price. For a long time there had been a stigma around suppliers that we are all just grumpy old men that you have to speak to every now and again to request a quote of place an order. This really is not true. I speak to various suppliers on a daily basis and all of them would bend over backwards for me to make sure I get everything I need to make an informed, calculated decision.

What makes a good supplier?

The majority of up starting and growing businesses tend to focus on one thing when picking their suppliers… price. This is certainly at the top of the list when picking a supplier but there is so much more to a supplier than an invoice at the end of each month.

Many people will find this statement controversial but probably the most important trait to look out for in a supplier is competency. You’ll want to find a supplier that can offer you the latest and most up to date products and services. Your supplier should also have a good knowledge of their industry with a willingness to talk to you about how to improve your business and move it forward. Never settle for a supplier that is just happy to push the paper work out, you should be getting a whole lot more for your money. Any decent supplier will be more than happy to put in the time with you and work alongside you to help grow and improve.

Reliability is one of the keys traits to look for in a supplier. What systems and backup do they have to ensure you receive exactly what you ordered and within the times lines you set them. People always tend to look to big companies for reliability because of the financial backing they have, it is always worth looking in to smaller suppliers as well. With smaller businesses they will always fight a lot harder to keep your custom and will always make time to give you their full attention.

Stability is always another factor to look into. Never be afraid to ask your supplier how long they have been trading for or even ask for a credit reference. If they having nothing to hide then they will be more than happy to oblige. Also do a bit of your own research. Does the company have a high staff turnover? If so then there is something not quite right. How many regular customers do they have? It doesn’t matter if a company boasts they have 1,000 new customers a day, if those customers don’t use them again then yet again there is something not quite right.

Most people wouldn’t even think twice about it but location of your supplier is extremely important. It is no good your supplier being the cheapest one out there saving you lots of money if it takes you twice as long to receive your goods. Also their set prices may be cheaper but calculate how much extra carrier charges etc may be costing you on top of that. It is not always possible to get the supplier you need in your own town or even if your country but if you ever do need to go further afield always ask about extra costs that maybe incurred for storing, transporting etc.

Supplier tip – Build up a better relationship.

Going back to what I mentioned earlier, not all suppliers are grumpy old men at the end of a telephone.  Make sure you speak to them and try to get to know them on a bit more of a personal level as well. The fact that your suppliers aren’t offering to work closely with you to improve quality, reduce defects and cut costs doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t want to. They may be under the impression that you are the reluctant one. So if you want a tighter working relationship with suppliers, let them know. You may also drop a hint that those who don’t want to work with you may see some of their orders being diverted to those who are more agreeable. Either way, you’ll know whether it’s your supplier’s reluctance, or their perception of your reluctance, that’s getting in the way.

If you would like to receive any further information on what you should expect from you Print supplier then contact a member of the CBF team any time. W: www.cbfnet.co.uk Twitter: @CBFprinters

Adam & the CBF Team

Hi Adam

Just wanted to drop you a line and say huge thank you for a great job on the 1^st edition of the Engage Magazine. The final production looked brilliant. They had a launch party last night for it and by all accounts it went down really well and the print is such an important part of the finished product so – thank you!

We hope this is the first of many editions to come and look forward to working on them alongside CBF.

Thanks again.

Lisa

The good old phrase that gets bounded about daily in my life is ‘people buy from people’ and although it’s become a running joke in the CBF office – it’s so true.  This comes back to your personality and the presentation of you and the receiving attitude of the recipient so how do you get that across with print items?

Have you taken a step back and looked at how your company branding is received? Are you a corporate that needs to keep very straight in its image or are you trying to portray young, dynamic almost fluid branding .  Each are poles apart however it is possible to be corporate but be approachable, just take a look at the international brands Microsoft, IBM and Apple.  Each have an huge international presence but keep their branding full of colours and smiles from all walks of life to give us all the impression that they are a nice business to deal with.

So taking a leaf out of their book, remembering that there are very few new ideas in the world on re-vamped and tweeted old ones.  Take your corporate colours as starting point.  In this country we know that red generally is there to highlight things i.e. danger and warnings but marketers have used this to their advantage (i feel) too much and it has debased the ‘Warning’ currency.  Now we all like a warm feeling when it comes to colours but I bet you haven’t thought about what makes you click on a link – like this.  Actually it’s not a link but by making it blue and underlining its presence immediately draws the eye.  Don’t forget you have had years of ‘Chinese water torture’ teaching you that a blue underlined bit of text is something to click on with your mouse pointer.  How does this help your print personality I hear you say well in the most basic form of marketing that one link has not only got your attention but encouraged you to interact with it and that is what I’m guessing is what you want from your branding because that is what we ALL want.

Transform that into print and the interactivity is lost but the attention grabbing follows the same pattern.  We want all our customers to know that we know what are talking about but you must talk in their language for them to understand.  Your print personality is then tailored directly at them it may even be personalised to them with their company information, or cross sell items to help enhance their work or personal lives.  But whatever the purpose of the printed item, make sure your branding is clear throughout the document and try to speak directly to the reader to not only develop a ‘like minded’ thinking but a call to action to help them, help themselves; that way both personalities meet and move forward.

It’s here and benefiting us all. The electronic book is no longer a threat to you and your publication as we have invested in all the tools and processes to give you access and the means to have your publication online accessible to all. The best part is that it’s for free.

So for every publication we produce we can place all the pages on a personally branded section of our site. Conveniently setup in Category and Publication sections each one of your publications/books can be read through by all readers giving you an extra selling point for your advertisers and contributors knowing their work will be published online. Once posted online we can even enable each publication to have its own comments section for members of the public or even you to write some blub about that specific edition.

The Ebook/Emagazine viewer presents itself in a small easy to click through version and also a full page version so people can zoom in on specific articles and images. Check it out here: onlinemagazine.cbfnet.co.uk

The final icing on the publication cake is that we like helping you promote your publication you may have seen that we love our social media including twitter, blogs and forums so we are determined to tell everyone that we have your latest publication online for all to read reaching our nationwide audiences. This is of course if you want us too…

What’s in it for us and why is it a free service, I hear you ‘What’s the catch?’ well we all know that it’s hard enough to promote our own businesses so we have taken the view of helping others to help you be more successful ultimately means that you are more likely to succeed and therefore more likely to keep producing printed materials.

If we can help you answer any questions about the Ebook service just pick up the phone or drop us an email we would love to help you. Speak soon.

Outsourcing your Print processes can be a complicated task.  With so many elements of your business buying print on a daily basis it’s often hard to channel your buying to set supply chains and get the combined buying power/economies of scale if multiple parts of your business are using different printers for different items. 

This is where CBF come in.  By centralising buying power your print spend can be reduced up to 25% we have proved time and time again that outsourcing your print materials can not only reduce costs but it improves efficiency with the process, rollout and tracking of orders making your business more profitable.  This combined with maintaining brand standards, paper stock management and online artwork manipulation tools your savings for outsourcing just keep coming.

So where do you start your journey to print outsourcing utopia?  Firstly by analysing your spend and how you order your printed materials.   

The basic questions you need to answer include:
Tighter brand standards/controls needed on your print?

Is your print spend controlled by budget restrictions?

Do you need more than one person to order print materials in your business?

Do you need to give the persons ordering access to personalising tools?

Is there multiple sites or departments that need to be delivered to? Are some of those international?

Can your business improve with print process improvements?

Does print outsourcing help your become more scalable?

If you answer yes to any of these questions then Print Management Outsourcing is for you and your business.  There are many outsourcing models some will suit and some that don’t.  But essentially one print supply chain will make your business run more efficiently and profitably.

Our outsourcing model gives you the controls to manage budgets, digital collateral & artwork manipulation, Print Storage and Turnaround times.

Are your procurement teams wasting time getting multiple quotes, chasing suppliers and trying to juggle multiple jobs? By outsourcing your print materials would eliminate the headaches of all the multiple supply chains. Most print management companies manage their own supplier database on your behalf getting the best rate possible with their buying power and some like us (CBF) have our own production sites as well as a comprehensive supplier list to make sure you never get a raw deal. 

So if you or your staff are tearing their hair out chasing to get jobs finished on-time then drop us a line. 

We have been managing print since 1986 we can help.

As we deliver printed materials nationally and internationally on a daily basis, we have learnt that there are better ways than others to organise multi site role outs or drops of multiple items.

So where do you start? Timelines, regardless of whether you’re sending to 5 sites or 500 sites across various locations you need to work back from the point of completion. Taking that into account, we know that the majority of mainland U.K deliveries are next day and depending on your international locations can take up to 7 working days, depending on sending tariff. As a note, if you are delivering to one or multiple of the Royal Mail distribution depots make sure you adhere to all their packing requirements i.e. box labels, numbers of items per box. Final courier tip is make sure you have access to the delivery information from your courier, the name, time and confirmation of drop is essential especially if a remote location denies receiving their goods.

Print production planning next, this is massively variable depending on the complexity of your printed items, but most print jobs can be completed within a 5-7 working day window, so if we work with that as a guide. Now this is where you need to pre plan with us to find out about production timelines and fulfilment requirement options. You may want to think about releasing certain sites before others so make sure you pre plan these options alternatively you may be happy with getting parcels out as soon as they are ready in part and not as a completed set this will speed up the final drop being delivered.

Finally artwork and item planning, depending on whether you design your artwork in-house, with a professional agency/designers or do it yourself, make sure you create all artwork pieces to our guidelines (normally CMYK, 3mm bleed and all text converted to outlines). If you are looking to have various items fulfilled together make sure you get these artwork pieces get submitted together as they will be printed in sequence and will need machine time planning.

This is just a basic guide for a more in-depth plan and a print quote drop us a line and we can help you achieve the print plan you’re looking to achieve.

Varible data can be supplied to us manually via a spreadsheet (excel or csv) file or through a finished artwork document using Quark, PDF, Indesign or Microsoft Word.

THe alternative is to automate your files to us either via email or over secure VPN/FTP transfer methods.  We can work with your internal software output to create the variable data print items you are looking to achieve.  With a dedicated IT team managing our IT infrastructure we can cope with most scenarios.

As all variable data jobs are different please contact us for a print quote – www.cbfnet.co.uk or 01242 237652.

Thanks
Lawson