Hall of Shame #6: Environmentally offensive

Do you ever get a package in the mail that feels like environmental waste just got dumped at your front door?

These contents — totally no more than 4″ long and 2″ wide —  arrived:

-inside a styrofoam wrapper which was then…

-laid to rest in a bed of styrofoam noodles stting in…

- a 6″ x 8″ corrugated box that is 4.5″ deep! 

I guess they needed a box big enough to hold all of those noodles. 

With the number of environmentally friendly solutions out there, it takes a lot of effort (or perhaps no effort at all) to make this strong of a brand statement to your customers.  And when I say statement, I don’t mean a good one.

Send us your own offensive images, and we’ll post them.

-Sari McConnell at smcconnell@conformerinc.com

Conformer Cover Story in Print Solutions Mag

I was featured in the cover story, Working with Generation Next, in the December issue of Print Solutions Magazine.  The article discusses how “[A] new era of industry professionals [are] reshaping the way companies do business.”

by Bob Makofsky

10,000 Solutions: Don’t Let Marketing End at the Mailroom Door

Companies invest countless hours and great sums of money to make sure their brand is expressed correctly through their printed marketing materials, but more often than not, I find smart marketing people relying on “the mailroom guy” to determine which envelope, mailer or box to use when marketing material go in the mail.  I find myself repeating nearly daily, “Don’t let marketing end at the mailroom door.”

What do I mean by that?  In talking to hundreds of marketing and creative directors over the years, I find that mailroom packaging is almost always overlooked in the creative process.  Not only that, these packages are rarely tested to make sure the contents arrive in respectable condition, on par with the corporation’s brand image.

The direct mail world lives by the adage, “Test, test, test.”  I advise clients to mail test packages to themselves to make sure the packages hold up.  This testing must take place before production orders have been placed.

by Marv Makofsky

Marvin Makofsky’s “10,000 Solutions” series reveals tips and tricks he has learned in his 38 years (10,000 days) of working on the bleeding edge of the printing and packaging industry.

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Marvin Makofsky’s “10,000 Solutions” series reveals tips and tricks he has learned in his 38 years (10,000 days) of working on the bleeding edge of the printing and packaging industry.

Hall of Shame #5, S&H

How many times have you shopped online only to abandon your shopping cart when you see the shipping and handling charge?  I do it all the time.

When I talk to the packaging industry about changing packaging to improve postage rates, a common response I hear is, “That’s okay, the customer pays for it in shipping and handling?”  Wrong.  Here is why.

If I buy a small part like a data card for $45, I am charged $7.99 for shipping and handling.  Let’s do the math:
$0.30 for the box
$0.05 for the peanuts
$0.10 to print and apply the label
$5 for UPS shipping
Total packaging and postage is $5.45.
$7.99 – $5.45 = $2.54 profit.  Not bad.

Light box. What could it be?

Here is my data card, looking cozy on a bed of peanuts.

Now let’s make some smarter packaging choices.  Data cards are flat.  There is nothing to crush, and they are unlikely to be damaged.  If the data card were shipped in a flat paperboard mailer, the package would likely qualify as a first-class USPS flat.

Again, the math:
$0.25 for a paperboard mailer
no fill material
$0.10 to print and apply the label
$1.39 to mail a first-class flat by USPS
Total packaging and postage is $1.74
$7.99 – $1.74 = $6.25 profit.  Much better.

Better still, slash your shipping and handling, pass the savings on to your customers, and watch as your customers abandon shopping carts less frequently.

by Bob Makofsky bmakofsky@conformerinc.com

10,000 Solutions: Use Your Best Bait When Fishing

We all know how difficult it is to get business these days.  Those of us in the printing business have to be ready to provide our clients with anything they want printed.  I think it’s clear that we need to do more.  We need to find a way to set ourselves apart from the competition.  It’s called the “differentiator.”

We know something about a lot of things, but we also know a lot about a few things.  Put your best bait on the hook, and give it a good toss.  It’s a great way to pull in a big fish.

by Marv Makofsky

Marvin Makofsky’s “10,000 Solutions” series reveals tips and tricks he has learned in his 38 years (10,000 days) of working on the bleeding edge of the printing and packaging industry.

My Son Wants to Be a Mailman

Last night, my 6 1/2-year-old son told me he wanted to be a mail man when he grows up.  I wondered if our dinnertime discussion of the day, and my involvement with the postal industry, had rubbed off on him.  “Why do you want to be a mail mail?” I asked.  “Because I get to walk around all day and see where everybody lives!” my son replied.

This morning, he told me he wants to be a singer instead.

American Idol 1, Jack Potter 0

New Website!

Last week was big.  I am still recovering from it.

Sari and I were invited to Atlanta to present Conformer in the context of the book Blue Ocean Strategy to the Envelope Manufacturers Association.  It was a great opportunity for us to spin the wheels on our re-branding strategy in front of 300+ CEO’s of the biggest envelope manufacturers in the country.

To reinforce our new branding effort, we launched a new and radically improved website with the help of Jonathan Jaffe and his team.  Take a look at our new website, and you will notice one striking difference.  Besides the new graphics and copy, you will discover the word “expansion” has been scrubbed clean off the site.  Why, you ask?  As Sari wrote a few weeks ago, we did this because the word “expansion” is just a small part of the value our products deliver, yet the word “expansion” has become almost a liability for customers who dismiss the other Conformer benefits altogether because they don’t think they’re in the market for an expansion product.

The new website is exciting.  We have pulled together a lot of cool Web 2.0 technology.  You will find a completely re-worked site map allowing us to present new information efficiently and clearly.  You will find new product photos and powerful product videos, and we integrated this blog into the site.  You will also find deeper corporate history, executive team bios, and an all new “How It Works” section.  We now have full connectivity to Web 2.0 tools like Digg, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Dig in, have a read, and let us know what you think.

by Bob Makofsky bmakofsky@conformerinc.com

Hall of Shame #4: Thanks for the Mess

My wife recently purchased hair products from a manufacturer called Deva Concepts.  She purchased the product online from a beauty supplier and told me to expect the package at my office.  I was surprised when the package arrived a few days later.  It was huge.

Note: The shipper taped two medium-sized cartons to create a single package. Slick.

Fancy hair product inside the big box.

Contents :

1 – Bottle of shampoo
1 – Bottle of conditioner
2 – Packages of travel-sized hair supplies

But what really surprised me was the volume of wasteful packaging used to protect the shampoo and conditioner.

Is this a joke?

Packaging :
2 – 4” x 14” x 10” cartons
3 – Large UPS bubble packages provided by UPS for overnight shipping
10 – Void-fill airbags
½ a roll of packing tape

While the hair products arrived undamaged, the branding effort scores a zero.  Nice work maintaining a luxury brand image.

And the kicker – there was not a shred of marketing material inside this heap to encourage a re-order.  No coupon, no free sample, no catalog, nothing.  The only evidence of the supplier was its logo and address on the invoice.

Here are some ideas to preserve the luxury brand image and promote re-orders :

• Don’t use the “free” bubble mailers provided by UPS as package filler.
• Branded packing tape – simple, but effective.
• Discount coupon for a customer’s next order.  Everyone wants to save money, and loyal customers are less price driven.
• Include samples of new products.  Customers love free samples.
• Promote related product sales with samples or coupons.  In this case, include hair styling samples along with a shampoo order.

by Bob Makofsky bmakofsky@conformerinc.com

Blue Ocean Moment: Steer Clear of Best-in-Class

The Blue Ocean Strategy

Bob and I are delivering one of the keynote speeches at the Envelope Manufacturers Association (EMA) annual meeting next week in Atlanta on innovation.  Maynard Benjamin, the EMA’s president, has been a strong advocate of the innovation that Conformer Products Inc. is bringing to the industry, and he asked us to speak to this illustrious group on the alignment of our innovation process to the principles in Blue Ocean Strategy, a terrific business book by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

So we’re presenting “Swimming in the Blue Ocean.”  And although Conformer Inc. tread this path years before this book appeared on our radar, I have to say that it is quite gratifying to see our strategy laid out so well in this book.  Essentially, the B.O.S. “challenges companies to break out of the red ocean of bloody competition by creating uncontested market space that makes the competition irrelevant.”

Last night, I attended a terrific Forum for Women Executives & Entrepreneurs (FWE&E) event in Silicon Valley.  And the speaker Dee McCrorey, addressing the topic of creating a personal innovation brand said, “Why strive to be best-in-class?  You’re still in the class!”

Though McCrorey didn’t reference Blue Ocean Strategy, her comment got right to the heart of breakthrough innovation.  The book discourages best practices and competitive benchmarking in order to “break away from the competition” (which is an intriguing idea for MBA-types like myself who have spent many hours best practicing and benchmarking).

This concept also addresses how lonely and isolating it can be as a start-up that is committed to zig when others zag.  At times, pitching our patented solutions has made me feel like a crazy person.  Well, the tide has certainly turned, hasn’t it?

I’ll let you know how our speech to the EMA goes next week and post a copy of it on our blog.

-Sari McConnell at smcconnell@conformerinc.com

Conformer is No Longer Expanding

I just wrapped up an important re-positioning  project I’ve been working on for the past year with some very talented marketing people in our industry.   Over time, we’ve learned some remarkable things from the marketplace as to why customers choose Conformer products, and our marketing communications had fallen far short of expressing those benefits.

New Conformer logo

And we landed in a pretty amazing place.  For starters, we’re taking the word “Expansion” out of our name.  Our products and our company are now simply Conformer Products and Conformer Products, Inc. respectively.  We did this because the word “expansion” is just a small part of the value our products deliver, yet the word “expansion” has become almost a liability for customers who dismiss the other Conformer benefits altogether because they don’t think they’re in the market for an expansion product.

We also mashed ideas together for months in search of a  great tagIine that would capture the essence of Conformer.  Drum roll please…“Conformer Products.  Creating presentation and mailing solutions that DO MORE.”

Our benefits:

• More durable (360۫۫۫  perimeter protection)
• More functional and versatile (holds a little or a lot)
• More professional looking (it stays flat no matter what you put in it)
• More environmentally friendly (FSC certified, recycled stock, less material and reusable)
• Plus, Conformer products also have the potential to save a lot of money in postage and fulfillment costs, while providing superior performance.

Now our products scream “value” and “superior performance” … it’s amazing what you can do by banishing one little pesky word to the corner.   Why shouldn’t Conformer products be the incoming industry standard for presentation and mailing solutions?

Remarkably, these changes are a reflection of what we’ve learned from our customers and the value they believe our products deliver rather than an aspirational marketing ploy that we hope will stick during a recessionary economy.

This is a seismic step for Conformer Products.  Thanks for helping us take it.  And please share your thoughts and reaction to our news.

–Sari McConnell at smcconnell@conformerinc.com