Quarterly Comments
James Blake - President

And the survey says… thermography makes a difference.

It’s true. In a survey conducted by Western Michigan University, 88 percent of respondents preferred the raised (thermographed) printed piece over an identical flat piece and thought the thermographed piece made a better first impression. In addition, 87 percent of the participants surveyed indicated they would purchase the thermographed piece.

Thermography is a powerful sales differentiator. An overwhelming majority of the 200 people surveyed described the raised print as looking more professional, high quality, elegant and expensive. That’s pretty convincing. But it’s also something the printing industry has known and been working to reinforce for a long time.

With a record number of online printers producing only flat print — and more surfacing every day, thermography is quickly becoming the print process to differentiate you from the competition and get your customers noticed. Raised printing adds dimension to words and art. When used on business cards, people can immediately feel the difference.

To see and feel the difference, look at the sample business cards and stationery located in your 2008 Wes-Tex product catalog. These samples are a great selling tool. Use these pages to show customers the difference thermography can really make.

Tips & Tricks for the Trade: Maps Made Easy

Printing maps on the back of business cards adds value by directing traffic to your customer’s place of business. It’s a great way to help your customers increase sales and add revenue to your bottom line at the same time.

Creating maps for your customers does not have to be time consuming or costly. With the help of Adobe Illustrator, you can minimize creation time and simplify the process.

Illustrator CS3 has a wide range of brushes and symbols to assist in the map making process. The Borders_Novelty brush palette (Window > Brush Libraries > Borders > Borders_Novelty) is a useful resource. The palette contains brushes that illustrate a directional path, a foot path, a dog path and even railroad tracks.

Illustrator also has a symbols palette dedicated to map making. The map palette (Window > Symbol Libraries > Maps) holds icons for airports, highways, camping sites, bathrooms, phone booths and more.

So the next time you are working on a business card order, consider selling the idea of including a map on the second side. With Illustrator, you’ll be able to add value and increase profit on the sale with minimal effort.

Customer Zone: Curtis Printing

When an upscale beauty salon owner came to Rachel Free, president of Curtis Printing, looking for a unique and trendy way to market her products and business, Rachel immediately turned to Wes-Tex’s award-winning 2008 product catalog.

In the Trends Series and Artisan Line sections, she found exactly what her customer needed.
“We were looking for something different and unique,” Rachel said.

The solution came in the form of a 2.5” x 2.5” square thermographed card on leaf green stock. Since the cards were to be used as product price tags and gift tags, Rachel had holes punched in the corner and a perfectly unique marketing solution was born.

“Our client loves the cards,” Rachel explained. “They have been getting a lot of compliments on them. I have a loyal customer thanks to this innovative solution.”

Rachel also created coordinating business cards and appointment cards that further increased her profit on the sale. To enhance the cards and minimize design time, Rachel turned to Wes-Tex’s website to download free stock art to create an attractive design and utilized Wes-Tex’s upload ordering site to save time.

These are just a few of the ways that you too can use the Wes-Tex catalog and website to sell innovative products and make a profit for your business at the same time.

Employee Spotlight: Rob Welker

Rob Welker has been a very busy man. With the help of his colleagues, he recently launched Wes-Tex’s new online order system called PrintKeeper^SM. As the PrintKeeper^SM Sales and Support Manager, Rob has been educating customers about the value of using PrintKeeper.com.

“PrintKeeper^SM gives our customers more time to sell their business instead of placing orders, creating proofs and managing customer changes,” Rob explained. “The template-based system really does all of the work and offers a great online ordering experience.”

PrintKeeper^SM is a national, web-based system that is ideal for customers who use a high volume of business cards or stationery. A person can log in to the system, select a template, make changes, preview an instant proof and submit an order. PrintKeeper^SM also delivers brand management support and consolidates a customer’s purchasing point.

Awards Highlight Printing Excellence

Wes-Tex Printing won several prestigious awards at the 11th annual Worldwide Printing Thermographers Association conference held in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Representatives from nationwide companies involved in the thermographic process attended this June 2008 conference.

The conference award contest featured 19 categories that included excellence in thermography for business cards, envelopes, letterheads or personal stationery, social announcements or invitations, foil stamping and self promotion. Award entries were judged on excellence in quality of thermography in the areas of color control, design, registration and how the use of thermography enhances the finished piece.

Wes-Tex won eight awards. The 2008 Wes-Tex Catalog won the coveted Fred Nicotera Award for the Best of the Best Excellence in Thermography for Self-Promotion. The company also won the first place award in the Excellence in Letterhead or Personal Stationery Thermographed with an additional process category.

“Receiving the Fred Nicotera Award for our new 2008 Wes-Tex Catalog is an honor,” said Wes-Tex’s Marketing Manager, Debbie Maxwell. “We are pleased to provide our dealer network this powerful sales tool capable of delivering the competitive advantage they need to succeed.”

 “All of the entries were outstanding,” said James Blake, President of Wes-Tex Printing. “We are very proud to win these awards and showcase the ways we can bring award-winning quality to our customers’ print projects.”

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