THE SITUATION
The Mentor Network is a national network of local health and human services providers operating across 35 different states with more than 26,000 employees and contractors. The company offers an array of community-based services to adults and children with intellectual, emotional, behavioral and developmental disabilities including brain, spinal cord and other catastrophic and medically complex challenges while also offering support and guidance to their families. The Mentor Network operates 12 major brands with secondary brands under each. Together, the company has over 72 distinct logos with over 170 logo variations representing each brand across the country.
THE CHALLENGE
The Mentor Network marketing department was tasked with unifying & streamlining the different brand messaging despite the various brands and hundreds of differing logos, addresses, and locations. They needed a vendor partner who could learn and understand their business, along with the various brand strategies and guidelines across the company. In addition this vendor would need to provide custom logoed product and literature by brand segment, while distributing these marketing materials accurately, efficiently and cost effectively to the various locations across the United States.
THE SOLUTION
Stran worked with the team at Mentor to identify all collateral and product currently being produced in volume, and being place into inventory. We then identified all items that could be produced using customizable templates and on-demand printing. Many print materials were being produced repetitively by different offices with very similar content, but each individual office saw signification waste and warehousing costs for these items. Stran consolidated these offerings into the templated solutions and combined them on a singular platform with inventoried products and larger run heavy used print collateral.
Users are now presented simple dropdown menus to customize their individual pieces of collateral and product for their specific office and/or service offerings. Pre-populating content such as addresses, phone numbers, websites, and email addresses helps to simplify the process and reduce the chance of typos or other brand infractions. Stran’s platform has become a central location for both made-to-order, customizable print, tradeshow and product along with in-stock product. Print-on-demand stationary and print items have a 48-72 hour turn time. Inventoried promotional products are sent out the same day, while on-demand premiums have an average turn time of 5-7 business days.
THE RESULTS
Stran built and deployed more than 2100 templated products on The Mentor Network platform which has allowed the organization to reduce its inventory and print waste costs previously making up 18% of their total promotional spend. They have increased brand control, ensuring consistency across all their print, tradeshow, apparel and product. Additionally, Stran’s ability to offer inventory funding has helped The Mentor Network free up their cash flow and to more accurately account for all costs associated with their promotional marketing efforts. By having single source billing, their procurement and accounting teams can easily determine how all of their brands and locations are using branded materials, and how those brands and locations are performing in relation to their marketing efforts.
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