RFID has proven to be an effective tool for efficiency creation, brand protection, product location and user experience. But why not expand on that effectiveness by adding color and graphics to your tag or label? Utilizing decades of world class and award winning pre-press and print capabilities, Labelink RFID is now able to provide a full color graphic experience to your RFID solution. Not only will you get the full power of the data capabilities on an RFID chip, you will also get the full power of graphics!

But won’t the print process damage the inlay? NOT SO!! At Labelink RFID we have perfected our print and inlay embedding process, which ensures that the inlay is presented to the same environment as you would when creating a blank label or tag. The process is tricky….but it’s something we are very proud of accomplishing. We ensure that all tags and labels will continue to have the  same exceptional quality you have come to expect, in being your go to RFID converter of choice.

 For more information on this innovative process please contact Norm McGlaughlin at Norm@Labelink.ca – Director, RFID Products, Labelink.

Case In Point

John was a Supply Chain VP of high volume Pharmaceutical products to the retail chains, Hospitals and Doctors in Canada. He had spent considerable time developing new artwork with Marketng that would let his label speak to his audience in a fresh new way. He knew his big brand competitors and the market share they demanded on shelf.  He also knew that brand loyalty would take time to develop since his Brand would be in the Generic category at the start. His customers (mostly the chain retailers) loved his price points and the margins he offered them, but weren’t sure how is product would lift sales in the category so they brought their own marketing people in to guide John on the development of his custom label and package. Sounds great so far right? Wrong!

With time moving fast for his launch and against the advise of his label and packaging supplier, John decided to impress his customer with proofs from an outside source that didn’t even manufacture labels or packaging. The result, unmatched colors.

Color Matching Technology

In the Digital label and flexo-graphic industry, it used to be that color matching was left up to the proof and the pressman. Bad proof or bad pressman always resulted in bad output on your labels. If you were ever asked to attend a press approval, it was inevitably because your printer wasn’t sure they could hit your colors.

In recent years digital printing has made tremendous leaps in the narrow web label and flexible packaging industry by tackling the color issue digitally. No plates, no dot gain, perfect registration = no problem. Even consistency from run to run could be virtually guaranteed.

But the color matching portion of the process was missing. Assurance for color matching was close but in most cases still left to the pressman’s and prepress operator’s eye… you just hoped they both had a good night’s sleep. In the Pharmaceutical business, with a zero tolerance error ratio, a mis-match in color can destroy your reputation and set you back thousands, even 100′s of thousands of dollars for a long time.

Besides the labeling regulations and guidelines that you have to go through as a manufacturer, what are you doing to ensure that your label (and box) supplier are guaranteeing your color from launch to continuous running in the market?

 X Marks the Spot (Risk Management)

Near perfect color matching is now available through X-Rite and suppliers that carry and implement their products through QA and art departments. It’s for color perfectionists and that’s why the printing industry is investing in it. It’s why they tout themselves as ‘the global leader in color science technology’. And although they serve a variety of industries, the printing and packaging industry being one of the perfect places for it.

As a prepress operator you can calibrate and profile your monitor, and light conditions taking the guess work out of prepress. For retail Brand Managers it’s the best way to ensure Brand accuracy and consistency across the Supply Chain.

What about Your Label & Packaging Supplier?

So the question remains…who is ensuring color accuracy on your Brand? How are they doing it? You should ask the questions. And listen to what they tell you. You might be surprised at the answer. If your label and packaging printer doesn’t know, they’re probably still relaying on the naked eye from run to run. And that means you are too. Pretty risky business in a business with zero tolerance for risk.

About Labelink

Labelink is a narrow web printer of digital and flexographic labels & Flexible Packaging components. We specialize in strategically partnering with our customers who see the value of a supplier who invests in cutting edge technology that ultimately helps them drive more sales and profits through their Brand, eliminate short falls and delays in production and provide just in time solutions for new product launches. We are suppliers (strategic partners) to some of the largest Pharmaceutical and Nutraceutical companies in Canada. Labelink has won numerous label and flexible packaging printing awards including Supplier of the Year for Pharmascience and the prestigious Gold Ink Awards for Digital Printing.

Labelink has implemented the X-Rite Color matching system in both its facilities, for all it’s customers. If you would like to chat about how this system can help your business grow, and ensure  your Brand colors are right and consistent, please don’t hesitate to give your Account Manager or our Marketing Manager a call.

Bring (or send) us your Brand labels and flexible Packaging. We’ll test them for you free of charge and share the findings with you.

Just Click on the Get Your Free Color Match Here button!

You can let us know what you want us to do for you from there.

If only the UN knew of such a thing! What a difference that would make…I’m thinking…world peace maybe?

Webster’s definition, by definition, doesn’t imply a winner or loser. It does imply a conversation to arrive at an agreement. And it doesn’t imply that both parties will end up happy either. But with reasonable parties sharing a common goal, it can.

The best negotiators in the label and flexible packaging industry know this because it implies that both parties are winners in the outcome. There’s a give and take. If you give too much you lose by not getting the best out the deal and if you take too much you lose because you leave the vendor feeling like they just got taken. Negotiating doesn’t work unless both the buyer and the vendor have a mutually beneficial take on the deal.

Here, at Labelink, we negotiate the best deals with our suppliers but need them to be happy about it too. Our relationships with them are critical for us to print and supply on demand items needed by some of our customers. So we need to allow room for our paper and raw material suppliers to service us at peek performance. This includes paying them on time and to the agreed terms we have outlined in our agreements.

In fact, every industry has it’s Best Practices for Purchasing execs. You can find these for your industry on Google. BNET has a great resource for IT Purchasers that lists 7 additional tips for the IT industry.

The Best Negotiations in Print Management

The best negotiations for printing labels and flexible packaging include measuring and other metrics that allow the supplier to meet your needs. These measures can include:

• Supplier Inventory Management
• Risk Management
• Quota Assessments
• Yearly Audits

Posture yourself to get what you need but not at all costs. This will leave your supplier (who also employs people and is an entrepreneur) like he might fail you at some point even if they agree to your terms. This is not a happy situation for both of you.

Once an agreement is outlined, monitor it from time to time. This will show you how your contract is being taken. You should know quickly whether it seriously or not.

You’ll know you’ve made the right decision when your relationship begins to become one of trust. You can count on them to do what they say they’ll do on time every time. And if there’s a problem, you’ll be the first to know…with a solution or possible options for you.

In all these situations it is imperative that you know your industry and the best negotiating tools you have at your disposal.

Tip: Negotiate to your industry!

The best sale is one that solves a problem for you. Why? Because that’s the sale that fills a need. You don’t end up buying what you don’t want or don’t need. That includes a supplier.

Needs in Label & Flexible Packaging Buying

Each of us have a variety of needs fulfillment when purchasing labels and flexible packaging. But on the whole we can probably agree on the following basic needs:

1. Price
2. Quality
3. Service
4. Shortened Delivery Cycles
5. Reducing Inventory Levels
6. Freeing up company cash flow

All of these size up to getting the best deal in a supplier. Because all of them add up to saving your company money and making you look great.

And as you know, these savings don’t always appear on the front end. For instance, have you ever calculated the true costs to receiving your label and packaging materials late? Have you calculated the cost to you on a vendor who has a slow response time to your questions and problems? How many relationships have been strained because you’re not getting your labels on time? These are real costs to you as a buyer and to your company. Unfortunately (or fortunately for you) they mostly go unchecked and uncalculated.

A KISSMETRICS Marketing blog recently polled some numbers on the costs of ‘bad customer service’. They estimated that the financial services sector alone lost $44 billion dollars.

Fixed costs can only go so low. After that it’s difficult to supply you with quality product on time. The best printers understand this and won’t let you down with a ‘sales job.’

Tip: Don’t fall for short-term Attractions: Always make sure that your problem or issue is resolved before listening to everything else they can do for you.

To add to this, if you did find a label or flexible packaging company that met all your needs, the thought of the changeover can be frightening. Think of all the images and text that need to be proofed and reproofed. The colors that need to be matched. All of a sudden, the dream of ‘continuous improvement’ and reducing costs starts to look like a nightmare instead.

Educate them

One sure way to make your life easier is to ensure that vendors you do business with (even those who would like to do business with you) know your best side. In other words, teach them about working with you and what your expectations are from them as suppliers of custom labels.

A Case Study

In Alameda County, in the state of California, the print purchasers for the county decided to educate their print providers so as to better serve the county and their offices. The results were that they achieved their ‘green’ goals and saved a lot of time during any RFQ they released to the printers. This in turn saved the taxpayers of Alameda County money and allowed them to filter unused funds into other programs and plans for the County. Pretty neat huh!

Another goal they managed to reach by educating their local label and offset printers was to identify the individual specialties offered by each printer. Since they didn’t all carry the same equipment or didn’t all cover the same services, Alameda County purchasing team was able to trim down who could do their work the way they wanted it done and save more time. The time saved equaled money saved.

So the next time you are looking for ways to increase your purchasing prowess in the area of labels and flexible packaging, why not try what Alameda County did. Select them based on your criteria and needs. You might be surprised at the results.

The idea of using packaging to diversify your Brand isn’t new. In fact it’s one of the best and more cost efficient ways of dong so. Companies spend tons of money to ensure that their Brand is telling their story in a way that gives the consumer fewer competitor choices.

At POP (Point of Purchase) your customer has seconds to make a decision. This isn’t much time for you to grab their attention. Your goal is to have them go beyond the visual to actually picking up your product in their hands and reading the label. This is a science in itself.

What does the evidence show?

In 2008 Ameritest/CY Research published a study that I think you will find interesting. In it they show how a consumer makes the decision to purchase or not purchase your product. They highlight two factors:

1. The placement on shelf

2. The design of the package

These are the two factors which will influence the consumer toward your Brand. They learned the following:

1. Attention is a Scarce Resource

2. Attention tends to be a process that operates largely below the subconscious mind

3. Attention focuses like the lens of a camera

“My sickness is that I’m fascinated by human behavior, by what’s underneath the surface, by the worlds inside people”..Johnny Depp

Are you fascinated by the choices your customer is making?

Johnny Depp has a natural fascination for people because he is a character actor. With each role he takes on he must understand the character he is playing so that he can get into their heads and act out the choices they might make from situation to situation. The more he understands this from the perspective of the character, the more compelling his performance in convincing the audience of the reality of the story.

When you are designing your Brand, are you approaching your consumer the same way? Are you understanding their persona? Their likes and don’t likes. What they are attracted to? How they make their decisions in-store or at point of purchase? Have you designed your package so that you are taking full advantage of the sales cycle from beginning to end so that you are increasing your chances of purchase? Is your package attracting new converts? Your Brand has an identity…a personality.

Developing Character with your Brand

The road to Brand success has its sign posts. Its up to you to pay attention to them. We have looked at your Brand in the following ways:

1. How the consumer makes purchasing decisions

2. The science behind those decisions at retail

3. The nature of your consumer…that is understanding their persona in a relevant way to increase your sales and profits

Now let’s take a look at how you can captivate your existing customer and compel new prospective buyers to make the choice to buy your product.

Less is more…

Packaging and labeling continues to drive Brands at the retail level. Technology has pushed the level at which you can engage with your customer in a personal way. How your product package is decorated and what it says in the few seconds you have we have seen is vital to your Brand’s growth and success.

Your story and character development can be stunning with less pizzazz and more content.

The great thing about shrink sleeve labeling

If you’re making and packaging a product you know what shrink sleeves are.

As marketing and advertising budgets continue to be slashed, packaging and label suppliers have risen to the challenge with the use of shrink sleeve labeling.

Letting the label do the talking for you has helped companies develop the character and persona of the Brand to its target audience. Shrink sleeve labeling has also allowed companies to reduce time to market since the process is less labor intensive than conventional labeling.

The benefits to your Brand

1. Offers a premium look

2. A stronger barrier for your product

3. Environmentally more favorable

4. Faster to apply

5. Cost efficient

Markets expected to expand even more in Shrink Sleeving

Initiated by the Snapple people (primarily the drink category), Shrink Sleeve labeling is expanding it’s reach into other markets and categories. Some of these are:

1. Food

2. Special containers

3. Nutraceutical

How you can increase Brand awareness, ‘pop’ appeal and sales in your business

Up to now you have seen brands that your business may not relate to. You may be asking, this sounds great but I am not in the category of the ‘big boys’ where I can afford the quantities to even begin considering shrink for my products.

With the advent of narrow web Digital printing you can now not only afford it, but you can increase your Brand’s on-shelf appeal right along side of the major Brands.

Digital printing shrink sleeve labels on the HP Indigo ws4500 allows you the capability of achieving the difficult colours on clear shrink substrates. You can have your graphics really pop with the use of white inks to back up and punch up all your images.

Especially made for small to medium runs, the HP Indigo ws4500 is the perfect fit for launching a new shrink sleeve design quickly and easily. Eye-catching appeal at the point of purchase is now within your grasp.

“Looking good is the best revenge”…Ivana Trump

The Digital Shrink Sleeve Label

Hp has made huge gains in the shrink sleeve label market. It is a revolution in package printing and conversion. You can now have your design sent directly to press from art file and have a proof made on the shrink sleeve material before you continue to run.

You can also print reverse to avoid scuffing and damage to your label while in transit or being handled at store level. Your label will stay with your container.

Furthermore, you can run customized products to help promote your Brand by store or geographic region. This can be easily done with no extra cost to you. There are no set up charges and include other benefits to you:

1. Just in time deliveries

2. Stockless supply Chain Management

3. Faster production of finished product

4. Maintaining corporate identity of all your Branded colours

There is more to be gained in promoting your Brand using shrink sleeve labels.

Summarizing the key points

1. Consumer attention is a scarce resource

2. Always look below the subconscious with consumer behavior

3. Think of your Brand as if looking through a camera lens

4. Be fascinated by the choices your customer is making

5.  Know and develop your Brand’s character with re-imagined packaging

6. Achieve a premium look

7. Increase the amount of real estate available for your Brand’s story

But have you wondered how to take control of your money with respect to inventory? Today it is even more important to remember age old principles like ‘it’s not how much you make, but how much you keep’. It’s easy to forget but whenever I walk by inventory that just isn’t moving, well it makes me nauseous. It’s money not being used or worse, thrown away.

Not to mention the cost of plates and extended turnaround times. These costs only inflate the inventory issue and although a one time charge to you need to be added each sku, each season.

Thankfully there are solutions that can minimize your risk and reduce your inventory to zero. Did I say that? Yup, even to zero. You already know your yield at harvest time. So why not design and order according to your yield. And while you are at it, why not just order what you need?

Digital Labels:

The Digital label industry has come a long way. It was specifically designed to address the issues of high end label printing on multiple surfaces, run similar sizes together, and run labels from ready art files to the printer. The technology, although not new, has evolved over the last 5 years and is currently being used by some Name Brands for the same reasons.

Hewlitt Packard, a forerunner in the industry continues to work with its printers to push the envelope. Specifically, Digital printing is the ability to create, maintain and re-purpose content in a digital format through a variety of delivery vehicles:

• PDF
• Advertising–POP-Banners-Sales Sheets-Labels-Coupons
• Web
• Banner Adds
• Photo
• Email
• SMS

Which brings us to the 3 ways Digital labels can solve your inventory issues:

1. You can print 1-50,000 labels in fast turnaround times
2. You can run multiple versions (skus) together
3. You can proof on the actual material or substrate you have chosen

Did I mention that it provides outstanding print quality for standing out in the market place? Ok, there’s more…but ‘the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing’, which is to keep a handle on your inventory. Reduce it and put your hard earned money in your pocket.

There are many different ways you can make your label (Brand) stand out using Digital. The point here is hat you are now no longer at the mercy of ordering a set amount of labels to keep your budget. When you add what the costs are to holding or throwing away inventory vs a just in time solution of what you really need, you’ll be way ahead of the game. And you can hear the Ka-Ching of your business once again.

I remember when I had a meeting with a new prospect, a large cleaning company that manufactured and sold cleaning solutions to the industrial and retail sector. Obviously I was there to sell them our solution for their custom label and sticker business.

While waiting in the lobby I noticed a plaque that had 10 rules for growing the business that the founder lived by. They were all very good. And it was obvious by the size of the company that over the years these rules had served him well. It became clearly apparent that the founder was a highly driven salesman.

One of his first rules was “The life-blood of all business is new business”. I’ve never forgotten that. It impacted me and helped me to always be on the hunt for new customers.

But what happens after we make the sale is equally as important to your business. That’s where over the top customer service has to kick in so your customers keep coming back. Good experiences are everything in business.

So when we talk about customer retention the talk is pretty straight forward. Everything thing you say and do after their first experience with you will keep your customers coming back to you for your product or service. On the flip side, everything you don’t say or do will have them looking elsewhere for it and going to your competition.

Here’s a sure shot way to keep them coming back!

No joking! This item works and is good-as-gold! It’s better than the old hat, t-shirt, pen or some other type of hyped up T&T (Trinkets & Trash).  Why, because it gets used over and over again. It’s the smart way to get your customers to keep on keeping on with you.

What this means to you is that you will be seen by them every day because they’ll use your Lip Balm every day. Then you can expect to be remembered when they are ready to purchase again. And hey, let’s face it, if’s it’s good enough for Google, it will definitely work for you.

Here are a couple of testimonies to prove this works:

“Many thanks for the samples…they are a big hit around the office.”

Janice Saunderson

Development Officer, SickKids Foundation

I want to order customized Lip balms Now and keep my customers remembering me and coming back to me!

“Dear Peter, On behalf of the Directors of Imagine a Cure for Leukemia, and the fund raising committee, we would like to thank you for your generous donation of the Imagine Lip Balms for our gift bags. As you know all net proceeds from our upcoming event will benefit leading edge Leukemia research.”

Nara Abrams

Director, www.imagineacureforleukemia.com

Yes, I want to order customized Lip balms Now and keep my customers remembering me and coming back to me!

For less than the price of a small Timmy’s coffee per customer you can make sure they keep coming back to you!

And here are some additional benefits:

1. You can customize your label
2. You can customize your message (be as creative as you want)
3. You get remembered on multiple touch points
4. Your ROI is guaranteed

Don’t wait and be late. Remind your customers with this item that you care about their business when you have them in front of you. Add a couple of balms to each of their orders. It’s amazingly simple and does the trick every time. You’ll see what I mean.

Oh, and if you have a Dental Clinic, you can’t afford to be without these. Your clients will love them in addition to a toothbrush.

Yes, I want to order customized Lip balms Now and keep my customers remembering me and coming back to me!

Note: This site is protected by Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which offers the highest level of encryption security possible for your order!

If you’re processing and packaging food, snack, confectionery, or Health-Food products for the retail market today, you know that the Nutritional information is a must on every label or package. Not only must you list all the necessary information by law (the Nutrition Panel), but it must be listed in the right order and format. Many companies hire outside firms to do this for them while others follow the templates or labels of their competitors.

As the consumer becomes more educated and more affluent their purchase choices of foods will become more sophisticated. In fact, they already have. People want to live longer, healthier and better lifestyles. The result has been a Nutritional revolution, and it’s just ramping up.

With label space at a premium, how can you use the Nutritional Panel and information to trigger your educated audience to purchase your product?

Here’s an Idea…Add some Pizazz to the Nutrition Label

If your product is relevant to the health-conscious in any way why not educate your audience further. Be creative and find out ways you can add to the Nutrition label. Even if there isn’t a lot of nutrition, point out what is good and help consumers to take note of that on your package.

The FDA does a great job of this on their website. They list for the consumer by number what they should look for in Nutritional values on labels and packages that they consider best practices for good diets. If the FDA feels it’s relevant  and they’re doing it, maybe you should too. Check with them first to see what can be added to the panel, but if you are creative and have some extra space you might be able to add this around the panel.

Results

Think of the appreciation for this additional knowledge by your audience. Do you think that a label or package that doesn’t contain relevance  like what is good and what to avoid stands a chance against your product? At the very least you are showing that you really care. And if you’re producing or manufacturing Nutraceutical or Health Food related products you do care because that’s most likely why you started your business.

Obviously this approach to letting your label ‘speak’ for you wherever it can will not apply to every product or category, but when it does, why not go the extra mile and see how your Nutritional Panel just might pick up new customers for you that otherwise might have passed you by.

Younger wines usually use a more Glossy material and may even add Gold or Silver Foil Stamping to the label to bring out the Vintner’s quality and Brand. This is where you’ll see brighter colors utilized. Like what [yellow tail] has done so well. Serving a new market which they created for themselves, their label is bright, refreshing, and as adventurous as the back-country it represents. 

But does your label supplier really understand the wine business and can they offer you everything you require to uniquely, even correctly represent your brand? Here are some of the services offered by Labelink.

Labelink is a company with a deep understanding of the wine industry. So, feel free to use this as your check list the next time you are designing your labels:

• Various Wine Materials: Estate Paper, Raflatac Gloss Paper, Fasson Super Clear Poly
• Colors: Up to 10 colors
• Added Value: Hot Stamping, Foil Stamping, Embossing, Debossing, White Bumping on Clear to highlight the colors
• Conventional printing
• Digital Printing: and award winning printing (Gold Ink Awards)
• In-House art Department: Everything you need in one place to make your custom labels stand out
• Knowledgeable: serving some of the best wineries in Ontario so we know what we’re doing with your custom label

One of the top wine makers in Ontario Mastronardi Wines, not only supplies its grapes to other wineries but produces some of the best wines in the region. Known for their award winning vintages they came to Labelink precisely because they needed a printer who understood the wine business…their business. Labelink was able to give them the look they were searching for. We are proud to have contributed custom labels for their award winning wines as seen in this photo of their Merlot 2002 which took the following awards:

Gold
2006 All Canadian Wine Championships

Silver
2006 Ontario Wine Awards

“Right from the start Labelink impressed me with their efficient professional manner and approach that not only inspired confidence, but generated the results I was looking for. As the owner of Mastronardi Estate Wines and the former President of the Ontario Vintner’s Association, I needed a company that had detailed knowledge of the Ontario wine industry. I needed to have a wonderful partnership to help me create the perfect wine labels for my company. I found all of that with Labelink.” Eadie Mastronardi, Propietor, Mastronardi Estate Winery. 

Quick Note:

Did you know that you can print custom wine labels Digitally, shorten your runs and save money by not producing excess inventory? So make sure next time you need to be ordering labels you give us a call. We know wine, and we’ll make you look great!