Come See How Good Software Can Be

Say “I do” to handheld technology

Recently “Garden Center” magazine featured an article on one of SBI’s long-term customer’s, Troy’s Landscaping, detailing innovative and efficient technologies using wireless sales and inventory with handhelds.

Take a look!

Say “I do” to handheld technology 

Design of the Week!

Why it’s the “Design of the Week”

• Color and Spacing – This piece does a great job of dividing up information into visually-digestible pieces. This keeps viewers from becoming overwhelmed by lots of content and increases the reader’s ability to comprehend the message.

• Plant Bullet Points – sbi’s business is difficult to describe visually and placing large blocks of text to describe it is off-putting to customers. To remedy this, sbi highlighted their main points with leaf bullet points to inform viewers that sbi’s business is plant-related.

• Clear Call to Action – The piece clearly states on both sides that they want viewers to visit their booth at the trade show and visit them online.

• Balance of Graphics and Content – It is important that the image speaks first and the content complements what the viewer is looking at.  In the case of this postcard, the content about apps ties in perfectly with the image of an iPad.

Background

Ben Marchi-Young is a marketing assistant for the sbi team. He is assists in direct mail, email & web, website design, print ad design, press releases, social media, and sales presentations. He is also involved in front line support.

Joshua Carlsen: So this postcard is clearly inviting people to come see your trade show and visit the sbi website. What is your core objective with this particular piece?

Ben Marchi-Young: Well with these kinds of postcards we have two core objectives. The first is to let our potential customers know that we are at a particular trade show and the second objective is to let potential customers see the simplicity of our apps and how it helps them.

Joshua: How do postcards fit into your marketing plan?

Ben: I think postcards are an integral part of our marketing plan. Obviously, we use many different channels to market but with the advance in technology a lot of the marketing methods have gone strictly digital. This is great because it allows you to reach more people at a smaller cost but it also makes it easier for the end target to ignore or delete your marketing material. Having something tangible like a postcard allows you to put something physical into your target audience’s hands.

Joshua: How do you target your customers when you send out these trade show postcards? Do you use an attendee list?

Ben: No, we don’t use an attendee list. Actually, what we do is keep a database of people or businesses that have a high propensity to use the sort of product and service we offer and then we target them.

Joshua: One of the things that we really like about this piece is that it really has a lot of breathing room. It really allowed my eyes to break up the information into manageable chunks so that I could digest the overall message fairly easily. Can you talk a bit about your strategy behind the design?

Ben: Yeah, actually you kind of touched on it. In the past our postcards tended to carry a little more text and information and recently we have made a concerted effort to limit the amount of information on the postcards and focus on providing less information and yet having the information we do have on the postcards be much easier for customers to process.

Joshua: Can you talk a little bit about your tablet graphic and why you chose to use that?

Ben: I chose to use the tablet graphic because we have shifted our app focus to tablets because it is ultimately more user friendly then electronic units we’ve used in the past. I also wanted to include hands actually using the tablet because it is more interesting for people to actually see the tablet in use rather than simply a standalone tablet.

Joshua: Have you ever used tracked the results of your postcards?

Ben: We haven’t actually tried tracking them but we have placed incentives on our postcards when we promote for trade shows. Usually the promo was designed for people to bring the postcard to our booth. We have found that to be an effective marketing tool.

Joshua: What role does expresscopy play in your success?

Ben: expresscopy has been great. I think that the quality of the postcards go a long way in making a positive first impression with the customer. The postcards just have a great look and feel to them and I really think that adds value to the message we want to get across.

Josh: Have you ever contacted our VIP Support reps for assistance?

Ben: Yeah actually I have and I’ve really found them to be a tremendous help. That is something that I think can’t be said enough is that most companies these days don’t simplify their support service enough and it can be frustrating to deal with. When I call support I just want to talk to a human being who can help me with whatever issue I have. I’ve always felt expresscopy excelled at this and I really appreciate it.

 

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SBI Software has been awarded for the high-quality integration SBI created between its ERP software for growers and the Prophesy Transportation Solutions, the provider of trucking and logistics software.

The partnership between SBI and Prophesy creates a customized integration specifically built to help growers and garden centers leverage efficiencies while effectively managing their transportation needs.

The Prophesy team was impressed with how far SBI went to make this integration seamless and user-friendly. Specifically, Prophesy was fond of SBI’s use of an error report that is exported directly to an Excel file, which makes trouble shooting easier for everyone.

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SBI Shipping App

Streamline your shipping process with this application designed to use IPads to confirm shipped quantities at the dock. Stop hand writing the quantity shipped on paper and waiting for the office to update the order to get shipping paper work for the load. Users at the dock can quickly update shipped quantities and flag the order as loaded on the truck. Start shipping with confidence; lower order fulfillment costs and improve invoice accuracy.

Thank You for Visiting us at The Clinic

What a great week in Louisville, Kentucky at the ANLA Clinic! We would like to thank everyone who visited our booth and Hospitality Suite at the show.  It was a real pleasure meeting all of you and having an opportunity to discuss mutual goals.  If anyone would like more information from our Lunch & Learn sessions on Rack Estimating & Optimization and Transportation Logistics & Routing Integration please feel free to call or email us at SBI.

Congratulations to David Van Essen from Van Essen Nursery who was the raffle winner of the free Kindle Fire. Thank you to everyone who entered in the drawing, we very much appreciate your time and hope to talk more soon.

Again thank you to everyone for visiting us at the ANLA Clinic.

Win a Kindle Fire at The Clinic!

Come by our hospitality suite (#1446) at The Clinic this week in Louisville to:

• Demo our latest and greatest features for 2012
• Network while having a snack and a drink
• Enter for a chance to win a brand new KINDLE FIRE!

Rene Huurman will be presenting two educational sessions at the Clinic as well!

• Rack Estimating & Optimization: Thursday, 1/26 @ 1:45pm-2:15pm
• Transportation Logistics & Routing Integration: Friday, 1/27 @ 11:45am-12:15pm