By Andrew Coulsen, CEO, Spandex Group
Many of our customers are small to mid-sized businesses. They’re creative and entrepreneurial, but also naturally focused on delivering time-critical projects for customers. Their energy is directed into client satisfaction and managing complex production schedules, which leaves limited resources for proactive selling and marketing. So, we want to support them in selling their creative ideas to clients, and to pursue the exciting new commercial opportunities that come with continuous innovation in materials.
That’s why ‘Inspiring Creativity’ is the strapline that sits within our Spandex brand, reflecting a core proposition to our customers. This is delivered through a vast range of amazing performance materials and accessories that enable our customers to produce a truly incredible array of creative applications. But it’s equally vital that we share knowledge and expertise to elevate our customers’ offering, and give visual communications businesses practical tools to promote and sell their capabilities, expand their customer base, and attract higher margin projects.
Unlock higher margins
A great example is our recent launch of Zeno, a powerful 3D visualisation tool to support our customers in the vehicle wrapping and graphics sector. This is a market that, until now, has relied on physical swatches of colours and finishes, supported by 2D drawings, to show clients what they can expect from a colour-change wrap or refreshed vehicle branding. It’s a traditional selling approach that costs our customers valuable time in going backwards and forwards with the client to reach creative agreement and limits their opportunity to upsell additional options and increase the value of a project.
With a database of hundreds of car models and the latest wrap films in our range of trusted brands, Zeno empowers them to show their clients a 360-degree digital protype of their finished wrap or graphics with a few mouse clicks. This instantly professionalises the discussion, which makes a great impression. The commercial impact can be measured in accelerated project sign-offs and reduced time costs attached to each sale, instantly improving business efficiency and boosting margin per job.
Upsell and promote
And the chance to unlock more profit doesn’t stop there. With a few extra clicks, Zeno makes it easy to inspire the client with value-added options like secondary colours, de-chroming, window tinting and extra design details, which can deliver an uplift in revenue of as much as 50% on a single project. Scaled up across a year’s worth of sales, the potential commercial advantage from this more sophisticated creative upselling is enormous.
Sales and marketing go hand in hand and, in the vehicle wrap market, digital and social marketing on platforms like Instagram is critical to engaging potential customers and attracting leads. Dedicated marketing teams are a luxury most of our customers don’t have, but Zeno’s 3D digital renders provide attention-grabbing visual content that can be socially shared instantly or used in digital marketing – no extra cost, no delay.
Support beyond products
Zeno is a perfect example of our commitment to help our customers far beyond supplying them with materials. Whether in retail, events, interior décor or automotive, we’re always thinking about how we can support visual communications businesses to attract interest, open doors, have effective conversations, sell in creative ideas, close sales, and feed the next cycle of promotion.
And, as our customers move into a new year with fresh motivation to expand their businesses, our team of experts is here, ready to offer hands-on advice, guidance and innovative business support tools that can make a calculable difference to every bottom line.
Author – Andrew Coulsen
Andrew Coulsen is the CEO of Spandex Group, one of the world’s leading suppliers of materials, sign systems, displays and equipment to the sign making, graphics, architectural and vehicle wrapping markets.
