GRAPEVINE DESIGNS | HELICOPTER ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL RFP | MAY 2020
We’re a promotional marketing agency. We create brand passion, pure and simple. By developing memorable and consistent messaging with promotional marketing solutions, we help form emotional connections with repeated impressions that drive action. We break through the competitive clutter creating only one result that screams, “Wow, that’s cool!” We’ll put our ideas to work for your brand.
We work hard each and every day to cover all things promotional marketing: • Brand Strategy • Branded Merchandise • Brand Identity Programs • Corporate + Event Marketing • Creative Services + Graphic Design • Content Marketing + Strategy • Direct Mail Campaigns • Program Merchandising • Company Store Programs + Retail Store Management • Specialty Packaging + Fulfillment
Over the past five years, Grapevine Designs has experienced massive growth to its service set, customer base, and overall corporate structure. This growth allows our clients many more business and agency solutions, including: • Competitive pricing & services due to newly established supplier agreements. • Updated IT platforms, allowing the latest in sophisticated back-end technologies. • Proven experience managing and operating brick & mortar retail Gift Shops. • Expansion of creative services to include Media Planning & Buying, SEM — Paid Search, Social Media, Email Marketing, and Analytics & Reporting.
WE HAVE ACCESS TO APPROVED INDUSTRY SUPPLIERS AND BUSINESS RESOURCES FROM AROUND THE WORLD. Consequently, we can source, supply, and distribute on a global level to the specifications of our clients. This factor is particularly critical when supporting special events with nonnegotiable delivery time lines. Our sourcing team is challenged every day to think outside the box to come up with new and exciting solutions to promote strong brand experiences throughout the promotional and incentive marketplace. This allows Grapevine Designs access to some of the best industry discounts available. As a sales organization, we understand that most of our environmental and social responsibility footprint is directly connected to our suppliers. That’s why we have consistently aligned with reliable and responsible partners. Our preferred vendors are participating members of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a collaborative effort of socially responsible organizations aimed at improving work conditions in factories across the globe. Furthermore, we have a product research team that scours the global marketplace for the best, most competitively priced and innovative products and services available. This process enables us to conduct ongoing price, quality, and service comparisons to achieve the best possible value.
CUSTOMER SERVICE IS A STATE OF MIND, NOT A DEPARTMENT At Grapevine Designs, we strive daily to exceed your expectations, demonstrate integrity, be kind, and always remember why we are here — because of you. Our strategic direction has always been to act as a partner to our customers providing a complete solution in order to permit you to focus on your core business activities and let us handle what we do best. Our sales team is committed to offering you the white glove service you deserve.
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WHAT, WHO, WHEN AND WHY? A CLIENT IS MORE THAN AN ORDER INTERNAL CREATIVE TEAM ONLINE PORTAL BRICK & MORTAR FACILITY ONSITE EVENT SUPPORT POP-UP SHOPS SPECIAL EVENT SUPPORT POS PLATFORM + PROGRAM FINANCIALS RFP RESPONSES RECOMMENDATIONS DIGITAL SERVICES CONFERENCE + MERCHANDISE CASE STUDIES GRAPEVINE DIFFERENCE + REFERENCES GROWTH STRATEGY
WHAT, WHO, WHEN, AND WHY? WHAT: Our e-Commerce platform options are not a cookie cutter approach; they are a custom solution made to fit your specific needs. Grapevine Designs has almost two decades of experience in building online stores. During that time, our solution has evolved and adapted with emerging technology, consumer demands, and retail trends. We provide a range of online solutions, including: in-stock, made-to-order, safety programs, sales incentive programs, consumer sites, service award programs, and point-based programs. A significant number of our clients require our teams to take their online store experience to on-site events to sell products, which we do frequently. Grapevine Designs company web stores feature high-end functionality and full customization. Our eCommerce solutions adhere to company brand guidelines and will reflect the Helicopter Association International look and feel of luxury. This flexibility means that HAI can enjoy a tool that has real-world practicality while adhering to stringent company benchmarks, creating a truly authentic end-user experience.
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WHO: Grapevine Designs provides full scale, dedicated support. Dedicated team members: GRAPEVINE DESIGNS ORG CHART: KRIS PALMER, Director, Brand Solutions
HEATHER HUNT, Sr. Account Manager
VENUS ROBINSON, Account Manager
BETHANY BURTON, Director, Creative Services
TASHA RICE, Production Management
WHEN: Grapevine is committed to make the necessary revisions to your Gift Shop management immediately.
WHY: In a nutshell, we are NOT your average marketing partner. We focus on doing what we do really, really well. Providing marketing programs and branded merchandise is our life. We strive to know more, try harder, and do things a little bit different to satisfy the ever-changing needs of our client base. If you only remember three things about us, let us impart these three: 1.
Nimble, flexible, and unique. Nothing we do is cookie cutter — it is all made to fit your specific requirements, whether it’s your brick and mortar Gift Shop, your e-platform, your onsite event support, the right inventory and product offering, supporting special order business, or the proper mix of reporting analysis.
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New, exclusive, and on trend. Our unique vendor base offers us exclusive products not available through any other vendor. We scour the planet for the newest and upcoming trends and share those with our clients.
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We have some serious tenure in this industry. Our sales executives are tenured, trained professionals who will protect your brand like a Momma bear. We don’t just let anyone have this role; our sales executives need to prove they have what it takes and that they need some lengthy experience to make the cut. Our teams are always sharing, learning, and searching for the “new” to make sure you have it before anyone else. They become an Ambassador for your brand, and an extension of your team, to deliver the right solution. Every. Single. Time.
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A CLIENT IS MORE THAN AN ORDER We don’t just provide merchandise; we provide brand experience solutions. At the end of the day, you want to provide members with services that directly benefit their operations — we’re here to help you do just that. But we’re also here to assist in extending the Helicopter Association International brand experience through the online store, special events, and every other touch point in your sales cycle. And we take that very seriously.
Along with our standard client support, we realize the importance of engaging with HAI employees to create a strategic marketing plan for high profile programs when necessary. Our account teams are an extension of you — often called to police your brand in coordination with your marketing and communications group.
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INTERNAL CREATIVE TEAM
CREATE BRAND PASSION Inside the walls of Grapevine Designs, is our full service, award-winning, creative team that is dedicated to the promotional marketing industry. They create brand passion, merging your brand with authentic merchandise, to allow repeated exposure that lasts forever. They’re the experts at creatively integrating your brand with strategic promotional solutions. Our clients understand the value of a dedicated, informed creative team and entrust us to deliver full-scale solutions.
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ONLINE PORTAL
DYNAMIC COMPANY STORE SOLUTIONS Grapevine Designs excels at identifying and executing company store solutions that meet your unique business needs. Being a top tier promotional industry leader, we have access to an expanded supply chain that allows you a competitive edge. As your dedicated marketing partner, we provide the creativity and accessibility that is needed to deliver a quality program sure to set your brand apart. Our platforms are modern with basic to robust functionality. Mobile friendly options allow our company stores to look and operate flawlessly on every device, providing your users with an optimal shopping experience. From the initial program assessment and strategy development to merchandising that’s trend aware and brand appropriate to warehousing product and to fulfilling orders, we are your expert partner with loads of experience under our belt. How we are different: • Custom built platforms to meet your exact needs • Retail look and feel that can be updated as seasons change • Responsive design • Simple stores for seasonal single page events
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BRICK & MORTAR FACILITY
THE GIFT SHOP EXPERIENCE Grapevine Designs has unique experience in delivering targeted merchandise programs through a retail outlet or Gift Shop experience. When you want to create the perfect brand experience for both your customers and employees, we’ve got the bandwidth to do just that.
• Product procurement
• Fixtures & displays
• POS Platform & technology
• Signage
• Staffing
• Visual merchandising • Facility management
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ONSITE EVENT SUPPORT
ELEVATE GUEST EXPERIENCE Extending the brand experience through the entire sales process is becoming more critical in today’s competitive landscape. Grapevine Designs is seasoned in taking a Gift Shop or retail outlet on the road.
Many of our clients have found this type of brand immersion within corporate marketing events to be highly effective. We align with our clients during the planning stages to execute to the nth degree.
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POP-UP SHOPS
TURNKEY SOLUTIONS Because Grapevine Designs is asked routinely to provide turnkey solutions for special marketing events, our experienced merchandising teams are able to set up a traveling store for many different brand experiences and premier events. Whether it be a full blown custom pop-up display, a dedicated kiosk, or tabling event, Grapevine knows the tricks of the trade in managing the entire process.
• Staffing
• Signage
• Merchandising
• Event marketing
• Fixtures & displays
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SPECIAL EVENT SUPPORT
ON-THE-GO SOLUTIONS One of the fastest growing trends in merchandising portals is a merchandise vending solution. For the opportunities where volume doesn’t warrant a full blown brick and mortar retail outlet, this proves to be a perfect consideration.
Available in many shapes and sizes, this sales channel offers a very secure and trackable method of distribution within a limited footprint and for a transient target audience.
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POS PLATFORM
WHERE BRANDED MERCHANDISE MEETS SMART INVENTORY MANAGEMENT Every season brings new products to import into a brick and mortar Gift Shop and online store. Grapevine has chosen the perfect point of sale system that gets your new stock organized and ready to go. We’ve perfected the process to procure, upload, track, transfer, bundle, tag, discount, and sell your company’s branded merchandise both in store and online — all with one system. We can report, filter, look up, or discount products based on a system of custom tags and categories that we develop to suit your business needs. Set low stock alerts, monitor inventory levels, create price rules for sale events and more are all a part of our everyday management.
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PROGRAM FINANCIALS
REPORTING DELIVERED Grapevine provides a variety of reports to view program activity and analyze program effectiveness. We offer a standard set of monthly reports and can provide customized reporting upon request. STANDARD REPORTS AVAILABLE • Overall sales activity • Sales by product • Sales by channel • Sales by payment method • Inventory detail
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RFP RESPONSE
RECOMMENDATIONS Grapevine is uniquely positioned to partner with HAI to review current branded merchandise programs and offer strategic recommendations given our aviation industry experience. Once we understand budget parameters, we welcome the opportunity to discuss our expertise in successfully managing online company store programs
BUT WE WON’T STOP THERE. We can provide remote pop-ups and special event support to take the merchandise collection on the road. Our merchandising teams are extremely resourceful in supporting special order requests, aside from traditional program business. In addition, pulling together financial data and reporting is second nature to us. We understand it’s critical to assess the metrics behind the scenes of any branded merchandise program. Partnerships are key. And we feel like we’re perfectly suited to become a marketing partner with HAI. Enjoy this curated collection that is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. We will continue the ideation process until it perfectly suits your brand and budget. That’s what we do.
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DIGITAL SERVICES Grapevine can create profitable digital marketing campaigns that will drive sales and revenue for your brand by using a variety of digital platforms. Campaigns can be developed for company store platforms based on the merchandise collection to drive traffic and conversations to the website. An intensive keyword research can be performed before building campaigns. Google keyword planner will have the best insight with the competition, cost, and clicks per keyword. We would use relevant keywords based on your website, inventory, and history, and would focus on essential products in stock or specific merchandise to promote. We could add negative keywords (keywords we do not want to show up for) and common keywords customers are using while searching for your product.
GOOGLE RETARGETING Remarketing is a way to connect with people who previously interacted with your website. It allows you to strategically position your ads in front of these audiences as they browse Google or its partner websites, thus helping you increase your brand awareness or remind those audiences to make a purchase. A remarketing list can be built directly in Google Ads and multiple remarketing can be used based on goals for your campaigns. Google automatically creates the list for you based on your site visits and who has/hasn’t made a purchase.
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GEO-FENCING Google Ads uses Location Targeting “geo-fence.” Location targeting allows your ads to appear in the geographic locations that you choose such as; countries, cities, zip cities, address, a radius around an area (1 mile – 500 miles), or location groups, which can include places of interest, your business locations, or tiered demographics. Location targeting helps you focus your advertising on the areas where you’ll find the right customers and restrict it in areas where you won’t. This specific type of targeting could help increase your return on investment (ROI) as a result.
SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING If requested, Grapevine could develop a business page in Facebook and/or Instagram. Once your business page is created, we can create and run campaigns using simple self-serve tools and track their performance with easy-to-read reports. GVD can also create specific ads to help drive traffic to HAI website, to get customers engaged with your products. We will create linked ads to grow the number of people who are visiting your site and increase the likelihood of them taking valuable action when they land on your website. Link Ads help increase the number of clicks on links within the ad that led to destinations or experiences. GVD can also connect your business accounts in Facebook and Instagram, which allows for ads to be managed in one place.
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CASE STUDIES: GIFT SHOPS TEXTRON AVIATION • Grapevine Designs was selected as TA’s marketing partner for their Gift Shop program and Special Order business for 5 years • Successfully liquidated $800k+ in pre-existing inventory across multiple warehouses and store locations • Created substantial savings by eliminating excessive obsolete inventory stored in warehouse locations • Implemented a single inventory multi-store POS system to support both in store and online transactions. • Supported rebrand initiative across all stores and special order business • Supported major airshow events, and sales and customer events with onsite merchandise programs • Increased net profit year over year • Employed store staff
BELL • Grapevine Designs was selected as Bell’s marketing partner for their Gift Shop program and Special Order business for three years to present • Implemented a single inventory multi-store POS system to support both in-store and online transactions • Supported rebrand initiative across all stores and special order business • Developed internal online merchandise program for brand ambassadors to support all brand initiatives • Support major airshow events and sales and customer events with onsite merchandise programs • Execute pop-up and online order series for remote factory locations • Support traveling Kiosk series for WHQ factory sites • Employ store staff
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THE GRAPEVINE DIFFERENCE Grapevine Designs ranks in the top 1% of all promotional products distributors nationwide. Known coast-to-coast for innovation and creativity, Grapevine Designs is enjoying its 20th year as a full-service promotional marketing agency with 60 full time employees and is headquartered in Lenexa, Kansas. Grapevine is a proud WBENC certified woman-owned corporation. 2019 revenues were $18.5MM.
REFERENCES 1.
AOPA Alexis Hahn, 301-695-2000 alexis.hahn@aopa.com
2.
Bell Andrea Harney, 817-280-1944 aharney@bellflight.com
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U.S. Bank Karen Moessner, 612-973-2903 karen.moessner@usbank.com
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GRAPEVINE’S GROWTH STRATEGY Grapevine Designs has achieved 15-20% growth YOY for the past five years. Our most recent strategy for growth included a buyback of shares from our minority partner that was completed in October, 2019 giving 100% ownership of Grapevine to Janie Gaunce, President/CEO. This move furthers our women-owned status that includes our gold standard WBENC certification. This accomplishment allows us to continue to improve our operational capacity in our Kansas City headquarters. During this process, we secured a new level of bank financing to support the growth initiatives noted below.
OUR FIVE- YEAR PLAN INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING TACTICS FOR GROWTH VERTICAL MARKET EXPANSION AND TALENT ACQUISITION IN OUR AGENCY SERVICES DIVISION. This team produces everything from strategy, content management, SEO/SEM, digital media buying, traditional media, graphic design, and more. Grapevine’s Agency Services model is the fastest growing segment of our business. This talent acquisition will allow us to provide services to other clients outside of the vertical market the agency currently serves. INVESTMENT IN ADDITIONAL IMPROVED WAREHOUSE SPACE. We currently support and service a substantial roster of e-commerce sites on a daily basis, and we plan for 25% growth in additional sites each year. Concurrently, we manage an extensive kitting operation for our clients who appreciate our unique skills in packaging, personalized fulfillment, and targeted mailings. This growth requires an investment in additional space and technology.
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KRIS PALMER | DIRECTOR, BRAND SOLUTIONS 913.307.0225 | grapevinedesigns.com