July 13, 2001 DMIA Members Only

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Welcome... to DMIA's email newsletter for printing professionals.
Any employee of a DMIA member company may subscribe at this link, which also can be used for email address changes. Send your comments to Brad Holt. The e-Newsletter is written by the FORM Magazine editorial staff—Darin Painter, Kara Carpenter and Rita Tiefert. It is designed by Christine Kenny, DMIA's new media specialist. If you would like information about advertising in this newsletter, click here to reach the Townsend Group, DMIA's advertising representatives. To open this newsletter in your browser, click here.

Mail-Well to Supply Treasury with 63 Million Envelopes
ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--Mail-Well Inc. announced Tuesday that the U.S. Department of the Treasury has ordered 47 million envelopes for mailing tax rebate checks to taxpayers, with an order for at least 16 million more expected soon.

Mail-Well's Cleveland and Chicago plants are handling the order, and have already delivered more than 23 million of the tax rebate envelopes. The remaining 40 million envelopes are scheduled for delivery on various dates through September.

The Internal Revenue Service is currently scheduled to mail the first rebate checks for delivery during the week of July 23. The mailings will continue through September according to a schedule based on the last two digits of taxpayers' Social Security numbers. The schedule and other information about the tax rebate are available on the IRS web site.

Standard Register, JetForm® Partner to Deliver E-Forms
DAYTON, Ohio--Standard Register announced a reseller agreement with JetForm® Corp. to deliver E-Forms Starter Pak™, an out of-the-box solution that combines JetForm's FormFlow® 99 forms design software with filler licenses, an HTML forms library and a set of 10 predesigned e-forms.

Two versions of the Quick Start Pak are available: The Healthcare Human Resources Quick Start Pak includes many forms used for personnel management in hospitals and acute care facilities. The General Business Quick Start Pak provides expense reports, vacation requests, purchase reports and other forms commonly used by businesses. Both versions can be customized with a company name and logo.

SMARTworks.com Names New VPs
DAYTON, Ohio--SMARTworks.com Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Register, announced the appointments of Ronald L. Alcorn as vice president of engineering and John N. Scocozzo as vice president of strategic technology. Alcorn most recently was director of engineering at Eclipse Networks Inc., where he managed the company's e-business applications for the telecom and financial markets. Scocozzo has worked with SMARTworks architecture development and engineering since 1996.

Domtar Acquires 4 Georgia-Pacific Mills
MONTREAL--Paper supplier Domtar Inc. has signed a definitive agreement with Georgia-Pacific Corp. to acquire four of its paper mills and related business for $1.65 billion. The purchase price includes $200 million for working capital. The four mills are located in Ashdown, Ark.: Nekoosa and Port Edwards, Wis.; and Woodland, Maine. Closing of the transaction is subject to normal regulatory approvals and is expected to take place in the third quarter of 2001. Domtar has 12,500 employees across North America. It owns half of Norampac Inc., the largest Canadian producer of containerboard and corrugated containers.

Target Marketing for Small Businesses
Target marketing involves identifying market segments, selecting one of them and developing your strategies accordingly. Target marketing is all about finding opportunities and tapping them. Click here for more.

Sew What?
By Rita Tiefert
FORM Magazine Assistant Editor

The forms business keeps James Lemmon in stitches--literally. "I like [the industry] because it's diversified, and I can sell to a lot of different people," says the president of distributorship Data Supply International in Beavercreek, Ohio. "I can wake up one day and sell forms, and the next day, sell shirts." Lemmon recently tested the quality of a manufacturer's T-shirts by wearing one himself.

Clothes may not make the man, but lately, they seem to be making the distributor. Last year, overall distributor sales of promotional products were approximately $17.9 billion, according to a study sponsored by Promotional Products Association International and conducted by researchers at Louisiana State University and Glenrich Business Studies. Of that number, wearables accounted for approximately $5.2 billion, or 29 percent.

At Data Supply, promotional products comprise 35 percent of total sales. The company recently provided approximately 50 T-shirts for a coffee shop's marketing effort. The shirts were black with the company's logo in five different embroidery colors. "Embroidery is something very difficult to get into," Lemmon says. "You have to know what you're talking about."

To find quality shirts for embroidery projects, Lemmon ordered samples from a manufacturer, placed Data Supply's logo on them and wore them for a while. "Selling clothing is completely different from selling a commodity product," he says. "People are a lot more touchy-feely with a shirt. It's got to fit right. It's got to look right on you."

For the coffee shop's shirt, Data Supply created a streamlined logo based on a sketch provided by the shop. The next phase included selecting the right materials. According to Lemmon, some embroidery colors work well on a black T-shirt, while others look better on light-colored T-shirts. Lemmon also considered how closely the embroidery colors matched the client's logo colors.

In general, the ad specialties market requires strong researching skills, Lemmon says. It's also more competitive than the forms market, he says. Lemmon avoids competition by selling forms first and then targeting the client's marketing department for ad specialty sales.

Also, when showcasing promotional products at a web site, Lemmon learned it's helpful to highlight a narrow selection. He says it builds credibility with prospective clients who want to ensure that distributors know their stuff. "The more popular web sites are specific….Having all of these different products sometimes waters everything down a little bit," he says.

For more about promotional products, read "Ten Hot Products" in FORM's upcoming August issue, as well as FORM's new monthly department, "Promotional Products."

An Overview of B2B Payment Systems - Part II
Who's offering B2B payment solutions and how are they going about it? Click here to read the article. Click here for Part I of the article.

DMIA's Distance Learning Web Site is Up and Running
In response to the need for high quality, flexible and affordable education, DMIA has produced a multi-media education program online. The new and updated DMIA School for Forms Specialists debuted in June. Visit www.printuniversity.org to check it out. Now students take half of the school online and half as a 2-1/2 day residence program, thereby saving time away from the office and hotel costs.

The online portion of the Forms School consists of five learning modules covering business papers, production, form construction, specifications, automated data entry systems (with emphasis on Bar Codes), security features in forms plus electronic and internet forms. Quizzes and testing are also accomplished online.

The next and last on-site session in 2001 will be held September 9-11 in Boston. Click here to register now. For more information about the schools, click here. In addition to the online portion of the School for Forms Specialists, DMIA will premier sales and customer service education as well as product training later this summer. Call Lloyd Tucker, (800) 336-4641, ext. 137 if you have questions about DMIA's Distance Learning program.

Local Forum
Please join Membership Liaison Michael Ritter of Superior Business Associates for a Local Forum open discussion entitled Is E-Commerce Giving You a Headache? The forum will be held on July 18 from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza - Ravinia in Atlanta, GA.

Are you bombarded with confusing information on e-commerce? Does the package you bought work like you thought it would (and maybe were told it would)? You are not alone! Many distributors have just "put-off" making the step because the information is too confusing and costs too much.

Join us for an open discussion on e-commerce. Which one is right for your business? Come share your experiences and information. We can all learn from each other. Is there something you would like to add to the agenda? Let us know. Click here for more information. Click here to register.

Regional Roundtable
Join industry specialist Jack Tarr of iGetSmart.com for a roundtable discussion on Taking the Myster-E Out of E-Commerce. The roundtable will be held on July 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the DoubleTree Hotel At Post Oak, Houston, TX.

Are you bombarded with confusing information on E-commerce? You are not alone! Many distributors have just "put-off" making the step because the information is too confusing and is a costly investment. Do e-commerce, e-forms, e-tail and e-mail affect your business, your clients' businesses and the relationship between you and your clients? Come share your experiences and information. Come prepared with all of the questions you were afraid to ask. We can all learn from each other. Click here for more information. Click here to register.

i2001
i2001 is all about making you profitable and successful! The nation's premier show for the business printing industry will save you money, generate new sales, increase your profitability and enhance your selling and sales management skills. Come to Philadelphia and be dazzled by all of the new products and new suppliers. Register online for the conference before July 13 and save $85 on your registration! Click here for more information. Click here to register.

Attention i2001 Exhibitors – DMIA has created two new ways to build your booth traffic and your profits!

The "i2001 FORM Exhibitor Showcase" is a new program offering tremendous opportunity for advance publicity of creative new products and services your company will be showcasing at i2001 in Philadelphia. Click here to link to the PDF file.

Attract i2001 Attendees to your booth for the right reasons! Participate in the i2001 Coupon Book that will put your name and coupon in every attendees hand... FREE! Click here to link to the pdf file.

Here are the top unusual source requests received by DMIA:

• Corrugated sheet pads, not printed, 48" x 48"
• Pop-corn bags, white, printed in two colors, 5M - 10M
• T-shirts, die sublimation, 4/c, 30 shirts
• Carry-out Chicken boxes (cardboard), 1-color printing, 5 x 10 x 4, dull coated, 18 pt. stock
• Sun visors, neoprene, 1-color imprint, Qty.100
• Fabric/cloth label for identification on curtains, pressure sensitive adhesive, 2-color
• Metal time card holder, 60 slots
• Hang tag gold hot stamping on side one and black ink on the second side, 1 3/4" x 1 3/4", qty = 200M

If you have a source request—for anything—call the Hotline at (800) 333-2828 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern Time, or e-mail your requests to Cheryl Rush. Please have your DMIA membership ID number ready. For two new sales ideas every day, try our HOT product idea and our COOL product idea. Manufacturers, if you produce any of these items and would like to check your listing with the Source Hotline, please e-mail Cheryl Rush.

Price's List of Lists
If there's a list of something available on the Internet--top 100 banned books, 50 most influential women in business, top selling DVDs, you name it--Gary Price's List of Lists has it. The list of lists is extensive, nearly exhaustive. List lovers could spend a day here.

Destination Rx
Find the lowest prescription prices on the Internet. Plus vitamins, beauty aids and other stuff you'd look for in a pharmacy.

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© Copyright 2001 Document Management Industries Association