“We get new customers when contacts transfer to another employer and take us with them,” says Gertjan de Jong of Copy Partners from Nieuw Vennep, The Netherlands. A dream scenario for many an entrepreneur. How these communications makers manage to do that? That has to do with 25 years of good service and creative plans for a digital future!
Client
Copy Partners
Since
2022
Software
WhiteLabelShop
Missing link
Ton van Groenigen missed a link between the printing and advertising agency 25 years ago. Reason enough for him to set up Copy Partners, then still with the full name ‘Prepress & Copy Partners’. “The company came into being for the local entrepreneur, for whom we could produce communications from small print runs,” Gertjan looks back. Copy Partners proved a success, partly due to its combination with the ‘Witte Weekbladen’, local newspapers that Ton owned.
Deliberate downsizing
The company grew to 12 employees, only to deliberately downsize during the economic crisis. Today it employs 4 people. Ton’s children, Brenda and Remco, are the business owners. Remco and Gertjan together do sales and production. Brenda, Gertjan’s wife, is a designer. Isabel completes the picture as the DTP/designer. “We now do the same work with 4 people as we used to do with 12. By automating we have become a lot more efficient.”
Total branding
In 25 years, Copy Partners grew into a well-known name in the Haarlemmermeer region, from Leiden to Amsterdam. Gertjan about the clientele: “We work for the baker on the corner, but also for large multinationals such as CBRE, the company that facilitates all data centers for Google. For one company we only provide construction drawings and for the other company the complete communication package. We do everything in terms of branding. From design to printing.”
Efficient production
Copy Partners can produce these productions in-house, but where necessary, they smartly outsource jobs to partners. “In theory, we can print everything ourselves. We are small and flexible with in-house production. That means we can supply paper, corporate gifts and textiles, complete with a pick-up and delivery service. Because of efficiency and costs, we are also increasingly outsourcing to partners such as Probo and Print.com. These production giants bundle orders cost-efficiently.”
Racing to the gate
For Gertjan, it’s a simple calculation: customers have a problem, and you solve it. Even if that means racing to Schiphol Airport to drop off business cards. “This was a customer who called in the morning to say he had a flight at 5:00 p.m. and still needed business cards. We take care of that quickly, and I deliver them right to the gate, so to speak. For customers, it’s not necessarily about the cost, but about the combination of a good price and good service. That’s why many customers have been with us almost as long as we’ve been in business. We actually gain new customers through our existing network as well. When a company’s point of contact changes, they bring us along to their new employer. For example, we have a customer who has been ordering from us for 20 years and took us with him to his new workplace in Finland. As a result, we now also supply a Finnish company with fishing supplies.”
Niet zelf knutselen
That challenge is what makes the job fun for Gertjan. “I want to make sure we are the preferred supplier for business owners in our region. Someone who has to organize something like an event has so much on their mind, you don’t want to have to think about ordering pens or the right design for the flags.” Moreover, a customer should not want to do that either. “Nowadays, you see that people are finding it easier and easier to put something together themselves. For example, they create something in Canva and send a PNG image intended for a flyer. Or they pluck an image of an ugly sock from Ali Baba and ask if we can provide it, too. Examples of how not to do it, but it does give a great reason to start the conversation.”
With webshop ready for new generation
Customers will continue to change. They see that at Copy Partners better than anyone. “There’s a new generation of customers coming up who buy differently. We realized this especially during the covid crisis. People have started to work more from home as well as online and work flexibly throughout the day. That’s why we want to make our products available 24/7 with an online ordering system. We do that through Prindustry’s webshop software. Their WhiteLabelShop offers a good platform for paper-related products and also connects with assortments from suppliers such as Print.com.”
Increasingly closer to the customer
The webshop is there for current and new customers. “The younger generation is glued to their phones. So you have to reach them online. That’s where we are jumping in with the webshop. The next step is to offer customers their own portals. In this personalized portal, a customer can find their frequently ordered products in a personal environment, linked to designs, quotations and budget. Moreover, we want to look beyond physical products such as paper and textiles. We want to transfer designs to online media. Customers deploy offline and online communication tools simultaneously. The future is omnichannel!”
The next step is to offer customers their own order portals
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