The Pro: Bill Feldberg, EVP of Business Development, Something Inked

Client: A Fortune 500 retailer with locations around the world
Job: Provide an online store where employees, vendors, partners and executives can buy top-notch company-branded merchandise
Order Value: Seven figures

Bill Feldberg

Step One: Network & Build Relationships
Bill Feldberg is emphatic: There’s no way this campaign happens without a collaborative effort between the Something Inked team, its key partners and the client. That said, it was Feldberg’s savvy networking that set the stage for the relationship that would lead to the deal.

A few years back, Feldberg networked through a retail industry friend to connect with a key contact at the Fortune 500 retailer. From there, he put his relationship-building skills to work and turned the global brand into a client. An initial order tallied approximately 500,000 T-shirts; subsequent high-volume orders followed. Those involved tees for the retailer’s stores to give away during grand openings and re-openings, along with other events. Success on those orders let the client know Something Inked could be trusted to come through on time and at scale. That’s why when the distributor discussed the potential for an online store with the retailer, decision-makers were ready to trust Feldberg and his crew to execute it without a hitch.

Step Two: Know the Scope
Through talks with the client, the full panorama of the project emerged – and it was big. The client wanted an internal web store where more than 500,000 employees, vendors, partners, executives and others could easily obtain the retailer’s branded merchandise. Not open to the public, the store and the products it was to contain were intended to “raise brand awareness and give the target audience top-notch options for uniforms and branded casual wear,” says Feldberg.

With this in mind, Something Inked called on its experience and consultative acumen to help guide the client to solutions that would resonate. “We offered insights based on our deep knowledge of their brand and our experience orchestrating similar solutions for other clients in the market,” says Feldberg. “We also went through case histories to give them perspective. We showed them what works and what doesn’t.”

Step Three: Persist Patiently & Professionally
To bring the project to fruition, Feldberg and the Something Inked team had to navigate a few rocky paths. For instance, getting stakeholders on the same page took patient management and coordination. “There were lots of people involved, lots of opinions and moving parts, which made it a challenge to get everyone to agree on things that ranged from website format to shirt designs,” says Feldberg.

Working calmly through ideas and revisions over the course of months, Feldberg and the Something Inked crew presented various product and design options. This included sourcing strategically to find shirts in a shade of red that were an almost identical match to a singular, specific red shade the client desired. “We found a PMS color from Fruit of the Loom (asi/84257) that was near spot-on, and they liked that,” Feldberg says.

Ultimately, Something Inked and the client developed a deftly branded portfolio of products to stock the web store. In addition to T-shirts, there were polo shirts, hats, reusable bags, tumblers, keychains and more.

Step Four: Meet the Shipping Demand
Still, Something Inked wasn’t out of the woods yet. “There were data security issues for the site that we had to work through,” says Feldberg. “We also had to get a final approval on the site.”

Something Inked also needed to meet a hard-stop shipping requirement. “The client required that all orders, whether for individuals or for stores, ship within 48 hours,” notes Feldberg. “That presented a challenge in terms of getting inventory ready, managing inventory and restocking goods.”

Even so, it wasn’t a challenge that couldn’t be overcome by Something Inked, which has extensive experience running about 50 client web stores. Plus, the distributorship partnered with key Top 40 suppliers alphabroder (asi/34063) and Hit Promotional Products (asi/61125). They provided expertise and helpful connections to fulfillment specialists, the upshot of which is that the end-client’s 48-hour shipping demand would be met. “Strong partnerships and collaboration are what make a campaign like this come together,” Feldberg says.

Step Five: Reap the ROI
And come together it did. For one thing, the client experienced tremendous ROI – a margin in the high six figures, as of press time, with the potential to go into seven figures. “More importantly, though,” says Feldberg, “this project had a huge impact on employee morale and brand pride/loyalty from those hundreds of thousands of employees. That’s not even to mention the free brand impressions that result from all those people wearing branded goods daily to and from work and out casually.”

There was good ROI for Something Inked, too. Beyond this blockbuster campaign, which continues to run with the distributorship updating the store with new products and seasonal items, Feldberg and his team are working on other projects with the Fortune 500 retailer. “It sounds cliché to say,” Feldberg explains, “but successful projects and long-running business relationships result from teamwork – everyone from the warehouse and production team to the art team to the sales team – everyone – chipping in.”