Quality of Branded Merch Matters

Why Product Quality Matters in Branded Merch

In our recent “New and Trending” webinar, product quality emerged as the #1 factor our clients consider when purchasing branded merch. This didn’t surprise us since our annual company surveys consistently highlight how much clients appreciate and prioritize quality in the products we provide. We don’t often talk about this directly, but there are varying degrees of quality in every product line in our industry. Today, we want to address why we take quality so seriously and how it impacts your audience’s experience. The Two Essential Elements of Branded Merch

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Branded merch stores and alumni engagement

The Power of Choice: Revolutionizing Alumni Engagement Strategies

Engaging alumni, particularly those from the last decade, is a unique challenge for many institutions in the 21st century. This is a critical segment to develop affinity with, as they are the future supporters of your university. The sooner you can convert them into annual donors, the better! Branded merch stores and alumni engagement We’ve seen traditional outreach methods falling short, but personalized approaches that offer meaningful interactions are consistently yielding better results. Enter our innovative solution: branded merchandise choice stores. Imagine adding merch choice to your next fundraising campaign.

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College Recruitment Branded Merch Slate Integration

Magellan Slate Suitcases: Game-Changer for Integrating Branded Merch

College Recruitment Branded Merch Slate Integration Over the past few years we have been growing our capabilities with integrating branded merch within Slate. One key focus area has been how to make it easy for colleges to create the custom queries. Since this may be new for colleges to create queries to send mailing lists to an SFTP, we wanted to provide guidance. Through a strategic collaboration with Magellan Promotions and RHB, a higher ed consultancy, we have made exciting progress!   Magellan Promotions now has a Slate Integration Portal. This

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including current parents in collegiate fundraising

Tap Into Family Pride: How Parents Can Elevate University Donation Campaigns

Including current parents in collegiate fundraising campaigns Successful collegiate fundraising campaigns should consider all potential audience segments. If you increase the size of the pie, you can increase the amount of donations you receive.   One group that colleges should engage are parents of current students. This group may not seem obvious as they are already financially funding the university through tuition. However, there are a number of good reasons why you should include this group in giving campaigns.   These include: They are a very engaged group. How can’t they be,

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naturally endorse your university with branded merch

Capitalize On Incoming Student Enthusiasm with Branded Merch to Recruit Future Classes

When incoming students commit to a college, from a marketing perspective, this presents an amazing opportunity to take advantage of their pride and excitement.   Let me explain.   With increasing competition in higher education, colleges invest heavily in marketing. Billboards, digital ads, print pieces, and more, create awareness but often lack personal connection. Why Personal Connections Matter Society’s trust in authentic endorsements are coveted. We are more skeptical of ads than ever before. People trust influencers, peers and authentic reviews.  Thus when awareness campaigns are combined with personal and authentic recommendations,

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Interactive direct mail helps raise awareness

Boost Donor Campaign Awareness with Interactive Direct Mail

All collegiate fundraising campaigns start with a goal. It could be to raise a certain amount of money, or to increase the number of donors. Whatever the goal is, there needs to be a marketing strategy. One of the most important components of the marketing strategy is to create awareness and excitement about the campaign. If the donors are not engaged, hitting the campaign goals will be difficult. Multi-channel engagement strategies often lead to higher success rates because they reach the potential audiences in different ways. It may take several

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Variable Data Best Practices

  • At the quoting stage of your project, please let us know how many fields of variable data your piece will have as this can affect pricing.
  • Data should be provided to us as an Excel spreadsheet with only the applicable data included.
  • Verbiage for variable data fields on artwork file should match up exactly with data fields on spreadsheet.
  • Spacing on artwork must allow for longest data entries. We recommend that your designer tests this in advance to confirm that the fields in the design can fit your longest pieces of data.

Postage Permits

We are happy to mail using a client’s USPS non-profit number. Here are a few best practices for this to go smoothly. Let our team know up front on the project so we can make sure to get the information we need right away. 

While our mail house does prefer to use their permit number for the mailing, we can use the client’s permit, If using their permit number, ensure there is enough postage to cover the mailing.

The information we need to in order to use a client’s nonprofit number includes the following:

Formatting the Mailing List

Our account team will advise on specific requirements for your project’s mailing list.  We generally recommend these best practices to format the mailing list: