Google Analytic / Adwords

As we guess this "blog" shows, we are aware of the presence required (expected?) of businesses on the internet. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Blogs and of course Websites, all trying to be different enough to stand out, get the "top slot", drive enquiries and hopefully encourage potential customers to make contact.

To this end we have recently started looking at Google Analytic and Adwords. The Analytic site is very informative, showing how many people have visited the site, what pages they looked at, where they are based, and its free!  Moving on to the next step of the Adwords and "pay per click" is a little more taxing! 

Keywords, Keywords...... we are used to trying to pick the best possible Keywords on our website and Blog, but when you are picking words that potentially could cost you money, the choices become a little more important, also ensuring that we are driving the correct people and not going   to waste their and our time is of importance. 

Back to our Keyword searching..... we thought "FREE LABELS" may be going a little too far though!

        

Thermal Transfer or Direct Thermal?

The choice between Thermal Transfer and Direct Thermal is always a difficult one to advise. The basic difference for someone new to either, is in simple terms, Thermal Transfer uses a ribbon, Direct Thermal does not. During Thermal Transfer the "thermal" printhead elements heat the back of a ribbon and so "transfer" the chemical elements to the label, Direct Thermal only requires a heat sensitive label material, with the printhead elements coming into "direct" contact with the material.   

So, it does not take much to spot that with Direct Thermal, there will be direct contact between the printead and the label, this does increase wear compared to Thermal Transfer, and also leads to the danger of dust and debris damaging the printhead elements. With Thermal Transfer, many ribbon suppliers provide a back-coating that increases printhead life by reducing friction and also static. 

Printhead life in Direct Thermal situations can be reduced by up to 50% compared to when used in Thermal Transfer. 

While head wear is something to be considered in Direct Thermal, down-time in Thermal Transfer should also be factored. With even the most proficient operator a ribbon change could take several minutes, it has been calculated that in a two shift operation this could equate to around 144 hours per year!      

There is also a environmental aspect. Thermal Ribbon uses a "poly" based carrier made (in part) from crude oil, upon completion the used ribbon and core/s are adding to the "waste stream" and so combined add to a company`s carbon footprint.

So, in short, there is no easy answer!, as ever we are pleased to offer advice and samples for specific jobs and are always happy to arrange a site visit should you prefer.

  With thanks to Narrow Webtech E50568 Volume 15  

   

Bagpuss

Whilst it is true most of our labels are of a commercial nature, business to business, we do sometimes have jobs of a more fun nature. Our friend Marc Jenner is a regular London Marathon runner supporting various charities. This year Marc is returning home from his work in Romania with Hospices of Hope and will be running as Bagpuss!

Looks a little heavy!

rather Marc than us!

We wish Marc the best of luck, and hope that its not too warm on the 22nd April. If  you wish to find out more ... Bagpuss, or Justgiving. 

Watch out for our labels

Touching the Nation...

We were having a little chat the other day recounting some of the millions of labels we have produced over our 30 years, some very memorable, some not so, and it got us thinking about the number and how many people will have come into contact with one of our products?, we cannot claim that every man, women and child will have done so, but we feel it will be pretty close -

When we get up, most of us will head for breakfast, and its a good chance that if cereal or yogurt, then one of our labels will helped during the production and delivery. You may then move onto making your packed lunch, cheese? if so theres a good chance that the date / best before will have been produced using one of our ribbons, and again the delivery will have been aided by one of our labels.

It maybe you`ve just treated your self to a "designer" shirt for that special meeting? Working with some of the best suppliers of "high end" bags, boxes and POS, we supply labels to some of the most fashionable of clothing ranges.  

You may then stop off to get a newspaper,  a major supplier to one of the largest newsagents, there is a chance that the "self edge" ticket giving you a price will be ours, as will the promotion label (80,000,000 a year of these!) on the book you picked up as a last minute present for the birthday you forgot!      

And so for home time, and its a ready meal tonight, yes we also supply one of the largest manufacturers of ready meals, also one of our oldest customers. Time to listen to that CD, watch that DVD, chances are that if a "used" item, the price / promotion label was again one of ours. The bottle of wine, now we think your safe there, its a long time since we produced a wine label!

So, while we are not claiming that each and every person will have come into contact with a Secura Labels product today...... we think there is a strong chance you will have! 

When it goes wrong.....

We would love to claim that we never get it wrong, that unfortunately is not the case. While we do all we can to ensure that we supply what you want, when you want it, we sometimes do get it wrong.  

So, what can go wrong?

Our most common issue is delivery, and following our customer survey of late 2011 we feel we have addressed some of our issues here and have improved, but we do still have occasion when we are late. We recently announced via Twitter / Facebook that we had turned around a job within 48 hours and how happy our customer was, within minutes we had a call asking why another customer had been waiting two weeks!

 We have nine + Presses and whilst some are have inter-changeable tooling, this is not something that we have across the board, one Press alone has 1,300 + tools and whilst some of these are duplicated on other Presses it is not possible for every size to be covered on every Press, so it is common for one Press to have up to three weeks work while another may be producing orders that we have just taken!, hence being able to produce one job in hours whilst another could be running behind. We are constantly reviewing cutters and trying improve the range of these that we have duplicated on a number of Presses to smooth out some of these problems.  

Carriers, we feel we have good carriers, but sometimes we get let down.... issues of this sort are a little out of our hands, we can chase and put pressure on and we do so when required, but if your address is hard to find or unusual let us know...... you would laugh at some the instructions we put on parcels..... but it helps them get there!           

Colour.... another common area where things can go wrong. We used the Pantone colour system for our colours, as do most printers, however things can still go wrong here. For instance, you have had a Box printed, to Pantone 463c (a brown) and we are to make some labels to go with this. So we and the box manufacturer happily produce to 463c, but when you get the products you feel that the two do not match. This is not uncommon, our materials and processes are different to the box supplier (as would be a Litho or Screen printed job) and so there will be a subtle difference, be say we are working to an "old" pantone book while the box supplier has just had new........ well it can be that due to damage/ fading there will be a difference. We try and replace our Pantone books yearly, always keeping a new book by the light box for final matching, but if you labels are to match a range of other products..... please ensure you send us a product to match to....... this harder for us..... but in the long run can mean any issues are avoided         

So, if it does go wrong what can you expect?

 As you would expect, we run a Non Conformance system, in line with our ISO9001, and all customer complaints are recorded and reviewed monthly, as are issues that get caught before we send out. If the worst should happen, you will be notified of the "NCR" number as a reference. It may be in the first instance that we seem to be avoiding taking any responsibility..... this will be the case if for instance our retained samples appear in order, or the issue is with material. In this case we will  request samples from yourselves. If a production issue we will respond as soon as we get the samples, if material it maybe we will have to forward samples to our supplier. We feel it better to be "neutral" until we have seen samples and are fully able to comment, so please do not feel we are not taking the issue with all seriousness.

If we agree that the issue is founded we will replace or credit as appropriate and agreed with the customer. Issues where a material is at fault will depend on our suppliers reaction, but in the whole we have little issue here and these are usually dealt with smoothly.

So, if you have a problem, let us know, we would rather deal with the fault than you go elsewhere...... we wont avoid the issue and cannot promise that we will agree with all issues, but we think it fair to say that when we do get it wrong - we deal with it and hopefully learn.  

      

Brush with fame......

During January we were successful in "winning" an order for labels to go on underwear packaging, size labels, a fairly ordinary label, little did we know at the time that these labels where to be part of a project by Mary Portas and we would be getting our "5 minutes of fame" on the small screen. The plan was for a fully British made product, and when we started getting e-mails requesting dates we would be available for filming, we began to understand the scale of the project.

For "TV", it appears, all most be as it in reality, no "trick shots", so we had to plan plate-making, colour matching, printing and finishing to fall in the one day with enough time to allow the cameras to get the "shots" they wanted. (we think) This went smoothly and with a few well placed "logos" we hope that you will spot us or at least know that its us! (Is that product placement?) We also attended a "final sequence" shoot in Manchester, where the Sales team of Susan & Steve joined representatives from the other companies involved.

The project appears to have been a success as stores such as Liberty`s have taken stock. We understand that the 4 part series, titled "Mary`s Bottom Line", is to air on Channel 4 in mid March, we will advise the date when we know it, and we are looking to forward to spotting ourselves!              

See Kinky-Knickers for more detail on the project, or here for the Liberty webpage.

Direction of Lead / Orientation

Which Way Lead?

A question we start many enquiries with and one which seams to give us many issues and lead to confusion.

Orientation -

Firstly, Orientation and Lead should not be mixed up or confused, but often do. For the orientation question we have an easy way of describing this, referring to "art". Most Portrait pictures are "tall" and "narrow", whilst most Landscapes are "short" and "wide", so if we use this simple method to describe how the label should "look" most people would be able to understand and be able to confirm which way the artwork should be set out within the label.       

Portrait Style

Landscape Style

Direction of Lead -

 The direction of lead is a little less easy to describe. We have two options for direction of lead,

 WIDE or NARROW.

Wide is where the widest edge of the label comes off the roll first, as shown with the "English Honey" labels, these would be described as Wide Edge Leading / Foot First, the "foot" of the label leading / leaving the roll first.

Wide Edge Leading / Foot First (so Landscape)

 The "Action Medical Research" labels, again Wide Edge Lead, but "Head Leading" as the Head of the label is leaving the roll first.

Wide Edge Leading / Head First (again Landscape)

The "ZV" labels as shown below would be described as Narrow Edge Leading... Right Hand Lead, the narrowest edge of the label leaving the roll first.

Narrow Edge Leading / Right Hand Lead (but still Landscape!)

To add to all of the questions, we will also need to know what size cores you need, if Outside / Inside wind, and how many labels you need on a roll, or what is your maximum O/D of the roll. (Outside Dia.)

Whilst for most of our labels the information above is of little importance... for some jobs, those that are Machine Applied or Thermal Printed, it can be critical and a costly error if we produce to an incorrect spec., so if you have any doubt here please ensure that have the correct information, sending a part roll can be of great help if you are in doubt as to what you need....... if you need advice on this please feel free to call us - 01530 515170.