June 29, 2010 7 Comments
Designs of the Quarter is our most popular post, so I bring you more lovely designs from Affinity Express. These are all from our embroidery digitizing team, and you can compare the original designs with the digitized ones.
Yumm! Strawberries!
June 25, 2010 1 Comment
We flew high over the Hoover Dam upon our decent into Las Vegas for the Editors and Publishers 21st Interactive Media Conference.
I had recently downloaded the series “America. This is Us” to my iPad and watched the episode where the Colorado River is captured and the massive capital works project to build the dam heralded change, not only for the cities of Southern California, but for the East too.
By complete coincidence, the airline magazine had a great article promoting a new book: Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century by Michael Hiltzik
The irony stayed with me. Read more of this post
June 23, 2010 4 Comments
Here is what Charles Brooks of Brass Ring Promotions told us recently:
The actual work Affinity does is very good. In fact I referred a new client to Affinity today…
The last logo was great. It made a great impression on the people who embroidered the logo.
Thanks for everything. I will refer everyone I know to Affinity.
This is the logo he was referring to. Read more of this post
June 21, 2010 4 Comments
Today, I want to share the results of the recent customer satisfaction survey we conducted for our graphic services customers.
We were overwhelmed by the number of responses we got: by the many customers who took the time to tell us how much and why (or why not) they liked our services.
We got an overall score of 3.7 (5 being the best). We were rated 4 on quality of graphic work as well as price. 43% of respondents rated our quality of graphic work as 5!
My personal favorite is the response to the question “Over the next three months, how likely are you to use Affinity Express again?” We got rated 4.1 out of 5, and 59% respondents indicated they were “most likely” to use our services in the next three months.
June 17, 2010 3 Comments
As CEO Ken Swanson mentioned in a previous post, being an outsourcing provider isn’t easy! We have many challenges to tackle and each project is unique. Plus, relationships can be complex. In addition to managing change, many include a system implementation as well. While we may have had a few challenging starts to projects over the past two years, I’m proud to say that we have an almost perfect record of on-boarding on time and budget!
Having spent a majority of my career implementing and supporting newspaper systems, after joining Affinity Express, I had to get up-to-speed quickly on the outsourcing aspect of our partnerships. And this was no small task! Understanding change management is very important to our success. Our clients rely on our expertise to start saving money in their organizations and they want this result quickly!
There are three areas that we improved upon in the last two years that I believe contribute to our great track record at Affinity Express. Read more of this post
June 15, 2010 2 Comments
The good news is that recently released statistics indicate stronger than expected growth in online advertising. Here are just a few of the numbers that have crossed my desk in the past few weeks:
The bad news is that these sources don’t address the challenge facing advertisers and their agencies in finding qualified talent to create the increasing volume of ads. I hear every day at Affinity Express that companies in all industries and ad agencies have a severe gap in mid-level personnel who can handle the day-to-day work producing content and executing campaigns. Read more of this post
June 10, 2010 4 Comments
Our CEO, Ken, mentioned in the last post that we consider training a very important factor towards quality improvement. One of our recent initiatives to improve training has been the launch of the Affinity Express Learning Center, a powerful online system that can be accessed by employees anytime, anywhere. It tracks coursework, tests competencies and ensures consistency across the company.
To date, the training team working on this project has passed some significant milestones: Read more of this post
June 8, 2010 2 Comments
Being an outsourcing provider isn’t easy: you constantly struggle to prove value to your customer and to stay ahead of all your competitors. In terms of quality, an outsourcing provider must be capable of delivering similar or better output than clients’ own internal resources at a competitive cost.
From the buyer perspective, trust in the quality and responsiveness of an outsourcing company is essential if clients are to free themselves from behind-the-scenes operational details. That’s why providers have to earn their clients’ confidence day in and day out—providers are only as good as the last file delivered!
From the outsourcing company perspective, quality and rework costs spiral out of control, services levels and morale sink and the ability to meet contractual obligations suffers when its employees fail to execute as needed.
If you are planning to outsource a mission-critical function, here are some suggestions on what to consider. Read more of this post
June 1, 2010 3 Comments
As I discussed in this post, Affinity Express has made certain changes in direction over the years, always staying true to the core vision of providing quality advertising and marketing design.
Over the last several years, we have steadily been building capabilities in interactive services, ranging from display ads (static, animated GIF, Flash and rich media) to HTML email and website design to publishing search engine optimized content online. Research also points to this being a high-growth segment.
In the first quarter of 2010, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers found that internet ad revenue in the U.S. was up 7.5% over 2009 — the highest reported quarterly revenue figure for the industry to date. With so many people spending so much time online, this is but a natural shift. New research from BIA/Kelsey Group indicates that 97% of consumers are now researching products and future purchases online and Nielsen discovered an 82% increase in time spent on social networking sites in December 2009.
To lead a segment that has become increasingly important and which may determine Affinity Express’s growth path for the future, we have welcomed on board the newest member of our management team: David Kang, who is now executive vice president and chief digital officer at Affinity Express. David will establish an interactive business segment and expand our array of digital services.
