Have You Heard of The Grooming Project?

Michele StillwellPost Author: Michele Stillwell, Marketing Distribution Portal Enthusiast | Marketing Guru | Accounting Shark | Lover of All Animals

One of the things I like best about working at MEDiAHEAD is that we give, donate and support so many local charities. Kat is so generous to the Kansas City area and all the charities that surround it.

The Grooming Project is just one of many that we support. If you don’t know what the Grooming Project is, let me get you up to speed.

It’s the pilot program of Empowering the Parent to Empower the Child (EPEC), a nonprofit in Kansas City, MO devoted to helping impoverished families become self-reliant through job training.

This is job training that allows parents to do their most important job: raise their children out of poverty.

Highlights of this program include:                   

        100% job placement

        87% employment retention

        62% off government assistance

The Grooming ProjectThey train their students in the art of dog grooming, which is an in-demand career in the Kansas City area. Groomers make an annual salary ranging from 35K-70K.

Grooming is a profession in which individuals with many of the barriers to stable employment – including past addiction, criminal records and incomplete education – can find employment.

Their Annual RISE Gala is on Saturday, September 15.  39% of annual income comes from this event.

All proceeds benefit their life-changing vocation education program.

Donating to local charities is extremely gratifying and it’s built into the fabric of the MEDiAHEAD culture.

In the end, helping local charities makes you feel good, and helping others is hugely empowering and fulfilling.

The saying “It’s better to give than to receive” is truly a reality and I’m proud to work for a company who understands that.

Thank you MEDiAHEAD for supporting our local charities!

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Case Study: How MEDiAHEAD Survived the Print Apocalypse

Kat 600x450Post written by Kat McDaniel, Chief Innovator at MEDiAHEAD | Marketing Portal Guru | Variable Data Promoter | Analytics Advocate | Explorer

In 2000 the Printing Industry of America announced that, over the next ten years, 50% of all the printing companies in the United States would disappear.

It was a very sobering thought at the time, to say the least, considering I owned a large, successful commercial printer that employed 65 people.

Our largest client at the time was Grundfos Pump Company.

They were based in the Netherlands but had multiple offices, distributors and thousands of employees in the United States.

They needed a solution to communicate with their customers more efficiently, reduce their printing and warehousing costs and get marketing materials to their sales force faster.

The solution we proposed, a marketing portal, not only made sense from a cost standpoint, but also from a sustainability perspective, which was important to them.

GrundfosThe marketing portal we built merged on-demand with conventional print to minimize waste and provide the sales department, along with distributors, the tools to efficiently distribute marketing materials to their customers.

In addition, our solution allowed them to maintain brand control in all marketing communications and significantly decreased their time to market.

They were able to reduce inventory costs and waste and keep technical information current by streamlining the production process.

Their estimated annual savings were $95,820 the first year!

With the success of this solution, MEDiAHEAD continued to evolve.

We bought software and digital presses, retrained our workforce and drastically increased our fulfillment and distribution capabilities.

Ironically, print is only a small part of what we do now.

Even better, today some of the most recognizable companies in Kansas City use our solution to save time, money and brand standards!

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Eating Local Every Friday at MEDiAHEAD

Michele StillwellPost Author: Michele Stillwell, Marketing Distribution Portal Enthusiast | Marketing Guru | Accounting Shark | Lover of All Animals

“What a great idea,” we all told Danny!

You see, it was Danny who came up with the idea that all of us at MEDiAHEAD eat lunch together as a team every Friday.

The rules are that we rotate who picks the place, picks up the food and then we eat together as a team in the conference room.

This is a bonding session.

We talk about our weekend plans, what we’ve been up to and all the great things going on in our lives (absolutely no politics, but occasionally shoptalk does sneak into our conversations).

Several great things have come out of this awesome idea. The biggest one is this….WOW does Kansas City have some great restaurants! It’s so incredibly hard to pick just one every Friday morning.

Browne’s Irish Marketplace

Browne's Irish Marketplace

Browne’s Irish Marketplace

Have you ever eaten at Browne’s Irish Marketplace, 3300 Pennsylvania Ave? They, by far,  have the best Rueben in town! The history, the building, and all the baked goods are phenomenal.

Did you know that they’ve been there since 1901?  If you haven’t had a chance to eat their food or visit them, you have to check it out. Our team absolutely loved it!

Howard’s KC

Another favorite is Howard’s KC at 1708 Oak Street. They use locally sourced organic ingredients, cater and the food is out of this world.

Howard's

Howard’s

One of our team favorites is the fried chicken sandwich, which has sweet onions, pea shoots and BBQ mayo on a potato bun.

Am I making you hungry?  Like I said…it’s out of this world!

Broadway Deli

Another one of our favorites is Broadway Deli, a little gem located on 2101 Broadway Blvd.

Broadway Deli

Broadway Deli

I can honestly say I think everything on their menu is wonderful.

Everyone on our team had something completely different and we loved everything! Danny got the Helzberg and he said it was fantastic; the bread was actually two potato pancakes. Yummy.

There are so many local favorites we’ve enjoyed since we started doing this as a team. We’re so lucky in Kansas City to have such great local restaurant choices.

Join us in supporting all of these wonderful people who work so hard to give us such great food.

What about you? What are your favorite lunch spots in Kansas City? Let us know!

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CASE STUDY: An Awesome Solution to the Annual Holiday Card Headache

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Kat 600x450Post written by Kat McDaniel, Chief Innovator at MEDiAHEAD | Marketing Portal Guru | Variable Data Promoter | Analytics Advocate | Explorer

I never realized what a headache holiday cards, calendars and emails were for the marketing departments of large companies with multiple locations (and multiple senders) until we built MEDiAHEAD’s first holiday portal.

Picture this. Some poor employee printing stacks of cards, guessing on the quantity needed, getting each of them signed, distributing them to other offices within the organization, and then hoping they got mailed before the holidays. Dial 1-800-INEFFICIENCY.

This was the situation when a local advertising agency asked us to build a solution for their client, a large law firm based in Minneapolis, MN.

The agency was dealing with multiple offices, attorneys and administrators and several different holiday card designs.

The portal we built allowed the attorney or administrator to pick the holiday card design, the message, and upload their signature and mailing list…and then they were DONE!

We printed, stuffed and mailed the cards. Even better, because they were produced via print on demand, there was no waste to deal with.

The attorneys were happy! The administrators were happy! And most of all, the person who used to have to manually organize all of this was VERY happy!

holiday cardThe law firm was also able to reduce costs by eliminating pre-printed inventory and by substantially reducing the labor associated with managing the print.

We also significantly reduced time shipped and the risk of fulfillment error by kitting each individual order – most orders shipped in 24 to 48 hours.

Even better, MEDiAHEAD has repurposed this solution for many companies and even added calendars and gifts to the site to make the solution even better.

Here’s what the client had to say:

“MEDiAHEAD literally saved us with their customizable web platform and printing capabilities. We had an unsuccessful experience with another company and I wasn’t sure who could help create a site that actually worked the way we needed it to. After meeting with MEDiAHEAD, I instantly felt like not only were they an extension of our team, but also like people I’ve known for years. They are a solutions-oriented team who use their expertise to develop the right system or site for you. The turnaround and pricing were great and the end product had our client (and us) very happy. Now I am confident in presenting this solution to our clients in the future, since I know I have a partner who can execute and deliver.”

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