SYNQ Marketing
Issue: July 2010 by Mitchell Malcheff in Inside The Magazine, Marketing & Sales
If there are two keys to marketing, they are this: How inexpensively can you do the job, and who do you know? A collaboration of four Lynchburg area companies is hoping that their one-stop shop approach will help the SYNQ Marketing Group lower costs for clients by capitalizing on their combined relationships.
SYNQ is comprised of Mid-Atlantic Printers, Progress Printing, Prototype Advertising and Valtim. Though the names may be familiar to area residents, many may be surprised to learn that the four companies collectively boast more than 40 Fortune 500 clients including Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Home Depot.
The group effort grew out of an existing partnership between Altavista-based Mid-Atlantic and Progress. Though both are printers and target the same clients in some cases, they generally tackle different printing projects because of different equipment. The partnership worked like a traditional sub-contracting agreement, in which one would farm out the other’s services for a percentage of the job. Though the joint venture was successful, Jeff Sims, Progress’ VP of Sales and Marketing, still saw the need for an even bigger effort to accommodate the real power players.
“Big corporations no longer want to have 20, 30, 40 suppliers; that’s a thing of the past too. They’re trying to find three, four suppliers that can do it all and do it all well,” Sims said.
David Norcross, SYNQ’s Director of Sales, said the market is primed for a new marketing evolution and all four members said they know of no other existing enterprise like SYNQ.
“We can no longer say that the market is changing. The market has changed,” Norcross said. “SYNQ is outside of the traditional because we truly look at the big picture when it comes to advertising and we have the ability to provide all marketing and advertising services under one collective roof.”
“No longer is it just traditional print; no longer is it just traditional television ads. Multi-channel marketing is now a real term…and with this group we can do it all,” Sims added.
The traditional method of accomplishing what SYNQ is now aiming to do has always been through mergers and acquisitions. SYNQ will essentially accomplish the goal of a traditional merger or acquisition without any one company shouldering the cost of taking on a new company. Forest-based Valtim, which offers services ranging from call centers to order fulfillment and digital printing, has considered an acquisition or merger in the past but were wary of the inevitable headaches that would have resulted, according to CEO Tim Hamilton.
“We’ve considered mergers and acquisitions for the last several years. We’ve been looking for 10 years how to diversify ourselves…we’d kind of hit a stalling point; we didn’t know which way to go,” Hamilton said.
The weak economy, which acted as a further deterrent for expansion, also provided a prime avenue for SYNQ by eliminating those merger or acquisition costs. Additionally, the slump has made businesses conscious of the need to maintain a strong brand presence in the public eye, according to Norcross.
“The companies that are smart have always marketed their business. They’re taking this economy and looking for different ways, not necessarily to expand their marketing budget, but looking for somebody like SYNQ who can walk in the door and do it all,” Norcross said.
Though the reasons for a “soup to nuts” approach, as Sims calls it, seem obvious, SYNQ is standing alone in the industry likely because of the competitive nature of the business, according to Charles Edwards of Mid-Atlantic.
“Printing is a very competitive industry. Most owners have been very protective of their accounts and probably would not be particularly interested in sharing that information with someone who conceivably could sell against them,” Edwards said.
For Edwards, the original partnership between Mid-Atlantic and Progress allowed Mid-Atlantic to expand their reach by utilizing the contacts Progress had already established.
“There were relationships that we couldn’t have [then] that we have now,” Edwards said.
While the SYNQ partners are already seeing the benefit of expanding their reach by utilizing each other’s client bases, clients will see an immediate benefit in their costs as well, which will be lowered through employing SYNQ. By using a streamlined approach, no service will ever have to be sub-contracted. Website and video development, a wide range of printing services and order processing or other customer service needs will all be covered under SYNQ’s umbrella.
Additionally, Prototype Advertising President Josh Oppenheimer said the unique approach will produce a brand image consistent across all content because of the synergy SYNQ will generate.
Currently, SYNQ is focusing some of its efforts on Northern Virginia and have a sales representative based in Washington, D.C. Though its ideal client would utilize SYNQ’s full range of services, the group will work with clients who need any of their services—a hallmark of the flexibility that it offers.
Though SYNQ is still just launching, the four pioneering members are confident that the ingredients for success are already in place, though Oppenheimer did concede the venture is a gamble. For Hamilton, keeping the keys of effective marketing in mind, namely lowering costs and establishing relationships, means SYNQ has laid the foundation to make Lynchburg the source for national businesses in search of a full-service marketing approach.
“We’ve got a union of our individual relationships that we’ve all built for decades now,” Hamilton said, “so those resources will have some alchemy to it and create opportunities in the long run…it’s a hard strategy not to be successful with.”