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The year was 2013, and Keepsake Products USA was looking to make a change.

The New Jersey-based regional printer had been in business for 20 years but had never focused much on packaging. By 2013, however, it saw the need for packaging — especially boxes.

“In this day and age, packaging is probably the quintessential way to get a company’s branding out there,” says Andy Griffin, the company’s managing partner for sales. Griffin, who was a guest speaker at a Brand Chain Emerging Leaders Lightning Talk in March and has since joined the association himself, has a background in packaging and fulfillment. He felt confident there was a strong market for custom-made boxes that could dazzle end users and strengthen brand loyalty.

So Keepsake jumped into action, working for a year to patent its special Keepsake Box. By 2014, the company was ready to launch its new bespoke packaging offerings, working with distributors to create custom boxes for end users. Over time, Keepsake developed a unique strategy with regard to its distributor partners.

“We team up with our partners and treat them like salespeople,” Griffin says. “We want to support them in everything they do.”

As Griffin sees it, the benefits to this strategy touch both Keepsake and its partners. Keepsake builds loyal relationships with distributors, while distributors know they can rely on Keepsake from the first day of the process to the last, including fulfillment and distribution. Ultimately, the distributors know Keepsake has their back and is willing to do whatever it takes to help them win new business opportunities.

Educational Materials

“Packaging is new to a lot of folks,” Griffin says. “Sometimes people don’t understand it. There are so many different ways to approach custom packaging.”

Keepsake tries to tackle this challenge by educating both its distributor partners and the end user about the ins and outs of bespoke packaging. The company creates informational flyers for its distributor partners to share with end users, providing a handy guide if questions arise during the process. These flyers and other educational materials can be branded with the distributor partner’s logo.

Plus, Griffin says he and his team are ready to jump onto calls whenever they’re needed. He’s willing to be as visible as the distributor partner wants him to be. If they’d prefer to have him on the call, Griffin will position himself as their packaging expert; if they’d rather have Keepsake stay in the background, he’ll gladly remain out of sight.

The big advantage to participating in the calls, Griffin says, is that he can immediately answer questions or address concerns.

“We can have this conversation now or we can have days upon days of emails going back and forth,” he says. “I don’t want the back and forth, the partner doesn’t want the back and forth and the end user doesn’t want the back and forth.”

Packaging Checklist

One important element of Keepsake’s strategy to support and work together with its distributor partners is its packaging checklist. The company developed the packaging checklist to ease the process of creating bespoke boxes.

Griffin says he and his distributor partners sometimes run into roadblocks when end users aren’t specific enough in their requests. An end user might say the box will carry a speaker or a mug, but if they don’t provide the exact specifications of the product, it can be difficult to get started. So Keepsake developed its packaging checklist that distributor partners can give to end users. The checklist asks end users to provide a comprehensive list of information needed to start the project.

“The checklist takes you through the facts of the project,” Griffin explains. “We ask the hard questions. What are your wants? What’s your budget? What are the products? What are the exact sizes?”

Samples and Virtual Mockups

Another way Keepsake treats its distributor partners like its own salespeople is by providing them with samples and virtual mockups of boxes to take on pitches.

Keepsake will send physical samples to its distributor partners as they embark on pitches. The free samples aren’t yet tailored to the potential end user’s specific purpose, but they provide a physical, tangible representation of what the bare bones of the box might be.

Meanwhile, Keepsake also makes mockups of boxes that can be viewed digitally. Unlike the physical samples, the virtual mockups can be altered based on the end user’s branding. Griffin and his team might, for example, put the end user’s logo on the box, providing a better idea of what the final product might look like.

Sometimes, instead of a custom mockup, Keepsake and its distributor partners take a different route. Keepsake maintains a Flickr page with over 2,000 photos and videos of different custom boxes it has made over the years. If a distributor partner is going to pitch a bespoke box to a bank, Griffin might pull an example of a box made for a different bank. The distributor partner can then reach out to the bank, show them the image and suggest they collaborate on a similar project.

“Now the first bank is seeing that the bank down the block is doing it, and they’re saying, ‘Crap, I’m not doing this, I’ve got to up my game,’” Griffin explains.

Building Trust

For Keepsake, the strategy of supporting distributor partners and treating them like salespeople has paid dividends. Indeed, Griffin says Keepsake’s distributor partners routinely rave about the approach. But the strategy is not without its challenges, he cautions.

For one thing, end users sometimes approach Keepsake directly, asking to cut the distributors out and work one-on-one. Griffin has no qualms about turning these end users away. After all, the success of Keepsake’s strategy depends on the company’s ability to win and maintain the trust of its distributor partners.

“People who have known and worked with us know our integrity. We’re not going to undercut you and go sell to your customer; that’s not what we do,” Griffin says. “We communicate that to our partners and get them to trust us in that way.”

Fortunately for Keepsake, its partnerships with distributors often lead to new business, so both parties continue working together, building their relationship and maintaining trust. The success of one notable pitch underscores the advantages of Keepsake’s approach.

A toy manufacturer approached a distributor and asked for custom boxes to be given to YouTube influencers. The distributor turned to Keepsake, which produced a box full of creative, eye-catching elements, including a scent and chocolate sprinkles built into the box. The box was a major hit with the manufacturer.

“Over the past year and a half, we’ve done probably around 60 jobs with the distributor and manufacturer,” Griffin says. “It’s been a real success story for this partner.”

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