Thanks, Lynn & Advance Food Company

To All My Friends at BI: Now that our company is making some changes and I will not be doing Foodservice Rewards anymore, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know how much I have enjoyed working with you all. It was such a pleasure to work with people who were always so pleasant and helpful and it sure made my job a lot easier.

During the two years that I have been handling FSR for Advance, I have had several occasions when I have had to call on Ray to help me with getting some extra points added for a customer or just to get information. He was always more than willing to help me ~ even going so far as to fix a promotion error that we made by manually crediting each account for missing points. This was a massive amount of work on his part and he never complained or even acted like it was anyone’s fault. He just took it in stride and fixed the problem for us. I have also had to call him at different times for orders that we missed or just to help me figure out how to fix something and he was always very nice and willing to help.

I also really appreciate all of the help I have gotten from Ron Marfori. He talked me through many different promotions to help me decide the best way to proceed and he always had great ideas. On a couple of occasions we had a product that wasn’t added on time and he always made sure that it was fixed immediately so that we could continue with business. Last year when he got promoted he still helped me whenever I called him with a question or concern and never said that I should have called someone else. It is just really nice to know that you can call on people who are so willing to help and it is a great feeling to be able to get helped as soon as you call. When I did have to leave a message because someone wasn’t available, I knew that they would be calling me back at the first opportunity that they had. You have a great team and they should all be recognized for the job that they do.

Lynn Fessler
Advance Food Company

What's your cost of acquiring a new customer?

With the cost of an in-person sales call exceeding $300, more sponsors are always running non-buyer promotions as "virtual" sales calls.

Says Evan Carlson of Schwan's Foodservice: "In one three month period, we acquired 150+ new customers paying full price for pizza - and paid less than $20 in points per first time buyer."

Are you currently running a non-buyer promotion? If a new customer is worth more that $20 to you, consider having your non-buyer promotions "always-on." Contact us to set up yours.

Welcome Sandy Younger!

'bout time, too. At the last sponsor conference we promised we'd add more talented staff - and after hundreds of resumes and dozens of interviews (whew!) Sandy Younger has joined us as a new Coalition Manager.

Sandy comes to BI with 15+ years experience in marketing and sales having worked for P&G, Land O’ Lakes and Dean Foods.

When not slaving away for our sponsors, Sandy enjoys spending time with her two children, age 13 and 9 and enjoys golf, coaching track and indulging in good flea market finds!

We'll add 5,000 points to your account in June

This promotion is working well in one of BI's other coalitions, Aftermarket Rewards. Why not give it a try as a foodservice sponsor-specific promotion? Click here to have John Neupauer quote & set it up for you.

DSR Newsletter - are you in it?

• New brands joining the program
• Nestle mega-millions DSR winner:

Thank you all, this is one of the greatest events that has ever happened to me !!!! This is so wow, exciting, overwhelming, just.... Thank You Nestle for helping me believe in being able to "Win".

Mahalo,
Lily Barawis
lbarawis@vipfoodservice.com

• Schwan's new product launch, P&G's 100% override
• New flat screen TV promotion and more in this week's Distributor Newsletter

The DSR version of the ExtraPoints newsletter is currently being sent to over 400 DSR's and is enjoying an average 33% open rate.

Promote a major sports event

With the rest of the world engrossed in the World Cup (that's soccer) the UK office produced this promotional wall chart for its pub operators. The awareness effort was accompanied by mini-logo'd soccer balls, ads in trade publications, and by all accounts scored a goooooaaaal!

P.S. To see the way we support the game in Minnesota, view this video (and look for me & my kids cheering about 12 seconds in :-)

Want to collect even more operator info?

See Schwan's clever launch of their new Microwave to Rise Pizza. In addition to collecting qualified leads, it educates with a cooking-video, product specifications, profit potential and kid's menu suggestions.


With over a thousand entries in the first 24 hours following the announcement to members, it's off to a great start - and will soon be accompanied by a 50,000 piece mail drop.

Updated 6/17/05 with permission: "Gents, Interesting stat for you. We have nearly 3,800 registrants thus far for the MTR pizza promo. Of the 3,800 - 75% have been generated through FSR communications."

The promotion is the brainchild of Jennifer Graven (left, tall) Schwan's new Campaign Manager, it builds on her experiece creating promotions for Texas-based distributor, Glazier Foods.

Automated labeling at work

Automated labeling of Unilever's products is proceeding with "no major issues to report, just some expected minor learning curves with the new procedure" according to Ray Smith, Supervisor of their Bradley Woods facility.

Should your supply chain managers ever have questions about the labeling process, here are several helpful fact sheets: Labeling Scenarios, Label Specifications, Roll Sizes and Order Processing.

In addition, these fact sheets describe available Label Applicator Consulting and common Manual Label Applicator Models.

A little thanks goes a long way

Tip 'o the hat to Lee Guss, the coalition's CRM expert for suggesting automated thank-you's to your best customers.

Contact John Neupauer to set up anniversary cards mailed automatically during the month of an operator's first code deposit from your products.

Similarly, order your holiday card mailings now and avoid the rush (they will be sent on your behalf shortly after thanksgiving.)

Note: These cards are printed on-demand, so feel free to vary the copy to suit your brand message/objectives. Here's a complete fact sheet including pricing.