Product Hub June 07, 2024
Winner’s Circle: ScreenBroidery Celebrates Its Growth With Custom Kitting
The distributor, which landed on a list of fast-growing Indianapolis-area businesses for the third year in a row, sent out congratulatory merch boxes to the 24 other companies that made the cut.
ScreenBroidery (asi/305623) commemorated its third consecutive selection to the Indianapolis Business Journal Fast25, an annual ranking of the fastest-growing Indianapolis-area companies, by sending Indy 500 themed promo boxes that celebrated fellow selected companies.
“We played on the fast part of Fast25,” CEO Tom Rector says. “We wanted to showcase some of what we do: personalization and making things special.”
Each promo box contained a remote-controlled car branded with the company’s placement on the list, a hat with a Fast25 logo, a custom milk bottle and a slip with a QR code that displayed a personalized congratulations video to each company.
Rector says the ScreenBroidery team strategized to market itself to the other companies without being too “salesy,” to make a gift that was personalized, unique and established a connection through their shared central-Indiana roots with the racing references.
The ideas were passed off to the merchandising team, and for product developer Rebekah Cora, it was an opportunity to shine.
“Specifically for the RC car, I had that in my back pocket,” Cora says. “When this opportunity came around, and we were on the Fast25 list ... I was like, ‘I know the perfect thing.’”
Cora says she scoured ESP and the web for product inspiration, even going so far as to zoom in on Indy 500 race winner pictures to see exactly which cap style winners were wearing.
The highlight of the custom kit was the Dryfter RC Car (75700) from Top 40 supplier HPG (asi/61966), an item Cora says she’d seen a few months prior and had been waiting for the right opportunity to pounce. The merch boxes also included image transfer stickers (SY-ITS22) from StickerYou (asi/89791) affixed to milk bottles sourced from Amazon, Nike Heritage cotton twill caps (NKFB5677) from Top 40 supplier SanMar (asi/84863) and mailer boxes (ELX) from certified B Corp Chameleon Like (asi/44558). The QR codes on slips of paper were produced by Spokenote, a technology platform that allowed Rector to personally congratulate each winning company via a custom video message.
Beyond their fitness to the theme, Cora says these products were chosen specifically for their ability to be customized. Content lead Sam Robbins designed the Fast25 products.
The IBJ Fast25 selections are made based on percentage revenue increases over a two-year period. Rector says ScreenBroidery has been able to compound revenue gains by working trade shows, earning customer referrals and its commitment to networking. ScreenBroidery, which had 2023 revenue of $9.3 million, grew 73.5% from fiscal year 2021 to 2023, according to the Indiana Business Journal’s ranking.
“This is our third time making the Fast25 list now, and each year it’s gotten us more and more attention that I never expected,” Rector says. “A lot of it comes from new customer growth and staying customer focused.”
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