“We went to Jan with an idea of what we wanted, but no idea how to do it. At the time we had folders that had about 15 pages in them, listing and describing all products and services the Bank had to offer, but it was outdated and not user friendly. With the help of Jan, we were able to do branded folders with step sheets to easily highlight each of the different services we offer without them getting lost, and she was even able to tie in a lot of the Bank’s history. We are no longer embarrassed to hand out these kits to new and existing customers!”
— Ashley M. Marcum
Commercial Loan Officer, Millbury National Bank
The Challenge
The Millbury National Bank, with a long and distinguished history of serving its community, was looking for a printed marketing piece that would organize and unify the essential information about its full range of service offerings to potential customers for both personal and commercial banking. We explored and researched a number of options and decided upon a comprehensive and modular solution for communicating concise and essential information that could be presented in a single “package.”
The Solution
Working closely with Ashley Marcum, the Bank’s commercial loan officer, we planned and coordinated the effort. With Ashley’s help, we were able to orchestrate (really, “curate”!) the needed content into a presentation folder with a set of visually-themed step sheet inserts, each devoted to a major topic or area of service.
With the step sheet approach, we now have a solution that allows the information to be revised on an ongoing, individual, modularized, on-demand basis. Each sheet carries relatively time-sensitive information that can be revised and reprinted independently as needed, thus economically allowing the entire ensemble to evolve over time. This logical, sustainable, and cost-saving approach suits both the need and the budget.
The 3-panel presentation folder is designed in structure and imagery for a deliberately long “shelf-life” to serve as a container with the capacity to hold the two sets of step sheets along with any additional cover letters or flyers. It holds a business card in one pocket, and has a third “short-fold” narrower panel with a pocket suitable for holding existing or future trifold brochures and/or rack cards.
The Story
In developing the content, we took the time to analyze the requirements for each topic with respect to the scope of the content, scaling the content choices to match in each case the appropriately-sized step sheet. The folder was deliberately designed to serve as a durable container that can be used not only for the step sheets we developed, but also for other materials as needed.
The history of the Bank is a compelling, fascinating story of its own, and to feature that, we developed a separate, dedicated step sheet. Early in the process, we discovered that the Bank’s history merited a space that would exceed a standard 8 ½ x 11 page, so a folded page was designed to create an extended-size “mini-poster” treatment. The history “mini-poster” now serves as both a pull-out step sheet within the presentation folder and as a stand-alone piece that can be given out separately, suitable for posting — with an interesting and eye-catching timeline presenting highlights of the Bank’s history from its founding to the present.
For the design of the history step sheet, we obtained historical photographs and took photographs of historical objects from the Bank’s own archives. We also took very high- resolution scans of the beautiful currency that the Bank had issued in its early years. The currency scans appear in the history step sheet and can also be repurposed for other uses such as being printed and framed as artwork (which they indeed are!) or for output as large-scale wall art.
The Result
A versatile printed marketing piece that came in within budget and on time. A highly useful, practical, and engaging package of information that is both timeless and flexible in its content: capable of evolving over time. Many thanks to Ashley Marcum and everyone at the Bank who helped us create this project for them.
See what the folder and its contents look like, below:
- Front Cover
- First Opening
- Full Opening
- Back Cover
