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BUSINESS NEWS WARE MALCOMB ANNOUNCES CONSTRUCTION IS COMPLETE ON SAM CLAR OFFICE FURNITURE CORPORATE OFFICE AND SHOWROOM Ware Malcomb , an award-winning international design firm, announced construction is complete on the newly re-built Sam Clar Office Furniture corporate office and showroom located at 1221 Diamond Way in Concord, Calif. Ware Malcomb provided architecture, interior design and civil engineering services for the project. Founded in 1939, Sam Clar Office Furniture is one of the leading providers of commercial office environments in the Bay Area and is now owned and managed by the 4th generation of the Clar family. Construction began last year on the renovation of the company’s 18,922 square foot facility, which was severely damaged in a warehouse fire on Thanksgiving Day in 2015. Plans for the new facility focused on showcasing the company’s office furniture displays as well as creating an open work space with multiple collaboration areas. The interior design features a mixture of permanent hard wall construction, as well as demountable walls for future flexibility. A living green wall
provides a natural accent to the space. The exterior of the building was also completely remodeled to provide a modern and inviting feel, including the addition of new custom steel storefront systems, steel canopies, textured stucco finishes, wood finishes, and new paint. Site improvement work completed for the project included the re-paving and re-striping of the parking lot. The building design maintained the fire walls that were integral to preventing even further damage at the time of the fire, and a new roof and fire sprinkler system were also installed. The project is pursuing WELL certification from the International WELL Building Institute. WELL is the world’s first building standard focused exclusively on human health and wellness, setting performance requirements in seven categories relevant to occupant health in the built environment: air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, and mind. “Although Sam Clar hasn’t missed a beat since the fire forced them to operate out of a different facility over the past couple years, it’s exciting for the company to return to this space that has been completely rebuilt to meet
the needs of their customers and employees,” said Gary Drew, Regional Vice President of Ware Malcomb’s Pleasanton office. “This family-owned company can look forward to many more generations working out of their new, state-of-the-art corporate office and showroom.” The general contractor for the project was Vallee Construction. Established in 1972, Ware Malcomb is an international design firm providing planning, architecture, interior design, branding, civil engineering and building measurement services to commercial real estate and corporate clients. With 24 office locations throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and Panama, Ware Malcomb specializes in the design of commercial office, corporate, industrial, science and technology, healthcare, retail, auto, public/educational facilities and renovation projects. Ware Malcomb is recognized as an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private company and a Hot Firm and Best Firm to Work For by Zweig Group.
JANE LAWLER SMITH, from page 9
Which is great. But it is not enough information.
almost always rises to the top of the “open me” pile. And rarely is it discarded – like so many other direct mail pieces in plain white envelopes. Industry studies report a nearly 100 percent open rate for dimensional mail. Because whether B2B or B2C, it comes down to B2H where the H stands for human. People. “Dimensional mail with its odd size and shape almost always rises to the top of the ‘open me’ pile. And rarely is it discarded – like so many other direct mail pieces in plain white envelopes. Industry studies report a nearly 100 percent open rate for dimensional mail.” Who are your humans? Who are the people you want to reach with your marketing? By starting with this question, you can develop the most effective marketing outreach of your career. It is target marketing with a twist. And it is not one-size-fits-all. Hopefully you already have your target markets defined. These are the consumer or business groups that are the aim of your services. Maybe it’s the education market. Perhaps you refine that a bit more and focus on K-12 schools. Or you go even further than that to private K-12 schools. Moreover, you focus on private K-12 schools within a defined geographic region.
Who are the humans? This answer informs the core of your marketing personalization. Back to our example from the marketing conference. This firm had a database of more than 9,000 contacts. For their high-tech, personalized campaign, they narrowed that list down to 492. The criteria they used to winnow down the list included job titles, past purchase decisions, and length of time in a specific role. This is classic market segmentation. If you haven’t thought about market segmentation in a while, it is worth revisiting. There are many ways to segment markets. Some common ways are by geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral means. But even classic marketing texts speak to our question – who are the humans? – by stating “the most specific form of market segmentation is to consider each buyer a market segment.” Do you know what the most beautiful sound is in any language? According to Dale Carnegie, “a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” He was a master of business-to-human exchange since 1936 (the publication year of How to Win Friends and Influence People ). None of this is new, but it is true. It’s not easy, but it is effective. B2H – you should try it. JANE LAWLER SMITH, MBA, is the marketing manager at Derck & Edson, LLC. She can be reached at jsmith@derckandedson.com.
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THE ZWEIG LETTER January 13, 2020, ISSUE 1327
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