The Rebranding & Growth Of Ritters Printing & Packaging

A story of reinvention and rebranding

Ritter’s Printing & Packaging has been in business since 1988, and in that time, we have gone through several rebranding’s including our logo and website. It’s a lot of work, but usually we know “when it’s time”, which brings us to our most recent reinvention and rebranding. This is our story.

Rewind to before the pandemic in 2019. We knew the commercial printing and direct mail spaces were changing, and knew that we needed to change to keep up with growing markets and products that were in demand. We identified packaging and labels as the best fit. It was a process…researching equipment and vendors, purchasing the equipment, and of course, the equipment in some cases took many months to arrive. Once we rearranged our plant to accommodate the new equipment, including two diecutters, a box folder gluer, label press, label finisher, label rewind machine, we also had to upgrade electricity. Let’s not forget the scheduling, training, and getting operators up to speed.

Partnering with industry experts

So now we can do lots of cool stuff and need to advertise these new capabilities. The new goal was to somehow communicate what we do for our target clientele. We began looking for the best way to rebrand, and I read many articles in industry publications from Joanne Gore. Her mission is to help the print industry sell more print, and her vast experience in the print world was enticing. After many meetings, we felt we knew Joanne and that she “got us” and what we were trying to accomplish: adding to our “core” business, not replacing them, making the transition to selling in an entirely new space (packaging and labels) while retaining our existing commercial printing and direct mail roots. You guessed it: this is a completely different set of clients than we currently have.

Working with Joanne was easy – her company offered exactly what we needed. Initially, we worked on the following questions: who do we help, how do we help, and why it matters. Once we talked our way through these questions, Joanne and her team helped us with our messaging. We did have some back and forth, but were really happy with the results, as we had to spend a significant time thinking about our business and how we help people. Turning that into words had always been difficult. Luckily, Joanne and her team were the “messaging whisperers” and really understood our culture, our equipment, and our target markets.

Modern branding that reflects our growth

Next step in the process was branding. To be honest, I was happy with our logos and colors and didn’t really see the value in rebranding. Happy to say I was wrong, and we all love the modern logo and new fonts, and colors. Another part of the rebranding was a new tagline, which allowed us to tie in labels: Print it. Package it. Label it.

A new website to showcase our services

Now it was time to tackle the website. Joanne’s team helped design the layout which was more functional and easier to navigate. Our primary goal was for a prospect to quickly see what we do, with a modernized look and easy navigation. We wanted to have more prominent material about our packaging and label divisions while also highlighting our commercial printing and direct mail capabilities. Mission accomplished.

Once the layout and art direction were approved, we handed over the website build to Connectica, our website partner for many years. They did a great job building it out, and the website quickly went live.

Consistent branding

Finally, we had a huge list of social media and industry sites to update. Our branding guidelines helped us make everything look consistent, no matter the platform. Last but not least, we updated our signage, as well as marketing collateral, which included letterheads, multiple sizes of envelopes, internal and customer-facing forms, and more. Our new business cards showcase our print and embellishment capabilities and use soft-touch film lamination and gold foil.

Building connections in the printing industry

An unexpected bonus of partnering with Joanne was working with her team of industry experts, including Pat McGrew and Ryan McAbee. Let’s not forget a chance meeting with Cary Sherburne when we met Joanne at a Miami trade show. We consider them all friends now and really feel they went above and beyond helping us.

The results of our rebranding journey

The refresh allowed us to tell our story to new markets and reintroduce an improved version of Ritter’s to existing clients. Reflecting on the experience, it took a full year from the time we initially met with Joanne until the website went live. Do I wish we could have finished quicker? Yes, but it was all part of the process, and Joanne clearly told us at the start that that was the timeline. We’re very happy with the end result and feel more confident in how our company appears and how our messaging will resonate with packaging and print buyers.