Kitting: A Flavorsome Slice of Marketing Strategy

Three things we love here at Delzer: Print, kitting – and of course, pizza. After all, we are human!

February 9th is National Pizza Day.

In honor of this momentous holiday, we’re sharing some related #printspiration topped with tips & tricks hot off the press for your next marketing kit strategy, as true pizza fans would do.

But it’s not ALL about pizza here, it’s about how you can draw outside the lines of your own service or product’s status quo with kitting.

In this post we’re going to go over what kitting is, why kitting is worth exploring for your business, how to prepare for a promotional kit, and what to consider including in it.

Disclosure: This kit was designed and printed right before COVID-19 hit when our naive, maskless faces were full of optimism about eating pizza with customers less than 6 feet apart. Those were the days… So, while enticing company tours with on-site pizza parties won’t be happening anytime soon, we still invite you to safely tour our plant taking the necessary safety precautions until life as we know it returns to “normal” – and along with it, pizza!

What is Kitting?

Kitting is a catch-all term for the process of combining individual, yet related, items together as one bundled unit that provides a specific use.

Kits are most often assembled in ready-to-ship form, but don’t necessarily have to be. Some examples of kits include subscription boxes, employee welcome kits, manufacturer component parts, sample packs, holiday gifts, and yes, even pizza-themed promotional kits.

Kitting Benefits

Kitting offers a bunch of benefits. Outsourcing your kitting and fulfillment efforts increases these benefits even more. A few of these include:

• Freed up space and organized inventory
• Increased sales and efficiency
• Reduced labor and shipping costs
• Quicker processing strategy
• Scalability that works with demand and seasonality

Learn more about outsourcing your kitting and fulfillment efforts here.

Preparing a promotional kit

There are numerous types of kits as mentioned above, but we’re going to focus on promotional marketing kits moving forward in this post. Because while each industry and business is unique in what services or products they provide, one thing is universal: the need to sell it.

Here’s a brief outline of how to prepare a promotional kit.

Identify Your Audience

Like anything in business, your marketing kit will be most effective if you prepare a strategy behind it. Start by identifying your audience and the problem(s) they face that you can solve.

Select Your components

Then, figure out what to include in a kit–from sample pieces, literature, call to actions, samples, and contact details–and how to best assemble it that appeals to your established audience.

Some content worth considering in your promotional kit are:

• Business cards
• Service and/or product outline
• Case studies
• Testimonials
• Your story
• Samples
• Promotional branded items

The elements you choose will depend on your business goals and the needs of your audience. If you’re also including products, consider pairing new or slow sellers with best sellers or offering unique combinations to boost interest.

Brand & Align

Now it’s time to align your kit with your strategy and brand. Create your materials and components using your brand guidelines. Your logo, color palette, font, and messaging should be reflective of your company’s established “look and feel.”

How you include and assemble your components are up to you and your creative team. For example, shorten your case study into an infographic or create actual speech bubble cutouts for your testimonials for eye-catching communication.

Consider giving your kit a theme–like pizza!–or keep it basic with your branding. Even if you’re really drawing outside the lines from your industry, consistency is what matters most.

kitting with flavor

Now that we’ve established the basics behind kitting, let’s take in the savory aroma that is Delzer’s promotional pizza-themed marketing kit sample and the concept behind it.

Obviously we’re not a pizzeria. We’re commercial design, print, and fulfillment experts. But, we chose this theme to creatively showcase our full-service solutions in one attention-grabbing approach hot off the press. After all, who doesn’t love pizza?

We designed our messaging on a variety of print solutions and constructed the kit for flexibility in its fulfillment method, be it shipping or hand delivery.

Here are the components we chose for this promotional kit.

Pizza Box

Few things draw on classic pizza bistro ambiance like faux marbling on corrugated white cardboard, yes? The pizza box art was printed, die cut, and assembled at the Delzer 2 wide-format print location.

The box also had to accommodate both in-person delivery and shipping options. To make this kit shippable as is, a designated space for a 4″x6″ shipping label was included in the design strategy. Then, all the box would need to ship is the clear stretch wrap we use to safely secure the integrity of the box and its contents.

Delzeroni™ Pizza Wheel

The thinnest of thin crust, the Delzeroni™ pizza wheel contains two notable things:

1. 1. Zero-carb ingredients, and
   2. Industry-filled tips.

This pizza wheel was hand-rolled by our design team, printed, sliced by our router, and assembled in two parts that directly secure to the pizza box itself. This accomplished three things: first, that the pizza wheel would function as intended; second, that it wouldn’t slide around in the box; and thirdly, that nobody would try to actually eat this realistic creation.

Service Takeout Menu

We transformed our usual commercial design, print, and fulfillment solutions booklet into a six-panel trifold takeout menu that plays on classic pizzeria lingo to keep the messaging short, yet captivating.

Interested in learning more about popular folding techniques? View this post.

Coupons

You didn’t know that Delzer offers coupons? Don’t get too excited yet. These magnetic coupons are as useful as the offers they boast. What we do offer, though, are full-color magnets in any shape or size that we wanted to be able to cleverly showcase. Couldn’t you see this tongue-in-cheek piece on a company fridge somewhere?

Pen + Paper

When in doubt of what to include in your promotional kit, you can’t go wrong with a simple branded pad of paper and pen to put one’s thoughts into writing. Even after the promotional kit might be long gone, these pieces tend to stick around longer.

Pizza Cutter

This promotional tchotchke item has absolutely nothing to do with our print solutions in itself, but was hand selected for this kit’s theme. We want our audience to remember their experience of Delzer’s pizza kit every time they slice through their home-baked pizza. After all, this is more than print, it’s an experience.

Call-to-Action Insert with Business Card Die Cut

Last but certainly not least: a call to action. Boldly printed in our signature orange and adhered to the inside-top portion of the pizza box, this call-to-action insert won’t go unnoticed. A business card fits neatly directly below the call to action’s message within its designated die cut slot and can be removed with ease.

Stop by for a slice of strategy

Again, as mentioned in our introductory disclosure, our original call-to-action of inviting customers to come for a tour and stay for the pizza did not exactly age well once the pandemic hit and necessary precautions ruled that option out for the time being.

However, we still invite you to safely tour our plant and learn more about how our design, print, and fulfillment solutions can be right for your business.

Contact us to set up a time to safely tour our facilities and we’ll have a real pizza delivered your way on a day of your choosing–because honestly, this Delzeroni™ pizza tastes like cardboard.

Rounding it out

A well-rounded marketing kit strategy can increase sales and efficiency while reducing expenses associated with labor and shipping. Including components that resonate with your audience while showcasing how your product or service solves a specific problem will align your kit’s execution with your company’s strategic goals.

Even with our low-carb pizza pie lacking in both nutrition and pretty much everything that characterizes a slice of ‘za, the strategy and execution behind this kit is packed with flavorsome detail. And while our printed kit components took a bit of creative liberty outside of our usual branding, it remained consistent, informative, and helpful for our customer base.

Your next kitting project can, too.

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