Van Eck Securities Corporation

Seroka Develops Multi-Year Marketing Communications Program For Leading Mutual Fund

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Challenge:
Van Eck Securities Corporation wanted to improve the efficiency of the print material production process while enhancing communications effectiveness and appearance of all shareholder reports and sales prospect brochures.  Management’s goal was to reduce executive time, gain greater flexibility in preparing communications content, reduce financial resources for outside services, and enhance the image quality and graphical design appearance for all printed materials.

Approach:
During our initial assessment, we instituted a consistent corporate logo treatment and graphic style guide for typography.  We reviewed all fonts, images and paper treatments.  We convinced the client to produce film negatives from client-approved paper proofs, instead of paper mechanicals.  This saved the printer a step in the production process, and greatly reduced the overall financial printing expense to Van Eck.

The plan required having our account executives utilize a Macintosh-based publishing network, application software, telecommunication protocols and proprietary templates to shorten the turn-around time between writing, design, editing, proofing, and printing.

The implementation phase consisted of having our team of highly skilled computer graphics professionals use a variety of programs including MS Excel, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. We used laser printers and modems to create attractive charts and illustrations for Van Eck. We compiled all text, photos and images in a software application to enhance the overall graphical design appearance and image quality of Van Eck quarterly shareholder reports, dealer communications, sales brochures, and presentation materials.

The Seroka Group launched a brand new program, ADCAP (Automatic Dollar Cost Averaging Program) and succeeded in helping Van Eck earn favorable publicity in Financial World magazine, The Wall Street Transcript, CNN, FNN and other media sources.

After evaluating the program, Van Eck realized it received significant value because changes could be made later in the production process to create more flexibility for senior management.

Results:
After producing a series of newsletters during the first few months of the relationship, The Seroka Group assumed total responsibility for project management of all shareholder materials serving as an extension of Van Eck's marketing department. We obtained multiple estimates on printing, saving our client tens of thousands of dollars. Our project management capabilities allowed us to combine projects to save thousands of additional dollars on printing.