Rulersmith Inc. Raises its Market Exposure While Cutting Ad Expenditures

Company Profile

Rulersmith, Inc. has been designing and manufacturing quality rulers since 1985. Originally incorporated as Omnigrid, founders Randy and Peggy Schafer were inspired to create a better quilting ruler when a ruler Peggy had purchased was difficult to read. Randy experimented with some cans of ink and scrap acrylic and, by superimposing the lines, came up with the design for a ruler that was easy to see and use with both light and dark fabric. Thus the Omnigrid quilting ruler was born.

Rulersmith, Inc. is a Burlington, Washington manufacturer of rulers and cutting mats for the sewing, quilting, craft and graphic art trades. The family-owned business began in 1986.

In 1999 Omnigrid rulers had become extremely popular among quilters, and Prym-Dritz purchased the rights to the product line. Rulersmith currently manufactures the Omnigrid rulers for Prym as well as quality acrylic rulers for a variety of uses. Today, Rulersmith continues its focus on creating legible, high-quality rulers in line with the vision the Schafers had all those years ago.

Impact Washington - NIST MEP first worked with Omigrid (Now Rulersmith,Inc.) in 1999 to help the company analyze markets and develop a long-term plan. 

Situation

Although Omnigrid (Now Rulersmith, Inc.) was experiencing rapid growth, the company never created a marketing plan. As the company grew, marketing activities became harder to manage. Without any formal goals or measurements, the company was unable to identify which aspects of their marketing effort were working well and those that were not. Omnigrid needed a multi- faceted market analysis (Phase 1) that would lay the foundation for short and long term marketing and advertising plans (Phase 2).

Solution

Impact Washington responded to Omnigrid's request for marketing assistance by partnering with a well-established marketing consultant who understood the needs of small manufacturers. The first step to improving the company's marketing activities was to conduct a market analysis.

A second analysis assessed Omnigrid's advertising mix to identify opportunities for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of its marketing efforts. The results of this analysis identified severalareas where Omnigrid could reduce its advertising costs and maximize its reach. For example, by rearranging its mix of print advertising, Omnigrid could increase its exposure by 400,000 impressions, and reduce its costs by 24 percent.

Results

• Identified opportunities for increasing Omnigrid's advertising effectiveness by 16 percent while reducing expenditures by 24 percent
• Identified several opportunities for expanding Omnigrid's market share in both the U.S. and international markets
• Prioritized new market segments to match Omnigrid's plant and distribution capacities