This month Dynamic Print wanted to highlight some shocking but sadly true facts for Octobers Black History month.

West Indian Soldiers in 1st World War

After being enslaved for 5 centuries, West Indians were asked to support Britain in the 1st world war. There was a shared belief that they would be allowed a better life situation.

The contributions of the 15,204 men who served in the British West Indies Regiment have been forgotten in the UK’s remembrance of the Great War.

They weren’t allowed to fight alongside white soldiers and faced racism from their comrades and enemy soldiers alike. They carried out dangerous jobs such as loading ammunition, laying telephone wires, and digging trenches.

There is evidence that some also saw combat.

Caribbean Soliders in World War II

In spite of racism, black people from across the British Empire came forward to help fight during World War 11. Many volunteered to be civilian defence workers, such as firewatchers, air-raid wardens, firemen, stretcher-bearers first aid workers and mobile canteen personnel. It is estimated that 10,000 men and women from the Caribbean come to the UK to help with the war effort.

The Commonwealth Immigrants Act in 1962

In 1962 the Conservative government acted on the growing issue of racism by creating the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which restricted the immigration rights commonwealth citizens had been granted in the 1948 British Nationality Act,

In 1964, the Conservatives party’s slogan during their general election was “if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.”

Shocking !!

The Bristol Bus Boycott – in 1963

In 1963, members of the black community supported by many of their white neighbours refused to use the Bristol Bus service until the service stopped hiring people based on their colour.

After 4 months, the bus company relented. The Victory proved a milestone, overturning the ban on ethnic minorities working on Bristols buses and marking a significant step towards the UK’s first laws against racial discrimination.

The 1980’s Decade of Firsts

In 1981, Moira Stuart became the 1st Black woman newsreader on TV.

In 1986 saw the incitement to the Racial Hatred Act, which made an offence to use threatening or insulting words or behaviour with the intent to stir up racial hatred in the street or public speech.

In 1987, Black History Month was made a fixture in the UK.

In 1988, Naomi Campbell became the 1st Black model to appear on the cover of French Vogue, Later she appeared on the cover of American Vogue, which marked the 1st time a black model graced the front of the September magazine ( the years most important issue )

Our first post-Covid community litter pick was held on 20th May 2021 and coincided with ‘World Bee Day’. This event was sponsored by eco conscious local business, Dynamic Print.

Ten volunteers from award winning Taverham & Drayton Litter Pickers gave one hour of their time to pick up litter in the local area of Drayton, Norfolk. The total amount of rubbish collected in this short time came in at a grand total of 31.7 kgs – the equivalent weight of 384,615 bees.

Astonishingly it has been recently reported by Canadian researchers that clever bees have started using litter to construct their nests, after a nest made entirely from plastic was discovered.

Dynamic Print provided each volunteer with goodie bags of seeded paper to grow their own wild flowers, surely keeping the local bees happy and healthy.

Funds from the sponsored litter pick were donated to Taverham & Drayton Food Bank to provide relief to those in the area who need financial assistance.

Thank you Dynamic Print… you truly are the bees knees!

Blog by Stacy Bradley – Transforming Local Communities

Dynamic Impressions Ltd are committed to providing a quality service in a manner that ensures a safe and healthy workplace for our employees and minimises our potential impact on the environment. This is our path to helping the UK achieve Net Zero, now is the time to act.

Therefore, our Policy is to:

1. Consider environmental concerns and impacts into our decision making and activities.

2. Minimise our waste and then reuse, upcycle, recycle, freecycle or compost as much of it as is possible. So, how do we do this?

a. Recycling part of our paper waste into environmentally friendly products for our division of Eco Flower Supplies (a business seeking ways of reducing plastic within the floristry industry).

b. Reuse, return to supplier or repair our pallet waste by turning them into tables, planters, sheds, doors or composters.

c. Upcycle our greyboard and seeded paper waste by donating it to the Norwich Puppet Theatre for them to make background scenery for puppet shows or papier mache for the puppets. This scheme was launched by Norwich B.I.D (Business Improvement District).

d. Compost our food and paper waste by layering our office garden composter with garden waste, food waste and shredded paper waste.

e. Donate paper waste to schools and charities including a local company called Scrap Box who encourage people to use other businesses waste for their own projects.

f. Turn our printing press waste sheets and guillotine off cuts into upcycled notepads.

g. Reuse all boxes coming into Dynamic by either shredding for wrapping or sending out our products.

h. Endeavour to recycle all other paper, card, plastic and metal that leaves our business and to keep to an absolute minimum that which enters our refuse collection bin.

3. Minimise energy and water use within our buildings and processes in order to conserve supplies and minimise the consumption of natural resources. We encourage this by placing stickers next to all our machines in the factory, plug sockets and sinks reminding staff to turn off when not in use.

All staff are mindful of energy wastage and how to minimise waste. We have timer plugs and remote control sockets to help ensure electronics are switched off overnight. We have changed all our lighting to LED.

4. We source and purchase products and services that do the least damage to the environment, or we come up with practical solutions ourselves.

5. We invested in a machine that turns any cardboard waste that comes into our building into shredded packaging that we can reuse. Upcycling and recycling all in one. As a result, we no longer purchase or use bubble wrap in our business or packaging.

6. We promote environmental awareness among our employees and encourage them to work in an environmentally responsible manner. We train, educate and inform our employees about environmental issues and discuss how we can all achieve Net Zero.

7. We have invested time and donated our land to WildEast, transforming our industrial estate unit backyard, once neglected and full of brick rubble, into a wildflower and vegetable garden with ponds for all the wildlife. We have seen an increase around the industrial estate with different species of insects, bees, butterflies and birds, including Yellow Hammers and Goldfinch. We have had a hedgehog, mole and shrew in our garden, also a toad in one of our ponds and the bug hotel is full!

8. We communicate our environmental efforts and commitments to clients, customers and the public by producing our latest brochure containing all of this information. Promoting our journey via our various blogs, our website, YouTube, Linkedin and Instagram accounts.

We have featured on the local BBC Look East regarding our upcycling programme with the Norwich Puppet Theatre and Norwich B.I.D and have recently been interviewed by The National Geographic Society for an article regarding our industrial estate unit.

9. Where required by legislation or where significant health, safety or environmental hazards exist, we develop and maintain appropriate emergency and spill response programmes.

We always like to see our work at it’s final destination, so it was great to see the certificates we produced for The Printing Charity appearing in a Printweek article.

For more information on the great work that The Printing Charity undertake visit https://www.theprintingcharity.org.uk

Read the full story on the Printweek website: https://www.printweek.com/news/article/2022-rising-stars-revealed

We’re very excited to say we’ve partnered up with the Floristry Trade Club to become one of their Corporate Partners.

We’re super proud to offer sustainable kraft paper sheets, tags, pads, eco cellophane, floristry cards & many other products through our www.ecoflowersupplies.co.uk website.

We’re here to address the environmental issues we are facing by offering sustainable products!

Recently we were featured on the WildEast website for the pledge and transformation of our wild place behind our business.

Just two years ago, WildEast pledgee Sarah Smith’s garden at the back of her printing business on an industrial estate in Norwich was a just pile of rubble.

 

But after stumbling across an article on WildEast in the Eastern Daily Press, she decided to have a go at making her outdoor space more wildlife-friendly.

 

Since then Sarah has transformed not only the garden, but her relationship with it, as she explains here…

You can read the full feature right here on the WildEast website

We recently met the very vibrant and dynamic Rechenda from Nurture Marketing who contacted us to help her create her Eco brand of Business cards, pads, pens & brochures, we had a good chat about the different types of recycled materials she could use and of course I couldn’t resist to talk to her about the Power of Print Marketing when done correctly.

Print marketing. Back in the day, print was the most common form of getting your business out there. Free ads in the paper, direct mail through the letterbox and adverts in magazines were ‘de rigueur’ amongst marketing specialists of old.

The rise of digital marketing and the internet in the early noughties threatened to kill off print. And for a while, I think it did. I worked in web, digital and email marketing for years. We would always brag about how magical digital was compared with print. You could measure it, change it with a click of a mouse and target prospective customers like some kind of digital undercover agent.

But print is having somewhat of a renaissance. Perhaps we have all got bored and over-saturated with constant online ads, pop ups, email marketing campaigns snd social posts. Perhaps with the advent of lockdown, we yearned for something real, tangible, valuable. Something we could hold in our hands. Something to smell and touch.

You cannot beat the excitement of getting a piece of mail in the post. OK, maybe not a flyer for double glazing, but you know what I mean. That excitement of a handwritten present with your name on, in a pretty envelope or package plopping onto the doormat.

Personally, I think to market your business effectively, the sweet spot is to use both digital and print. New to print or want to find out more?

Here are five top tips on how you can grow your business using clever and thoughtful print marketing:

1/Create a print ‘family’ of your marketing materials

Don’t just think about a one-off brochure or flyer. Gather all your current marketing materials together. Grab your business cards, postcards, stickers, pens, pads, comps slips, letterheads, email signatures, brochures, invoices, quotes, event/exhibition materials and even flick through your web pages.

Look at everything together. Do they gel? Would a prospective customer recognise that all the materials belong to the same company? Is the tone of voice the same? Is the messaging the same? Is the branding consistent across all the marketing materials? If it’s not, it’s time to have a little spring clean and create a kick-ass family print pack that truly showcases your business.

2/Think environmentally

When you think print, the first thing that usually comes to mind is chopping down trees. Trees the planet desperately needs right now. You may think that digital marketing is better for the environment than print. I think that view needs to be challenged. Every email you send, every website you create, each blog post you write, every social post you create…every little piece of information on the internet has to live somewhere. Usually, data is hosted in GIANT warehouses full of servers, using up vital power and energy. When I say these are big, I am talking massive. Check this out: https://www.rankred.com/largest-data-centers-in-the-world/ .

Print can be unsustainable, too. However, the print world has become a much more green industry IF you are willing to look at sustainable options. You can now use recycled paper, plantable seeded paper, paper made from bamboo and grass, plant-based inks and recycled paper packaging. Dynamic Print in Norwich goes one step further.

Their customers can capture the Co2 emissions from paper purchases by planting native woodland, right here in the UK, through the Woodland Trust and the Woodland Carbon scheme. Check out further details here.

3/Have a strategy

Why print? What type of customer do you want to target? What is the best location to get print to them? Home? Work? Leisure venue? Shopping centre? What type of info do they need? What is your budget for the print? What return are you looking to get? Print marketing works if you a) have amazing on-brand materials and b) are super targeted with your approach.

Don’t use ‘dear homeowner’. Good god, no. That generic stuff doesn’t do the job. Find out who they are, but be compliant with UK data protection laws, of course. Check out the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations to be sure. Write a personalised hand written note if you can. Make an impact.

4/Do the best job possible

I know budget may be a sticking point here, but if you are using print marketing to attract new customers you really have one shot to make a good first impression.

Print marketing is a time to pull out all the stops and wow them. Really, this should be the mantra for all your marketing but it is doubly important for print. What is the best quality paper stock you can afford? Do you want a specialist finish such a debossing or foil? Not good at design? Hire a designer. Hire us.

Go to see a local printer for a coffee. I personally can highly recommend Sarah from Dynamic Print in Norwich, Norfolk. I know it’s the second time I’ve mentioned them, but they are truly great, especially on the eco front. Printers are a friendly bunch.

Sarah added: “I always promote and talk about the importance of having a good quality business card, either by making sure they are die cut, foiled or embossed, round mini or large. Because the second impression anyone will get of you is when you hand over your business card; the first being YOU.”

5/Follow up

As Coldplay once sang, nobody said it was easy. OK, they weren’t specifically referring to print marketing, but it can definitely apply. It takes time, energy and work to make print marketing flourish for your biz.

A targeted and personalised approach with rockin’ materials will get you so far, but the best marketers/business owners will always follow up. Either with an email and special offer, a free sample, guide or course (reciprocal psychology comes into play here people).

If the prospective customer lands on your website, why not serve them some retargeting ads on Insta or Facebook using the Facebook Pixel on your website? See how digital and print can work like yin and yang?

Here is a pic of me and Sarah from Dynamic Print. I mean, why not? I learned so much from going to see her recently. Does your company do print marketing? Would you consider it?

Happy printing!

As a small business it is easy to think what we do does not make a significant difference or that environmental issues are not as applicable as they are to larger companies. Yet, when taken as a collective effort, the small business community can make a huge difference to the UK’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions and to carry out business in a sustainable way.

Making small changes to work smarter, be greener and source sustainable materials all adds up. Not only that it can make a positive contribution to your profit & loss, which is also important and is not something to be shy about. Ultimately if you are not running a profitable business it will fail, if it fails you are no longer in position to help drive the changes that all industries must make as we seek to resolve the issues of carbon emissions.

So, the good news is that with a little effort you can potentially grow your business, make savings and contribute to the eco-friendly and sustainable revolution that is taking hold.

Here are some simple ideas to consider:

1. Supplier List

From a financial stand point it always pays to keep suppliers on their toes and be checking their quality and pricing structures. Another area to be focused on is their environmental impact and sourcing credentials. If they do not take notice apply pressure for change, or move to a supplier who takes these issues seriously. That way market forces will force those companies lagging behind to review their green credentials and improve their products to be more sustainable and less damaging to the environment.

2. Water

We all know how important fresh water is for life and the amount of energy it takes to constantly clean and resupply it to us all. By making simple adjustments to our manufacturing processes, fixing leaky taps or even putting a brick into the toilet cistern, we can make a reduction in water usage. This saves energy and saves you money as water is an often overlooked overhead. At www.ecoflowersupplies.co.uk we have converted the area behind our factory into a garden space, with water collection from our roof used to provide the water for wild flower seeded paper, plants & vegetables that we now grow.

3. Fuel & Travel

Anytime we use a vehicle for work related activities it is a drain on energy and finances. Whilst it is not feasible to eliminate every trip we can, with careful planning, improve our logistics to reduce deliveries or work out more economical routes. This can also apply at the individual level, with car sharing, walking or cycling when practical to do so or just simply reducing our vehicle sizes. Fuel and travel costs can be very significant for a business and this is an area to concentrate on for the planet and the finances.

4. Recycle & Upcycle

Make sure you have clearly labelled recycling bins around the business, to ensure the maximum amount of waste goes into the correct recycling system. Or better still, if you are in an industry such as Print, make best use of your waste materials. At Dynamic Print we constantly seek ways to maximise first usage and then also secondary usage of off cuts, rather than them going directly into recycling. We now make a significant level of products, sold via Dynamic Print or www.ecoflowersupplies.co.uk that are up-cycled from printing offcuts from the guillotine process. This reduces the amount of materials we buy and have delivered in from our Suppliers, so the savings are extensive in energy used though the supply chain.

5. Cleaning & Chemical Products

Most chemicals are less than ideal when released into the environment. Review everything you use within the business to see if there is an eco-friendly alternative. This can be anything from eco-friendly washing up soaps to making changes in manufacturing chemicals used. Currently this may not always be cheapest option but the upside is immense for the environment if we reduce the amount of chemicals being released into the air, water ways and land fill. Eventually these options will come down in price if enough people adopt their usage.

6. Plants

More plants in the business not only look good they improve the air quality for everyone as they make their contribution to the oxygen and Co2 cycle. This can extend to outside the business also, trees and shrubs can be planted in small areas or large tubs.

7. Capex

Replacing machinery for the sake if it is not necessarily a positive contribution to the energy consumption cycle. However, when it is a case of upgrading old and inefficient kit to energy efficient versions it should be considered. All machinery eventually requires replacement and that is the time to ensure the most sustainable solutions are adopted. Modern machinery often runs on a fraction of the energy consumption of older models.

8. Lighting & Heating

Energy bills are extremely impactful as an overhead and also the usage is directly contributing to the emissions crisis. Take the opportunity to replace old legacy lighting with lo-energy LED solutions and ensure buildings are insulated and heating is not wasted. Simple steps like labels near lights, heaters and machinery reminding people to switch off when not required make a difference.

There are of course many more ways to make a difference to the environmental impact of your business and save money in the process, so get thinking about it today!

Sarah from Dynamic Print and Anna from Seale Print have been working together since 2001 and have worked on various projects of all different sizes over the years.

You can read our complete business case study from Seale Print & Direct Mail below via clicking the image. Or you can click here.

From all things print and design, together Dynamic Print and Seale Print can offer a vast range of services to meet everyone’s needs.

At Dynamic Print we always seek to use and guide our customers towards deciding to use the most sustainable paper and card options for their print projects.

Working closely with the paper mills and the paper merchants we stay informed and aware of all the developments within the industry. The attached article from one of them, Antalis, is a very interesting read all about sustainable papers.

Click here to find out more