ASI® Launches ESP Online Upgrade(2)

TREVOSE, PA – November 5, 2007 – Advertising Specialty Institute®, the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, today launched an ESP Online™ upgrade to provide the new Event Planner, educational videos, standard purchase orders, enhanced virtual samples, a decorator search and a client content manager.    

The new Event Planner allows distributors to find the right products for clients who plan events, such as golf outings, in the growing events market.  It features educational videos that provide program advice and ideas from the editors at ASI magazines and also includes three price tiers for each event to meet the budget of every customer.  It will be updated monthly with additional events.

Industry standard purchase orders are also now integrated into ESP Online.  Created using the best practices from ASI’s leading suppliers and distributors, this feature will reduce order mix-ups and increase efficiency and office organization.  They populate automatically with information from ESP Online and CenterStage™ presentations and can be emailed or faxed directly from a distributor to a supplier in PDF. 

Virtual samples have also been enhanced to allow distributors to show customers and prospects what their logo will look like using different imprinting methods, including embossing, embroidery, etching, laser engraving and foil-stamping.

“ESP Online increases your sales and improves your business,” said Timothy M. Andrews, president and chief executive officer of ASI.  “The new Event Planner allows distributors to better serve their customers in the growing events market, and it’s based on a popular monthly feature in Advantages™ magazine – the leading publication written for the industry salesperson.  Editorial experts from ASI provide educational videos in the Event Planner with suggestions for themes and products for distributors to use with their clients.” 

“Users of this upgrade will also streamline their workflow more and have fewer order errors with the new industry standard purchase order forms, which ASI members helped to design,” Andrews said.  “And, our virtual samples are improved, so a distributor can show a client what a product will look like using contrasting imprinting types and styles.”

In addition to these advancements, distributors can use the new decorator search tool to find and connect with more local ASI member decorators (embroiderers, screen printers, engravers, sublimation and heat transfer providers) by their zip code or proximity to where they need products decorated.

A client content manager has also been added to help distributors, suppliers and decorators record and store essential client contact information, such as names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, billing information and multiple shipping locations.  Users enter data just once and have more time for selling. 

ESP Online has more than 30,000 users, including 95% of the Counselor® Top 40 Distributors™.  It allows distributors to search for every product from over 3,500 reputable ASI suppliers.  More than two million product and supplier searches are conducted in ESP Online each month. 

To learn more about the Event Planner and other new features of the ESP Online upgrade, or to receive a free trial, visit www.uat-asicentral.com/esp and click on ‘About ESP Online’ or call Dave Russo, executive director for distributor services, at 1-888-277-0151.

About ASI
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, with a membership of 24,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of advertising specialties.  Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to more than 20,000 ASI distributor firms.  Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain every product in the industry from over 3,500 reputable suppliers, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers.  ASI provides catalogs, informational directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers interactive e-commerce, marketing and selling tools.