The 2016 Top 50 Distributors: No. 5, WebbMason Marketing

Each year, Print+Promo provides the definitive ranking of the Top 50 Distributors in the industry. As part of this issue, we feature exclusive interviews with the CEOs, presidents and owners of our top five companies. Be sure to check out the full Print+Promo 2016 Top 50 Distributors list, along with in-depth analysis.

No. 5: WebbMason Marketing
Answers provided by Warner Mason, CEO and chairman

What was your company’s biggest accomplishment over the last year?

Warner Mason: Taking end-to-end responsibility for revenue-critical marketing at a growing number of accounts. As the scope of the marketing services we provide has grown, today we’ve advanced to the point that we are serving a number of new accounts for whom we are responsible to the entire marketing value chain—strategy and planning, analytics, advertising, digital services, direct marketing, marketing technology, print services and promotional merchandise. We are strategic and tactical partners with these clients. We shoulder mission-critical marketing programs that drive revenue. We are accountable for providing a better outcome. This past year has shown great progress.

What is your company’s top priority for 2017?

WM: To continue on our path toward becoming the best mid-market agency in America. Beyond providing our clients with better outcomes, our mission is to become America’s best mid-market agency. In 2017, we will continue to strengthen our creative and executional capabilities. We will also grow our traditional print and promo businesses by keeping our customer service at the highest levels in the industry. We are deepening our promo team to handle the larger accounts we’ve been winning and to grow this part of our business aggressively.

In 2017, WebbMason will expand our footprint. We operate 22 profitable offices today, as well as eight distribution centers. We have always supported our clients’ distribution and support networks throughout the U.S., but now, for the first time in our 27-year history, we are starting to provide services to companies and organizations headquartered in the western U.S. We now have senior marketing staff in San Francisco. Our Los Angeles office will open in January. This is an exciting development. We will bring our Better Outcomes service model to the West.

What is a great piece of advice you personally received? Did you have occasion to put it to use?

WM: When transforming a business, ‘Do no harm’. As we strengthen our agency business beyond print and promo, we need to be very careful—‘do no harm’—to improve and grow our outstanding traditional business in print and promo. This business grows organically because we have an outstanding team that keeps our clients very happy. Sixty percent of our customers have been with us for more than 10 years, and seven of the nine founders of the business are still with us—25 years later. We will keep those good things happening even as we continue to evolve into America’s best mid-market agency. Meanwhile, we will continue to build the new team, processes and culture that supports our expanded and very complete line of marketing services.

Give us a glimpse of who Warner Mason is outside the office. Where would people most likely find you when you’re not at work?

WM: I love Bethany Beach, Del. I’ve been going to that part of the shore my entire life. We have a full house just about every weekend in the summer. You will find me in the ocean as many as five times a day.