Holmes Custom Becomes HC Brands

We have exciting news to share!

As we continue to grow our personalized product offerings and our reach in the retail e-commerce industry, we are excited to announce that Holmes Custom is now HC Brands!

Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, with additional fulfillment centers in Salem, Massachusetts and Austin, Texas, HC Brands is your one stop shop for the highest quality personalized home and business products. We offer a wide selection of merchandise from nine specialty sites, including rubber stamps, custom signs, name tags, promotional products, vinyl wall decals, notary public seals and supplies, personalized gifts, and more!

Name changes are something we are familiar with. In 2017, our company, Holmes Stamp & Sign, became Holmes Custom, in order to better represent our growing brands.

“Much like the need for us to change in 2017, we feel that Holmes Custom no longer represents who we are as an evolving brand,” says owner and CEO Bryan Croft. “We are a marketing/technology/e-commerce company that is innovating and rapidly growing. The name Holmes Custom no longer reflects who we are.”

HC Brands earns annual sales of $20 million, and we’ve experienced annual growth of 30 percent for the third consecutive year. Our investment in internal systems and technology allows us to deliver an easy online ordering experience resulting in quality personalized products, delivered with exceptional speed, directly to your door. Our streamlined ordering experience facilitates same day or next business day shipping.

“Informing our customers of all we do has been a challenge for us for many years,” says Libby O’Regan, VP of Strategic Partnerships. “By letting our customers of one site know that we are part of something much bigger, we hope to introduce audiences of one brand to our other brands and connect the dots.”

We welcome you to join us as we continue to grow as HC Brands! Visit our sites to see what’s in store:

 

 

 

Creative Ways to Share Your Magnetic Business Cards

From multinational corporations to the corner patisserie, business cards are tiny brochures that tell your valued patrons – and potential customers – what you’re all about! And they’re a terrific pocket sized marketing opportunity.

 

 

Here are our favorite tried and true ways to jazz up and share business cards so they’re sure to be noticed – and remembered!

 

A Business Card with a Purpose

Be sure your business card doesn’t become just another card in the deck. Magnetic business cards are terrific for adhering to filing cabinets, refrigerators, or other metal surfaces. Get creative! Use business cards as tickets to special dining or company events, as bookmarks, and even as a reusable discount card for a small percentage off each purchase.

 

Include a Fun Fact or a Testimonial

When designing your business card, you naturally want it to stand out from the others. And, most certainly, you want the information on your card to be read. Try adding a fun fact that will grab the card recipient’s attention. If you’re a marine biologist or work at an aquarium, for example, you might include a line that says ‘Did you know? An octopus has three hearts’!

 Technology Is In!

Adding a QR code or a specific product SKU to your business cards that offers a discount for visiting your website is an ideal way to easily track the effectiveness of your business cards – and that people are really interested in what information you’re sharing with them.

 Send Those Business Cards in Creative Ways

Send Business Cards along with invoices and to existing – and potential – vendors and suppliers. You may be surprised when an opportunity to gain a new client or expand your business presents itself from something as simple as the interest drawn to your organization via a well-designed business card.

 Show Your Support for a Cause

Just about every company out there loves to give back, whether to the community or somewhere in need around the world. Proudly show your patrons, clients, and guests who or what you support by including a small line about your support somewhere on your magnetic business card, such as ‘We proudly support the March of Dimes.” It may even inspire others to join in and offer support, too!

Instantly Connect Your Face to Your Company

Include your best professional picture or even your favorite social media profile picture (depending on the casualness of your organization) on your business card so that people will remember you and associate you with your business long after your initial meeting.

Holmes Encourages Learning with Employee Scholarship Program

As Holmes Custom celebrates our 65th anniversary and how much we’ve grown, we know that our talented team of employees, or ‘Holmies’, as we’re known, are the key to our success! While some of us have been here since the beginning and many of us are just getting started, Holmes Custom’s goal is to invest in our team by making ours one of the best companies to work for our employees and the communities we live in!

This May, we’re proud to offer the first annual Holmes Custom scholarship to a deserving employee who’s passionate about hitting the books for professional growth! Whether it’s going back to school at a local university or working toward certification in a technical field, we want to help our Holmies reach their educational goals. Each year we’ll award $2,500 to one of our resident scholars.

This month, Holmies from across the country convened to take part in our day of Culture Olympics. Our second annual event – and quickly becoming a favorite! – welcomed all employees as we came together as a team to celebrate how far we’ve come and share our excitement for a future focused on continued growth. Through a mix of fantastic food, exciting team building events, and shared values, memories, and inspiration from all of our participants, Holmes Custom’s 2019 Culture Olympics made us all feel like gold medal winners!

We’re also quite proud of our Holmes Cares program, centered on the mission of engaging our employees in active volunteer service focused on giving back to our local communities. From blood drives to Best Buddies Friendship Walks to product donation allowances for charitable contributions offered to every employee, Holmies love to give back.  And spreading our wings just a bit further, there’s never a shortage of volunteers ready to travel with our owner, Bryan Croft, on our annual Haiti180 mission trip. We’re dedicated to making a positive impact where it matters most.

Launched last year, our Healthy Holmies Wellness Program is designed to provide all our employees with the tools and encouragement to reach our personal fitness and wellness goals and live our most healthful lives. Chosen by employees, our wellness program focuses on stress management, fitness and exercise, nutrition, weight loss, and financial wellness.

Our ‘Holmie Nation’ that has evolved over the past 65 years has become a terrific environment for employees to work, play, and grow together – and this is just the beginning!

Holmes Custom Celebrates 65 Years!

Who We Are

The Holmes Custom family, or ‘Holmie Nation’ as we like to say, is made up of a talented team of more than 100 employees who are the best in the business! Because of our passion for creating the highest quality products along with unparalleled customer service, our brand has grown to include seven specialty websites offering a variety of personalized products: Name Tag Wizard, Simply Stamps, Custom Signs, Promo180, 904 Custom, All State Notary Supplies, and The Corporate Connection. Whether you’re looking for professional trade show banners, personalized baby gifts, or anything in between, you’re sure to find what you’re looking for with the Holmes family of brands.

Under the leadership of our owners Bryan Croft and Steve Fernandez, our company has transformed from a brick and mortar storefront to an online marketplace, where 95 percent of our sales are conducted via the internet. What an evolution!

Where We Came From

Our journey started in 1954, when founder Owen Holmes opened a rubber stamp business in a small rented storefront in Jacksonville, Florida. Although we’ve moved a few times since then, and have opened regional offices in Massachusetts and Texas, our core philosophy has stayed the same. According to Bryan, “Mr. Holmes really set a foundation of hard work and innovation that we are still inspired by today, creating and building for our families and the communities we serve.”

Taking over for his father in 1985, Owen Holmes, Jr. partnered with Bob Croft (above) and continued to grow the company until 2009, when current owners Bryan and Steve took the helm and continued to develop this third-generation company into the e-commerce business we are today.

Holmies Make It Happen!

As we celebrate our 65th anniversary and how much we’ve grown over the years, we know that our team of dedicated employees, or ‘holmies’, as we’re known, are the key to our success. Some of us have been here since the beginning, sharing our wealth of knowledge and experience with the newest members of our Holmes Custom team!

What We’ve Become

Throughout the years, our vision and core philosophy have remained the same. We have an unwavering passion for innovative products made in America with the highest levels of quality workmanship, perfectly personalized for our valued customers. Our products are never mass produced. Rather, they are custom made to order in our state-of-the-art production facilities just for you.

Our ‘Holmie Nation’ also is dedicated to giving back to our communities. Whether we’re participating in quarterly blood drives, hosting donation drives to support our troops, collecting toys for local children during the holidays, or volunteering for our annual Haiti180 mission trip led by our owner Bryan Croft, we’re dedicated to making a positive difference where it matters most.

Here’s to the next 65 years!