Sign shops looking for additional value-added products to offer to clients should consider selling plaques for corporate recognition, commemoration, memorials, donor boards and awards.

Shops can either partner with a company that will make the plaques for them or they can purchase blank plaques and use existing equipment to engrave on them.

Courtney Ramos-Fincher, president of A.R.K. Ramos Foundry & Mfg. Co. Inc., says that it is very simple, even for small sign shops, to get involved with plaques. Sign shops already use vector artwork. This would use the same technology.

“We have a full-service art department. They could send us something hand drawn and then we replicate it digitally. Since they usually have art capabilities doing vinyl or banners, it is very simple. They don’t have to do anything else but send us a layout,” Ramos-Fincher says.

A.R.K. Ramos Foundry makes dimensional letters that are cast, fabricated and cut. It also casts bronze, brass, aluminum and stainless steel plaques.

“Metal pretty much lasts forever and the coatings that we apply to it are also guaranteed for the lifetime of the product,” Ramos-Fincher says.

Metal is more high-end.

“Plastic is a competitor but the same people looking for a cast bronze dedication plaque or award are not going to want a plastic substitute,” she says. “It is more prestigious, longer lasting and more permanent. People want the permanence of metal.”

Ken Auty, sales manager-North America for FusionCast in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, manufactures plaques by blending powdered metal, like ionized bronze, with high-density urethane.

“All the metal is forced to the bottom of the mold so it is 100 percent bronze with a high-density urethane core. It is 50 percent lighter than traditional [metal plaques] and 25 to 30 percent less expensive,” says Auty. “It is going to last virtually forever.”

FusionCast sells the finished product, as do most traditional cast metal manufacturers, because “our process is expensive to set up. It is not something a sign dealer would be able to do. Our entire factory is dedicated to our process,” he says.

The company offers sign shops its design expertise so that a historical plaque or donor wall looks as good as possible in the cast metal environment.

“Business is really good,” he says. The company is about eight years old and just experienced another record-setting year.

“The market is good. It is the smallest part of the market because it is the most expensive part of the market,” he says.

FusionCast offers bronze, copper and aluminum signs and offers donor tree and memorial wall creation.

“We’re in growth mode; we are growing,” Auty says. “We’re outside the trend. The cast metal market is mature but we’re taking a little bit of market share. Our growth is coming from acquiring some market share from some suppliers. We’re also opening up to new customers because we are a less expensive option.”

The key to success in the donor recognition business is to be involved in the community so you know which buildings or fundraising groups are working on it, he said. Most walls take two to three years to get up and running.

Kenan Hanhan, vice president of marketing for Gemini Inc. in Cannon Falls, Minn., is a wholesale manufacturer of dimensional letters, logs and plaques.

Architectural plaques are a natural extension of what sign companies are already doing, he says. They are designing, building and installing dimensional signage. Plaques weren’t always sold through the sign reseller channel, but it is a market that Gemini has pushed.

Architectural plaques can be sourced from many sign companies, Hanhan says.

“Any sign company that gets involved in commercial building construction, that is a way to edge out from their core offering if they are not selling plaques today,” Hanhan says. “It is a bit of a no brainer. No upfront investment. They already are dealing with decision makers who are specifying the plaque product. To add that to their offering makes logical sense to me.”

He adds that there are relatively low barriers to entry into this market. Gemini only sells to resellers. It doesn’t sell to end users.

“We’re really an extension of the shop floor to any sign company. I don’t know any sign company that has foundry capability. We offer that. We melt bronze or metal. They design the plaque, ideally in vector art format, and supply it to us. We can modify that to manufacture it,” Hanhan says.

Gemini offers cast plaques of bronze and aluminum. It also uses routers to precision tool plaques out of plate metal, all sorts of alloys from aluminum to bronze. It also offers chemically etched plaques. The advantage of that process is that it can etch very small letters and fine type on the plaque.

Once the art work is approved, Gemini can manufacture and ship the plaque in eight to 12 business days. The normal industry standard is six to eight weeks, Hanhan says.

Custom, quick turnaround is another value proposition for Gemini’s reseller clients.

“We try to make it easy for our reseller partners,” he says. “They don’t need much to get into this business.”

JDS Industries offers a wide variety of traditional standard solid wood, walnut or alder plaques. It also makes particle board plaques with a wood finish.

JDS offers its resellers access to retail sales catalogs and websites that are not branded with the JDS logo. The catalogs include corporate awards collections, including crystal, glass and lasered leatherette. It offers a full catalog of leatherette that includes plaques, promotions and awards.

The sign shop orders the pieces from JDS and then does the engraving, says Mike May, chief operations officer at JDS Industries Inc. in Sioux Falls, S.D.

“It is a natural fit for them to sell corporate awards. They have corporate customers already. Most of them have a form or method of personalizing plaques they can show to their customers,” May says.

The majority of sign shops that purchase from JDS are doing corporate awards and promotions, both of which are strong markets.

Shops that have laser engravers or do sublimation can get into the plaque market.

“We have really been trying to impress upon them how easy it is and how much it makes sense to try to offer these different products to their existing customer base as additional streams of revenue,” May says.

He adds that thousands of sign shops sell awards, gifts, promotions and incentives.

“There is so much opportunity. If you are going to do it, do all of it. There is so much opportunity out there,” May says.