The Power of Web-to-Print Portals
Happy Friday everyone!
Many growing small and enterprise level businesses are turning to web-to-print portal solutions to help centralize, control and disperse marketing materials to their distributed sales networks. Web-to-print portals help organizations keep in contact with their target audience without putting pressure on tight budgets and already exhausted resources.
If you’re not familiar with what a web-to-print marketing portal is, let me share with you. A web-to-print portal is an enabling-technology that centralizes and simplifies the process of creating, distributing, and tracking elements of cross-media, direct marketing campaigns. More simply stated, a web-to-print portal is a single location online where marketers can go to order marketing materials, customize them for their local markets, and print them on-demand. Users of these portals can even create, deploy and track branded email marketing campaigns targeted to their local audience.
The benefits to organizations that are using a web-to-print portal application are monumental. For industries that thrive on networks of distributed field staff and, for industries where timing and personalization is critical, web-to-print portals organize and streamline marketing efforts.
Benefits of using web-to-print portals include:
- Ability to control branding elements and maintain integrity of brand identity
- Allows personalization and customization of marketing materials at the local level
- Streamlines the process of preparing and printing marketing collateral
- Reduces management, production, printing and storage costs
- Greater ability to track direct marketing expenditures and campaign ROI
Using a web-to-print portal offers a level of control over brand image. Pre-designed, corporate-approved templates for various marketing materials can be made available online to access whenever needed. This capability not only makes it easier for marketers to quickly generate marketing collateral on the fly and customize marketing pieces for their local market, but also ensures that distributed field staff adheres to the organization’s branding guidelines.
Businesses that are adopting the web-to-print portal platform are experiencing a faster and more efficient process for ordering and distributing direct marketing materials to their target audience. Whereas the traditional process for ordering printed material is often slow and laborious, with web-to-print’s digital and print-on-demand format, it’s completely reasonable for marketers to send a ‘one-off’ direct mail piece or automate personalized follow-up cards. The digital platform also makes it easy for marketers to automate campaigns, such as lead generation, retention and follow-up programs.
Another substantial benefit of using web-to-print portals is that the process of preparing and printing marketing collateral is directly accessible to all members within an organization. Rather than depending on one person to place orders for marketing collateral, field staff are able to select the materials they need, efficiently customize the pieces for their local market and move them into the mail stream – all within minutes, not weeks. And, since individuals can easily go online and order marketing materials precisely when they need it and in the exact quantities they require, businesses save on costs associated with storage fees and reduces overrun or obsolete printed marketing materials.
Finally, marketing portals offer businesses the ability to review reports so they can follow expenditures and monitor their offices’ and staff’s marketing activities. Our web-to-print marketing portal features a Management Dashboard, allowing executives to keep a pulse on their company’s direct marketing activity.
As technology advances, the popularity of web-to-print portals continues to expand due to the ease-of-use and variety of features they offer. Take a look at some of our case studies that describe specific instances where web-to-print portals are helping to ease pressure points and grow businesses.
AT&T
Sylvan Learning Centers
Champion Realty
Real Living
I hope this was enlightening!
Best,
Steve