How a Web-to-Print Solution Can Optimize Marketing and Sales Collateral Creation

Managing a library of marketing and sales collateral can be a significant challenge for B2B companies. The ability to facilitate high-quality collateral in the face of variables like design or content updates, versioning for specific audiences, or proper branding across a wide range of collateral types is a time-intensive process, and it’s also one that can result in costly errors.

However, with a web-to-print solution, your sales and marketing teams can leverage the power of print with collateral that is up-to-date, properly branded, and customized without incurring long lead times. In fact, a web-to-print solution can optimize your print communications to help you experience a more robust return on your investment. 

With this in mind, let’s quickly define what we mean by a web-to-print solution, and then we’ll look at how adopting a web-to-print platform can help you optimize the printing and performance of your marketing and sales collateral.

What is a web-to-print solution?

A web-to-print platform is a branded, digital storefront where you can upload, store, edit, and manage a wide inventory of print templates that can be accessed at any time by your sales and marketing teams, enabling them to order collateral and run campaigns using on-demand print technology. 

Whether your teams are looking to print business cards, sales brochures, event materials, or even branded swag like coffee mugs or keychains, a web-to-print platform makes it quick, easy, and transparent for your teams to personalize pre-approved, branded templates with custom images or messaging using variable data print (VDP) technology.  

What’s more, a web-to-print solution helps your teams execute more cost-effective, efficient marketing and sales print by eliminating waste that can sometimes accompany longer print runs. The print-on-demand (POD) capability that comes with a web-to-print platform allows your teams to print the exact number of pieces needed without the cost and resources associated with warehousing extra pieces — plus, this helps you reduce your actual print costs by better controlling your use of resources like paper or ink. 

What are the benefits of a web-to-print solution?

Even though print communications are an extremely effective way to communicate and engage with your customers, designing and printing marketing and sales collateral does take time and resources, and the biggest benefit of a web-to-print solution is that it streamlines the design and print process while also helping to create a superior product. 

With a web-to-print solution like OnSpark, your teams can optimize the performance of your marketing and sales collateral through: 

• Personalized images and messaging on a mass scale. For sales teams with a large or diverse customer base, a web-to-print solution can integrate with your CRM (customer relationship management) software to utilize VDP technology in service of printing personalized, highly targeted pieces that connect with your audience on a deeper level. What’s more, your sales team can also add custom components like a personal greeting or headshot to make the collateral more memorable and valuable — and in the case of direct mail campaigns, these touches can help increase the response rates of your mailer.   

• Enhanced brand consistency. A web-to-print solution makes it simple to manage and inventory approved assets, boilerplate messaging, and other standard elements of marketing and sales collateral to ensure current and consistent branding. This can be particularly valuable for companies with a large number of franchise locations or with a large library of documents and visual assets, and it helps ensure your collateral accurately represents your brand at every turn or in any application.  
• A greater sense of ownership. The centralized nature of a web-to-print solution makes the printing of marketing and sales collateral more visible and collaborative. The easy-to-use nature of a web-to-print solution helps empower your marketing and sales teams to have more ownership and pride in your print communications, and it can also lead to opportunities for increased communication and knowledge sharing to better solve problems or overcome challenges. This increased level of collaboration can also help identify or catch issues before the collateral is printed to help save time and money from having to reprint pieces.  

For companies who rely on print communications as an integral part of their marketing and sales strategy, a web-to-print solution makes it easy for your teams to print the kind of high-quality collateral necessary to create productive, long-term business relationships. In addition, with a web-to-print solution, your sales and marketing teams can better align on a simplified, accelerated set of best practices for executing print with an eye toward process efficiency and ROI. 

Curious if OnSpark is the right web-to-print solution for you? Schedule a personalized demo to learn more.