Download The What, Why, Where, When, How of Web to Print. The 5

The What, Why, Where, When, How of Web to Print.
The 5 things you need to answer before you start.
PROTECT. PROMOTE. PROPAGATE.
WEB TO PRINT
PROTECT. PROMOTE. PROPAGATE.
Let me lead this off by stating I’m not a huge fan of the term Web to Print. Now, before you run for the doors let me have a
minute to explain.
First Point: The term is dated.
The origin of the term Web to Print is largely unknown, that said there are multiple resources that date the term
back to the late 1990’s. Granted that was only 20 years ago, but in technology time that is an eternity. Google was
launched in 1998, Linked In 2002, Facebook 2004 and Uber in 2009. To technology, human years are like human
years to a dog, so for every human year, technology ages 7 years.
Second Point: The term is ambiguous.
Web to Print can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It’s very easy to get confused and start
comparing apples to oranges, if you are not clear on the end goal you are trying to accomplish. We will dive into
some of the nuisances later in this guide.
Final Point (and potentially the most important): The platform should do more than print.
Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
Now I would never go against Ben, but maybe a slight update for the current century? How about “In this world
nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and change.”
We don’t feel print is dying, but it’s definitely changing. Print quality, turnaround, cost and service are now table
stakes to be involved in the game. They don’t differentiate, they are required. Now customers are demanding a
higher level of service that includes complete marketing solutions including a variety of physical assets such as;
print, promo, apparel, digital assets such as; central artwork libraries, email campaigns, landing pages and finally a
complete supply chain offering for inventory management, production, procurement and fulfillment.
The What – What is Web to Print?
As I stated earlier, the term Web to Print is really ambiguous. In laymen’s terms Web to Print solutions allow orders to be
taken over the internet with standard web browsers and flow to the manufacturer for production and shipment. Now This is
extremely over simplified, but it’s the general jest. We feel Web to Print solutions fall into two major categories: Business
to Consumer (B2C) or Business to Business (B2B). Each category has its own pro’s and con’s and this guide isn’t the
place to tell you which is right for you. We will lay out what they are, the pros and cons and leave it to you to decide the
path to go down. I will say that they are two completely different animals and it would be difficult for a single solution to
handle both segments well.
B2C WEB TO PRINT
PROTECT. PROMOTE. PROPAGATE.
B2C Web to Print platforms are designed to be completely open to the public.
Meaning your targeted customer is anyone that wants to print something.
These platforms typically come with a library of predesigned templates that
customers can modify, personalize and then order. Largely customers are
unknown to the provider and generally they are small businesses or individuals.
The platform needs to continually stay updated with latest trends in design
templates, product offerings and advances in browser technologies.
Your target customer: Small Businesses and Consumers – In general B2C
solutions will be optimized to capture the sale of unknown buyers. They will be
able to create or upload their own branded items online without the intervention
from the producers.
Requirements of a good B2C Platform
Intuitive and Elegant User Interface - This point cannot be stressed enough. When you are reaching out to any
person with a web browser and trying to convert that person into a customer you must have a nice looking site and more
importantly it must be very easy to place an order. Your B2C Web to Print platform should reduce the transactional friction
in as many places as possible to ensure once you get a lead to your site, it’s extremely easy for them to complete
an order.
Large Library of Pre-Designed Templates – Some of your potential customers will be coming to your site with artwork in
hand and they simply want to upload and order it. In our experience this is not the case for the majority of your customer
base. A good amount of your potential clients will look for you to provide pre-designed templates that they can customize
before ordering. Just be sure your solution has a library.
Search Engine Optimization – Definitely ask potential vendors how their B2C platform handles Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) and how often it’s updated to support the changing tides of Google (and others). Although SEO is not
the only way to receive traffic to your site, it’s definitely an important step for long term success.
Your skills required to find success
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Skills – Spinning up a B2C storefront is the easy part. The more challenging part will
be to drive traffic to the site that will convert to actual customers. You will need a wide variety of traditional marketing skills
as well as skills focused on Search Engine Optimization and Pay-per-Click search engine marketing.
Ability to Handle Large Volume – Typically speaking B2C platforms will help you capture a high number of lower value
orders. You must be able to handle the high volume on all sides – Production, Accounting, Customer Service, Fulfillment,
etc. When targeting the direct consumer you will find you receive a wide variety of customers. These range from the
technology savvy, to small local businesses, to Joe Blow that wants an item printed. Be prepared to support all types.
Customer Service – One often overlooked part of the process is how to handle customer support. Your B2C site is up
and running 24 hours a day 7 days a week – ar e you? What hours can I reach someone on the phone for support? Do
you issue refunds? What if I don’t like my business cards? The list can go on forever and I’m not proposing you have the
answer to everything up front, but you need to have an overall plan.
B2C WEB TO PRINT
PROTECT. PROMOTE. PROPAGATE.
Pros of the segment
Fast Sales Cycle - Once your storefront is up
and running you could start driving traffic to the
site immediately and in theory converting them to
paying customers.
Autopilot – If you are successful finding the right
balance of marketing, product offering and price
points your storefront could continually bring in
orders, 24 x 7. Naturally it’s not something you
can setup and not manage for a year, but there is
a good amount of auto piloting once you get the
right mix.
No Sales Team Required – With an eCommerce
based B2C business you really don’t need
traditional sales people. Now, don’t forget you
will need to provide customer support agents
to handle questions throughout the ordering
process.
Cons of the segment
High Competition – You will be playing on a field
with some big players – Think of Vistaprint. They have
revenue right around $1.5 Billion (with a B) annually, they
have extensive resources for marketing and software
development and have the capabilities and automation
to produce products at very low price points. Be aware of
your competition.
Typically Lower Margin – B2C systems really target the
individual consumers or small business owners that don’t
have the buying power to negotiate favorable rates. This
results in lower average order values that must be offset
with a very high amount of volume to get production
costs down. Be prepared for tighter margins, especially
while growing your volume.
Low Value Relationship – The beauty of B2C is the
world is your oyster and if you are marketing well just
about anyone can be your customer. The downside of
B2C is the world is your CUSTOMER’s oyster as well.
It’s extremely easy for the customer to get frustrated, not
like the price, not like the designs and bounce to the next
provider that came up in Google for “business cards”.
B2B WEB TO PRINT
PROTECT. PROMOTE. PROPAGATE.
B2B Web to Print platforms are designed to provide enterprise clients a private online portal for all of their branded assets.
These “portals” are spun up for each of your enterprise clients and contain marketing assets/collateral that have been
approved by the customer. Additionally, the portals are protected by a secured login whereas your customer decides who
can enter and what rights they have after they enter. Be aware – in the following section I may use terms like Marketing
Portal, Marketing Solutions, and Marketing Management --- These are terms for the B2B Web To Print Platforms.
Your target customer: Enterprises – Think of your top 25 current customers by revenue. These are typically the
candidates that may warrant a B2B platform to host their marketing assets. Additionally, if you dip a bit deeper in your
customer list or leads list you can look for any companies that have a lot of employees, distributed sales forces or
numerous locations. All of these criterion make an appealing case to implement an online solution.
Requirements of a good B2B Platform
Flexible Business Rules – Your customers may want to limit what products a user can see, control the dollars that can
be spent per week, route certain orders through multi-step approvals, and much more. In order to handle complex end
customer requirements you need a platform that can support and enforce flexible business rules that are determined by
your customers.
Compliance Enforcement – Enterprise clients will require that there are controls in place to ensure that products are
brand compliant, orders are budgetary compliant and turnaround times are time compliant. Remember a big selling point
you are approaching your client with is the ability to centralize their materials into a single repository and protect their
brand, budget and inventory.
Ability to Handle ALL Types of Products – Marketing departments today use a plethora of different mediums and
tactics to get their brand message to their targets. Providing your client with an enterprise capable marketing portal will
also require for you to have a platform that can elegantly handle all types of products including physical such as: print,
promotional, apparel and digital such as: digital asset management, email, landing pages and more.
Your skills required to find success
Ability to Look beyond Print – Enterprise marketing departments are getting tasked with a heavier workload every day.
They have to support a number of different physical assets such as print, promotional, apparel or really anything else with
their brand on it, while at the same time handling a number of different digital channels. To really stand out from the crowd
of vendors vying for business present your customers with a true solution that makes their day easier. Help them focus on
tasks that can impact their business more than tracking down links of a complex marketing supply chain.
True Solution Sales Capabilities - Selling a print job to an enterprise is entirely different then trying to sell an enterprise
a marketing solution. I wouldn’t suggest you try to transform your entire sales force into large solution sellers, but you
will need a few to carry the torch. They need to be able to root out the challenges that are bothering a customer and
understand how and what solution to present to alleviate it.
Flexibility to Adapt – Not all opportunities are ideal at first. The best way I can discuss this is an example of a lead I had
the pleasure of working with a few years ago while working at a commercial printing plant. The lead came in from our
website and they were looking for a company to do fulfillment of a hardware device to about 30,000 customers. We didn’t
officially have a fulfillment business but we did have platforms that could handle it. So we put together a presentation
showing how our platform could handle the orders, what our physical workflow would look like and why we were the best
solution. At the time the organization I was with was a bit hesitant taking business that was outside of print but we took
a swing at it. It turns out that lead was the 6th largest cable provider in the US and shortly after the fulfillment project we
had the opportunity to talk with them about their printed marketing materials. At the end of the day the client turned into a
7 figure a year long term client. My point would be nothing in life is ever a straight line, be flexible, be patient and be ready
to strike at opportunity when it surfaces.
B2B WEB TO PRINT
PROTECT. PROMOTE. PROPAGATE.
Pros of the segment
Typically Higher Margin – When you deploy
comprehensive solutions for your clients you will enjoy
higher margins levels. I’m not trying to say you can
increase the pricing on all of your products and you will
always have some loss leaders. That said in general as
a whole you should be able to squeeze more margin
from your large clients. This can be done with getting
higher volumes and decreasing your cost, improving
the mix of what products are ordered to higher margin
product lines, charging for services such as the hosting
of the portal and more. Naturally if you try to take
advantage of your customers you won’t be around for
the long term – but if you are providing a service and
functions that are helping your clients everyday it’s not
just about the price point of 500 business cards.
Increased Revenue Stability – When you transition
your enterprise clients to a platform that can streamline
their marketing operations they are much less likely to
move around. You won’t find yourself always bidding
against 3 other vendors, you will be able to keep the
relationship alive once your favorite print buyer moves
to a new company and so on. With marketing portals
your enterprise clients are putting their end users
directly in touch with your platform. The time, expense
and headache it takes to transition to a new vendor is
exponentially increased.
Deeper Relationship with Customers – Most
importantly if you execute well, you will find yourself in
conversations that you may never have caught wind
of before. Projects such as a major rebranding push
where the client wants to send a rebranding kit to 500
sales people. Or your client needs to handle returns for
a particular product. Or your client would like to push
an email campaign, followed by a direct mail piece,
and if the target hits a web page send them a nice care
package with a pen and shirt. The projects marketing
teams come up with are limitless, the key is to be a
trusted partner to them and being known as the people
that can get it done, and not just quote out some print.
Cons of the segment
Complex Sales Cycle – Transitioning to a complete
solution sales process is not an easy task. The sales
cycle is typically longer. You need to be sure you are in
contact with the correct people within your target client
(hint: typically it’s not the print buyer, think CMO, VP
Marketing). You need to understand what your target
customer does and challenges they face (whether they
are aware of it or not). Finally you need to bring to the
table solutions, you can’t wait until they ask you, be
proactive, be a part of their team and think of the long
term vision.
Relationships Required – Unlike B2C models where
the most important aspects are to drive a visitor to
your site, have a great user experience and provide
good prices and quality, B2B models require you
to build relationships with your customers. Your
team must demonstrate they have knowledge and
creativity. Knowledge of the customers pain points,
industry, products and marketing tactics. Knowledge of
marketing supply chains, multiple production options,
inventory management, forecasting, kitting and
fulfillment. Creativity to be able to paint a picture of the
future state and the utopian view and most importantly
what it takes to get there. The key to have your voice
heard is to have a relationship with the client as you
are viewed as a partner, not a vendor and to be a
trusted advisor.
Complex Operational Challenges – Bringing clients
on to complete marketing portals can be a great thing
for a producer, but be ready to handle a more complex
backend supply chain and operations. Some of the
products your clients request will be print on demand,
some purchase on demand, some inventory pulls and
some dynamic kits. To add another layer of complexity
a single order for an end user could combine all of the
different methods. Many B2B platforms are built to
handle this complexity but you need to be sure you are
ready and setup for success.
WHY, WHERE, WHEN, HOW
PROTECT. PROMOTE. PROPAGATE.
Regardless if you are looking to target the B2C or B2B market all Web To Print solutions need to be able to handle the
order volume once it starts coming in. This includes handling inventory management, production, procurement, pick &
pack, order fulfillment and essentially the entire supply chain that handles orders until they ship to the end customer. If
your W2P software doesn’t have backend management to handle the demand you need to be sure it plugs into some
sort of software that does.
The Why – Why do you need a Web to Print Solution?
To put it simply it boils down to adapt or die. Digital Marketing mediums are the new norm, traditional physical marketing
assets are declining. With the rise of Google, Facebook, Twitter and a host of other mechanisms for marketers to reach
their targeted clients it’s getting more difficult by the day for physical products to keep up. With this rise of these digital
marketing outlets comes a new breed of marketer that is accustom to having control of everything online. They want
to be able to see their marketing materials online, view inventory, report on usage, and share with colleagues, while
essentially self-administer a lot of the daily tasks. I truly believe there will always be some sort of physical marketing, but
as producers you will need to make it easier to the client to get to it.
The Where – Should you select a hosted SaaS
provider or a traditional on premise provider?
There are a lot of different things to consider when asking this
question. You can Google “saas versus on premise” and see there
are a lot of different views on the topic. In general you will find SaaS
solutions are provided with little to no money upfront and for a monthly
subscription fee. Traditional on premise software will require an upfront
licensing fee, installation and hardware to run the software on. The one
thing I will note is if you are considering an on premise solution don’t
forget to really look at all of the costs and requirements you will need to
keep up with. For example what happens when a power supply blows
out on your server – are you ready?
The When – When should you start providing an online solution?
Today. Web to Print solutions have been around for long over a decade. They are mature and pretty much a standard for
both the B2C and B2B markets. If you don’t have a solution in place today you need to start seriously considering it. If you
do have a solution in place but it’s not getting much traction I would suggest you consider if it’s the right solution or if your
organization is simply not making it a priority.
The How – How do I start?
Well I will answer that question with another, how do you eat an elephant? Essentially you just start. A great way to kick off
is to get your mind in the right place. Answer the five questions we have following in this guide to help get your thoughts
in order about which direction you want to go. After that make a decision to do it, commit to it, plan for it, and just start. If
you are going after the B2C market – What is your criterion of success? For example XXX amount of traffic, XXX orders
per month, $XX.XX average order value. If you are attacking the B2B market – Which clients are you going after? Do you
have the right contact person within the target? Do you understand their business? How are you going to make their day a
bit easier? Always have an end destination in mind before you start the journey.
5 THINGS TO GET STARTED
PROTECT. PROMOTE. PROPAGATE.
1. Do you want to target the B2B or B2C market?
Define your target customer so you can pick the correct tool. Now let me preface this with the fact that I personally am not
a hunter, but I think the analogy paints the picture. If my goal was to go out hunting and shoot 30 small birds out of the
sky, a rifle would probably be a bad choice, a shotgun however would be the perfect fit. Likewise if I was going out to get
an elephant, the shotgun probably wouldn’t end well for me, whereas with a rifle I have a chance. The point is you need
to decide what your end goal is before you start shopping for a solution. Determine what your targeted end customer is
and then work backwards into a solution. There is a chasm of difference between the B2B and B2C markets – they have
completely different needs - to be able to serve a segment well you need a solution dedicated to that segment.
2. Are you willing to offer more than print materials?
It doesn’t matter if you partner with other producers, join ASI/Sage, expand your own production capabilities, or really any
combination of the above. The core question is, are you willing to expand the products and services you offer to be able to
provide a complete marketing solution to your end customers? This still applies for both B2C and B2B market segments.
This also includes services outside of products, such as kitting and assembly, inventory forecasting, guidance on best
production methods based on usage and more. Customers are looking to find easy solutions to their problems. Finding
a partner that can ease the entire marketing supply chain truly provides a service that can distinguish yourself from other
vendors.
3. How are you going to get your customers to the platform?
I think you will find the purchasing, installing and setting up a platform could be the easiest part of your journey. While
you are evaluating the different options and solutions on the market, it is truly imperative that you have a parallel process
running that is planning how you are going to get customers to your chosen platform. If you are going after the B2C
market – How are you going to drive traffic to the site? Are you going to run Google ad words campaigns? Are you going
to start long term SEO practices to build natural listings? If you are going after the B2B market – Which clients are you
going to approach? What is the angle of your approach? The point here is to be sure you have a plan on how to make
your implementation of a platform successful. What is your measuring stick for success?
4. What happens when the orders start coming in?
Now that you have the platform chosen and you are getting the orders flowing in what do you do? If you are having to
run operations with printed emails or find yourself constantly working on excel spreadsheets you are destined for long
days and missed deadlines. Whichever platform you choose be sure to run a handful of full cycle tests. Not only test the
ordering process that your customers will experience, but also push those orders all the way through to final shipment. Is
your platform integrated with a manifesting system so you don’t have to rekey addresses in another platform to ship, if you
customers are ordering things that are procured outside your company how does that flow work? Be prepared to handle
the orders before they are sitting on your back.
5. Have you identified your internal champion and team?
Finally and perhaps the most important, is to identify the person on your team that is tasked with ensuring the project is
successful. This person should be held responsible for results and should be measured on set milestones and deadlines.
If you don’t have a person that takes ownership of the project you are setting it up for failure. You will buy a solution,
implement it, setup a few products then it will go on a back burner for 6 months. I understand you probably don’t have
a fulltime person that can be dedicated to the effort and that probably isn’t needed, but you do need the single point of
contact to make it successful.
CHECKLIST
PROTECT. PROMOTE. PROPAGATE.
Your 52 point checklist for providing a complete solution.
IMPORTANCE
B2C Platform
B2B Platform
Front End - Storefronts/Portals
Intuitive and easy user interface
High
High
Easily brand the colors and layout
High
Medium
SEO friendly design
High
Low
Support for promotional codes
High
Medium
Cross selling engine
High
Medium
Products - Support for direct mailing
High
High
Products - Support for non-print products
Medium
High
Products - Support for configurable products
Medium
High
Products - Support for dynamic kit products
Low
High
Products - Support for static kit products
Low
High
Products - Support for digital products
Low
High
Products - Flexible pricing support
High
High
Personalization - Controlled template based
High
High
Personalization - Intelligent data pre-population
High
High
Personalization - WYSIWYG based free editing
Low
Medium
Controls - Granular user rights
Low
High
Controls - Brand compliance enforcement
Low
High
Controls - Min/max order constraints
Low
High
Controls - Flexible budgetary
Low
High
Controls - Flexible inventory
Low
High
Controls - Robust approval workflows
Low
High
Administration – User management
Low
High
Administration – Part management
Low
High
Administration – Order management
Low
High
IMPORTANCE
B2C Platform
Front End - Storefronts/Portals
Informational - Real time inventory
B2B Platform
Low
High
Medium
High
Informational - Visual reporting dashboards
Low
High
Informational - Robust reporting
Low
High
Informational - Scheduled reports and alerts
Low
High
Setup – Easy c onfiguration of all front end items
High
High
Setup – Bulk operations for updating items
Low
High
Setup – Standard pricelists across products
Medium
High
Operations – Easy order management and editing
High
High
Operations – Production management
High
High
Operations – Production queues
High
High
Operations – Production batching/ganging
High
High
Operations – Production shop floor
High
High
Operations – Procurement management
Low
High
Operations – Inventory management
Low
High
Operations – Warehouse management
Low
High
Operations – Forecasting & planning
Low
High
Operations – Kitting & assembly
Low
High
Medium
High
Fulfillment – Batch processing of orders
Low
High
Fulfillment – Integration with shipping systems
High
High
Fulfillment – Mobile device support
Medium
High
Informational - Real time inventory
Low
High
Informational - Robust reporting
High
High
Medium
High
Informational - Ability to calculate complex lead times
Back End – Operations Side
Fulfillment – Pick & pack
Informational - Scheduled reports and alerts