Web-to-Print -- Get Clients Invested
“We’re a small company, so sometimes implementation of new ideas and products is not as quick as we’d like it to be,” Owen admits. “We hope to be at full speed by the fall, but right now, we’re in ‘adding customers’ mode.”
Business cards, letterhead and forms are the primary offerings in Stafford Printing’s menu, but Owen says the company will aim toward more marketing material types of applications as it becomes more fluent with the software.
As a new proponent of Web-to-print solutions, Owen has found the ramping up process to be relatively simple. He says it’s no more challenging than adding computer-to-plate or installing a digital press. It takes a couple of hours to get customers up to speed with the application, plus another two to four hours smoothing down stray hairs.
Owen cites banking, housing and insurance as three of the prime vertical markets that are attracted to Stafford’s service offering, which is mainly geared for clients with multiple locations. “It’s ideal for almost any business seeking consistent branding and that wants everyone to be able to order their collateral without it being a big deal.
“The great thing is, once you’ve got it set up, you have the opportunity to focus on other services. We started offering personalized URLs through Mindfire. If your customers are not focused on some of those commodity-type needs, it gives you time to talk about other services that you can offer them.”
Thinking Big Solutions, which oversees about 25 Web-to-print customer sites, tapped XMPie’s PersonalEffect and uStore to enable its franchise and multi-location clients to maintain brand consistency across entire networks. This Web-to-print solution stops the “rogues” from modifying the brand, Allison notes. From the printer’s standpoint, the service offering enables it to get more face time with marketing departments, providing sales opportunities that might not arise otherwise.
