WEB-TO-PRINT — THE NEW FACE OF THE WEB
Now that the company has reached a level of comfort in creating and selling Web-to-print applications, it is moving into the “running” stage. At this stage, it is adding automation that will allow the company to become more efficient and increase profitability. DDS is just starting the investigation, trying to marry a high level of automation and flexibility with the ability to integrate with its existing workflow system.
Digital Pays Dividends
Comparing the first quarter revenues from this year to first quarter revenues from last year, DDS’s business is up 60 percent, with color digital printing up 68 percent and black-and-white digital printing up a whopping 73 percent.
Reynolds Dewalt, a $12.1 million printer in New Bedford, MA, has been aggressively implementing Web-to-print applications for two years. It hired a dedicated cross-media team, headed by Scott Dubois, and uses XMPie’s PersonalEffects Cross-Media Edition to custom produce online stores for its customers. It custom develops portals to each customer’s specifications, then maintains the same workflow on the back end for execution.
These stores allow customers to print static, customizable or even 1:1 personalized materials.
A typical application produced by the cross-media team is for a large manufacturer with more than 50 dealerships around the country. These dealers can log into the site, select co-branded collateral, create custom messaging based on whatever promotions are running that month, then customize the mailer with their dealer information and select data based on their location or previous responses to other mailings.
“Using XMPie’s data collection, we can take the data we gather from current campaigns to tweak and refine future ones,” notes Dubois. “We can track who is responding, whether those responses convert to a sale or whether respondents just check out the site and move on. Having this information lets us better serve each dealer’s needs and product distribution the next time. We are offering real-world data collection, not just guessing any more.”
