WhatTheyThink Blog
How Much is a Web-to-Print Solution Worth?
By David Dodd
Published: January 5, 2011
Faced with increasing pressures from CEO's and CFO's to maximize the return on marketing spending, marketers are beginning to look for ways to improve the efficiency of marketing operations. The Chief Marketing Officer Council has recognized the growing significance of this issue by launching a dedicated knowledge center called the Marketing Supply Chain Institute (MSCI) to focus attention on the importance of improving the productivity of marketing supply chain activities and processes.
Recent research by the MSCI highlights both the economic significance of spending on marketing materials and the huge opportunities that exist for increasing the efficiency of the marketing supply chain.
- A majority of companies spend at least 20% of their total marketing budget on marketing materials.
- Over half of the total spending related to marketing materials often results from product obsolescence and from activities such as storage, fulfillment, and inventory management.
- Just 25% of marketers have performed a comprehensive cost analysis of their marketing materials supply chain, and only 11% have implemented new workflow systems to reduce costs and inefficiency in their marketing supply chain.
- Seventy-three percent of companies do not track the obsolescence of marketing materials, and of those that do, 40% say they waste 20% or more of their materials because of obsolescence.
These findings are good news for print service providers that offer online marketing asset management (also known as web-to-print) solutions. They strongly suggest that the demand for such solutions is poised for substantial growth.
But to capture this growth opportunity, PSP's must be prepared to demonstrate and prove the value of these solutions to each potential customer. I've recently published a white paper that describes the process for measuring and quantifying the value of a marketing asset management solution. The primary audience for this white paper is corporate marketers and financial executives, but managers of web-to-print solution providers will also find it useful.
If you'd like to obtain a copy of the new white paper, just send me an e-mail at ddodd(at)pointbalance(dot)com.
G. David Dodd is available for speaking engagements and consulting projects. To get more information contact us here.
G. David Dodd is a principal of Point Balance, LLC ( www.pointbalance.com ), an executive education and management consulting firm. Point Balance provides cutting-edge management education programs designed for printing and publishing executives. The firm also provides management consulting services involving business strategy development, strategic marketing, cost management (including activity-based costing), business process management, and balanced scorecard performance management systems. Dodd is a co-author of Activity-Based Costing for Printers: An Implementation Guide, the authoritative resource relating to the use of activity-based costing by printing and publishing firms. Dodd also co-authored Making Value Added Services Work, a comprehensive reference tool for printing company managers who are just beginning to consider diversification or who have already added new services and are not receiving the benefits they expected.
David Dodd can be reached at ddodd@pointbalance.com,931-707-5105.
David,
I like your article.
And agree with your findings. The process of Marketig Collateral is far from efficient and often neither effective from an internal process point of view.
We just finished a project to improve a Marketing Collateral process. The customer saved 43% on the collateral printing, 20% on internal activity and 70% on DTP expenses. We improved the availability of the collateral to internal employees and external prospects.
In my view most PSP focus with their web2print solutions too much on capturing the volume for digital print and other services such as DTP. The focus should be more to supplying a service to enable an efficient and affective marketingcommuication proces.
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