As demand moves towards “one stop shops,” printers are adding in more services. Marketing Services Providers (MSPs) are moving beyond the production of a printed piece towards an omni-channel solution for their clients.
Expanding wallet-share builds your relationship with the customer, and is one of the best ways to drive and scale profitable growth.
Adding new services allows you to sell more to your existing clients, and expand your opportunities into new markets including mailing, fulfilment, wide format and more. If someone comes in for printed flyers for an upcoming event, you can add to the sale by offering everything from banners and signage, to branded giveaway items or even car wrapping.
One of the biggest challenges that comes along with this growth through new products and services is connecting all of the information islands to one central hub. Here is how a couple of our clients overcame the challenges and are seeing ROI.
Armando Pena, mentioned earlier, was able to add print-on-demand and fulfilment with a Print MIS.
This shift allows them to run campaigns with PURLs, as well as set up and manage online storefronts for large, corporate clients. They also made a strategic move into the fulfilment.
The ability for a system to integrate with the web-to-print portals of today, and the open architecture to integrate with them tomorrow, were key for Pena.
“Now that we have a Print MIS, I’m seeing things I didn’t even consider; things that make you go, ‘Oh yeah, this makes sense!’”
Pazazz Printing is a full service, print-based company offering a range of comprehensive digital communication systems. Based out of Montréal, Canada, they were struggling to keep up with their growth. What began as a modest commercial print shop in 1992 has grown to become the industry leader in visual communications for all Cross Media Integrated solutions.
For Marcel Hetu, the company’s CFO, the ROI of a Print MIS is not all about finance.
It’s not a secret to anyone that the people in the printing business are getting older. There is often resistance to change, particularly where technology is involved. Avanti has been a really good change agent for the team at Pazazz.
According to Marcel, “The real ROI of a system like Avanti Slingshot is the ability to meet customer needs. When Triggers and Alerts are firing, the customer is really happy because they know the status of their job every step of the way, from production to delivery. This eliminates phone calls, contains CSR costs, and results in happier customers. What more do you need?”
