Every organization has at least one: that rogue marketer or salesperson who has their own unique ideas and is determined to tell your story their way. To them, brand guidelines are just suggestions, and if you don’t have the exact piece of collateral they need, they’ll whip up a flier on their own (probably in a word processing program, maybe with stock photos). On the one hand, you have to admire their initiative, but on the other … these are the things that diminish the value of your brand, confuse your customers, and make your job as a marketer more difficult.
There’s an easy way to rein in the rogues: use an online storefront for ordering marketing materials. Beyond just giving you better control of your brand and the information that’s out in the environment, an online ordering system can make your life dramatically easier by allowing you to do the following:
- Put an entire library of professionally designed, high-quality materials at the fingertips of everyone working in your company. In some cases, especially within a large organization, marketers, and employees simply may not know what’s available. But setting up a robust ordering portal and then promoting it with an internal marketing campaign can create awareness and generate enthusiasm for the new system.
- Automate the ordering process, giving requestors more flexibility while helping to take some of the work out of fulfillment. Instead of burdening a single person or having confusion about how and who to order from, a portal provides everyone with the same centralized, uniform ordering experience. By making it faster and easier to create orders and receive materials, you may reduce the risk of the “outlaw” behavior detailed in the introduction. Furthermore, a Web-based system is more convenient and provides around-the-clock access, so your employees can spend their time being productive – not trying to track down someone to help them order fliers or signage.
- Offer better inventory control to reduce waste, save money and ensure you always have what you need at your fingertips. Depending on how your portal is set up, you may be able to offer print-on-demand services, so you don’t need to keep a costly inventory of marketing materials that will collect dust in a warehouse. Conversely, you can track or place ordering limits on popular items to make sure you always have enough in stock.
The bottom line is that an online ordering portal could be great for your bottom line by enhancing operational efficiencies, optimizing your workflow, and saving money by reducing waste and redundancy. And being able to protect the strength of your brand is major: Studies show that presenting a brand consistently across all marketing channels can increase revenue by 23%.
CONTACT US TO LEARN WHAT’S POSSIBLE
We’ve helped businesses of every shape and size, in a variety of industries, set up and maintain online ordering portals – all the way from ordering and custom printing to fulfillment. We can create a custom solution for you: Talk to us about your pain points, the number of locations and users you need to service, and the materials you need. Contact us to learn more.
