How many documents do you print a year? It’s likely more than you want to know. If that number brings you down, then think about how many documents your coworkers and your company as a whole printed that same year? Still smiling?

After lost revenue, the biggest casualty is your brand management, specifically your collateral materials. It’s not uncommon for different departments ordering or double-ordering the same materials because oversight is lacking. The same problem exists for out of date materials that keep ending up in client’s hands over and over again.

“Pixa has been a lifesaver for me. Before the Web to Print solution came along, I was manually coordinating our weekly orders with several vendors. Having one unified platform for all of our printing has cut my time managing the process down to almost zero. The setup was effortless, and the team has been very helpful and responsive as we roll the system out to my team here. Definitely recommend this solution for people looking to automate their document management!”

 

-Doug Houvener, Marketing Manager
Arrowhead Health Centers

 

To keep your costs and sanity in check, the best method available today for collateral management are web-to-print services (or w2p). Your collateral materials are available from a central location in the cloud, allowing for easy viewing and retrieval for print requests. W2P solutions offer the following services:

1. Everything is web-based and accessible through a dedicated portal on the internet. As long as you have a web browser (Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome are a few common ones), you can log in to view and make print requests. Mobile-based access from cell phones and tablets is becoming more common, allowing road warriors another quick way to order materials.
2. User access can be controlled by one or a few administrators to monitor requests and costs. Different collateral can be available to certain users as needed. Caps can be placed on certain users limiting the amount of money spent on print jobs without administrative approval. It’s bad enough having duplicate print jobs, but even worse when those dollars add up.
3. Collateral can be set up to be customized when needed. Rather than someone working on a new logo off to the side while the old logo is still going out, the new one can be made available immediately when finished. Before placing more orders for the old logo, it has been retired and archived.
4. Rather than making large bulk purchases, save money by ordering as needed. Every office has one cabinet spilling over with old brochures, flyers, and other items. It’s a visual of wasted money and opportunity that needs to be emptied out on a regular basis. With w2p it doesn’t have to be that way.

Despite predictions of a paperless society, printing isn’t going away anytime soon. Don’t see this as a time-consuming legacy process, use it as another way to maintain and improve your brand management and collateral materials.