The ABCs of Marketing Fulfillment

Do you know that nightmare where your holiday retail display kits are missing the critical window banner that was supposed to draw in foot traffic? Or the one where your LTO postcards don't include the correct store locations, creating confusion and customer service issues?

Every marketing professional has those bad dreams. It comes with the job. Planning the execution of a marketing campaign is stressful. There are so many details to consider: the types of POS materials to print, how to personalize them for each location, whether to include direct mail or digital channels in the campaign, the numbers of printed items in each kit, customizing kits based on location size or other variables, delivery dates, and so much more. It's almost impossible to plan for every little situation that might arise.

But there is a way to take the stress out of executing a successful marketing campaign. Consider a marketing fulfillment platform, like Phase 3's Media:Link.

What is Marketing Fulfillment?

A marketing fulfillment platform uses an online portal to create, print, kit, store, and deliver marketing and sales materials on demand. The portal is very similar to an e-commerce storefront. Your team creates and stores your digital creative files within the platform, keeping your brand standards intact. Our experts will help you make decisions on size, raw materials, and printing techniques. Key employees are given access to order and ship the marketing materials they need while your team maintains control over the budget. Some evergreen materials are stored for ordering at a fulfillment center, while others can be customized and printed as needed. You have complete control over who can access the portal, how much they can print to order, and what they can and can't personalize.

Materials to include in the portal could be company store or branded merchandise, print-on-demand point-of-purchase (POP) materials, printed marketing collateral, event displays, other event materials, sales tools, and digital assets such as a press kit or brand assets.

The Jobs of Marketing Fulfillment

A marketing fulfillment program does it all, from start to finish, including

• Collecting and processing orders
• Tracking inventory
• Collating, kitting, and shipping materials
• Managing budgets, including print, shipping, materials, and storage
• Maintaining brand guidelines
• Ensuring legal and regulatory compliance

Think of the tasks this kind of portal could take off your team’s plate! It could:

• Provide sales reps with sales tools like product specs, sales flyers, brochures, and flyers
• Provide digital brand and marketing assets to relevant teams
• Prepare for product launches, seasonal sales, and marketing campaigns
• Provide localized marketing and POP assets to multiple locations
• Process internal requests for product literature, samples, or marketing materials
• Manage trade show signage, displays, collateral, and promotional material

The Benefits of Marketing Fulfillment

Aside from streamlining processes, the benefits of a well-managed and well-executed marketing fulfillment program are hard to ignore. Here are just a few:

One of the most profitable benefits of a marketing fulfillment platform is the ability to personalize your marketing materials. 93% of businesses using personalization as a marketing strategy see revenue growth. With print-on-demand capabilities, your team can customize certain items like mailers or LTO signage and order smaller quantities for printing and distribution without breaking your budget. Customized marketing will cut through the clutter and speak to your customers by engaging them in your brand.

It's always a challenge to keep your colors, fonts, logos, and other brand elements consistent across all marketing materials and promotional products when using different vendors. It's almost inevitable that a printer will use a technique or a piece of equipment that slightly changes a color tone or a finish. However, when you pull all your marketing materials into one platform that uses the same processes and equipment, you guarantee brand consistency across every piece of marketing, every single time.

Budget Management

When your company sources all marketing materials from one program, you can track orders from internal teams and stakeholders and spot those who may be having trouble with waste or budget management. In addition, your budget reporting can help you calculate the ROI for specific marketing campaigns and set order limits so that budget is always maintained.

It can be very easy for your team or stakeholders to lose track of inventory and orders, leading to running out of critical items or ordering products you don't need. A marketing fulfillment platform will offer real-time inventory reporting, so you are always aware of how much inventory you’ve printed on demand, how much inventory you have in stock, and what inventory you need. These reports will also assist you in learning what marketing materials are successful and what you may need for future campaigns.

While you may wait weeks for a vendor to source, produce, and ship your marketing materials, you will have more control over your timeline when you create and print your materials in-house. Instead of being locked into a decision you made months ago, you can react to the current market and choose the best production process, materials, and shipping. With print-on-demand capabilities, you can order materials as needed in any quantity required. So, you can turn around an LTO in days instead of weeks. Speed to market is possible with a marketing fulfillment platform.