Marketing Commentary from interlinkONE
Marketing. Web-to-Print. Warehouse Management.
The Supply Chain: A Collaboration of Marketing and Fulfillment
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on Monday, December 5, 2011 
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Over the past few years, many service providers in the worlds of print and mail have sought to grow their business by also offering fulfillment services.
While this certainly can prove to be a profitable move, the initial transition may prove to be a bit difficult. Part of that is simply related to logistics — you need space to hold inventory, you need to install shelves, you need to strategically learn where to position materials, etc. However, once a company gets over some of the bumps during the implementation process, they may start riding down a smooth and profitable road.
If you are wondering if your company can also benefit by offering fulfillment services, we have some advice for you.
The Main Secret to Success
In the end, success inside of a fulfillment operation often comes when the lines of communication between it and the marketing/sales departments are open and running smoothly.
Some companies make the mistake of not thinking of fulfillment operations as part of the marketing process. But it absolutely is!
Most of the materials being stored and fulfilled inside of a warehouse are often for marketing activities — for trade shows, for lead follow-up, for presentations, and more. Thus, it is absolutely vital that your supply chain management efforts — which connect marketing with fulfillment — are functioning as well as possible.
Overview of Supply Chain Management
What exactly is supply chain management?
One definition is listed as the “design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide logistics, synchronizing supply with demand and measuring performance globally.”
Now, that may seem slightly confusing or overwhelming to a company that is wondering whether they should get into the fulfillment business.
But the good news is that in all actuality, supply chain management can be orderly, efficient, and successful, especially when marketing and warehouse business departments work together effectively.
A few simple steps that can improve communication and work-flow between multiple departments include:
- Implementing software that both groups can monitor easily — this would include visibility into inventory amounts, order status, and more
- Understanding the supply chain from beginning to end so that there is no confusion as to how each step fits into the wholesale/retail puzzle
- Consistent scheduled face-to-face meetings can go a long way toward promoting a spirit of community between departments
Are you looking to improve your Supply Chain?
If you are looking to offer fulfillment services, or to improve your existing Supply Chain Process, I hope that you find the information above helpful.
Of course, if you’d like to discuss this further, I would love to help! Please feel free to contact me.
Tags How In-Plant Printers Can Offer Value-Added Services
I am happy to announce that we will be delivering a webinar on Tuesday, November 15th to members of the In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA).
There is no doubt that in-plant printers face different circumstances than commercial or quick printers. However, many of the same trends in the worlds of marketing and communications affect their business too.
To put it simply, many of them are finding that print volume, print sales, & margins have gone down.
Some of the reasons for this may include:
- Many of their organization’s prospects and customers are turning to social networks and the web as the primary way they find information.
- Smartphones are changing the way people interact and communicate with brands.
- As budgets tighten everywhere, organizations may see outbound marketing as something that is too expensive, with not enough ROI.
With circumstances like those a reality, in-plant printers are looking for ways to increase the value that they can offer to their organization.
During the webinar on 11/15, we will share strategies and tactics that printers can take advantage of to just that. We will present opportunities for offering value-added services in the form of:
- Mobile Marketing – QR Codes, mobile websites, and more
- Social Media Integration
- Online Ordering, Electronic Fulfillment, and Inventory Management
This webinar is available to members of IPMA. Please click here for registration information >>
Is There an Easy Button?
Jennifer Matt recently wrote an excellent post on The Web and Print blog titled “How Easy is Printing?”
If you haven’t read it, I’d definitely encourage you to take a moment to do so. Not only is it entertaining, but it’s inspiring as well.
The main point of the post is that to encourage people to print more things, companies need to make it easy for them to do so. While this certainly includes external processes (how hard is it for someone to order printing from your company), it also applies to internal processes.
Jennifer asks this question: “Do your systems require you to piece together data from various systems to give the customer a complete picture?”
Yes, if a printer needs to log-in and pull data from multiple systems in order to give timely answers and reports to a client, then that can certainly be considered a hassle among the printer’s staff. If it’s not easy for them to do their job, most likely the customer will not think that it’s not easy to do business with that printer.
The Sales Hat is Coming On
If that’s the situation that you find your print shop in today, here comes a sales pitch.
interlinkONE’s integrated, multi-channel marketing software is designed to eliminate the need for a printer to invest in multiple point solutions. Our ilinkONE Version 8 software is designed to allow you to build, manage, execute, and measure marketing efforts across a variety of channels — including print, email, web, social networks, mobile, and more.
It enables printers to easily generate and provide reports to clients that give them a full report on their activity — from landing page hits, to leads, to inventory counts, to popular products ordered, and more.
Time for a Demo
If you’re interested in learning more, I’d love for you take a moment and register for a demo of our solutions.
Case Study: Goodway Group of Massachusetts
One of the companies profiled in Business Transformation: A New Path to Profit for the Printing Industry is Goodway Group of Massachusetts.
Now, you may say that I am biased because of their proximity to my hometown, but I swear that’s not it! I just truly think that they are an inspiring story.
In the book, I had the chance to devote a good amount of space to presenting the transformation that their business has gone through over the years. I was able to share the internal decisions and changes that happened inside their organization. Well, I am quite happy to say that during that time of transformation, Goodway Group found benefits with interlinkONE’s software.
Here is a sample of that part of the story:
Based in Burlington, Massachusetts (with sister locations near Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.), the Goodway Group has transformed over the past 15 years from a traditional offset printer into providing online collateral management, inventory management, and one-to-one multi-channel campaigns for clients. As an early adopter of black & white digital printing technology for producing variable content, the Goodway Group saw a natural progression to expand its services by adding digital color and leading variable data publishing technology.
The company provides these services to organizations in the pharmaceutical, automotive, and software industries that want to reduce printed inventory and have more effective marketing programs. interlinkONE is an integral enabler for Goodway Group to provide these services.
By using interlinkONE’s Web storefront and order management components, Goodway Group is able to handle a wide array of job types, from direct mail to complex kits that include promotional items and require multiple recipients. The company can also track inventory of all print and non-print items through the solution, as well as perform fulfillment functions necessary for complex orders. It has also been successful with providing multi-channel communication campaigns to clients by using personalized URLs, personalized e-mails, printed collateral, and up to nine different customer touchpoints through interlinkONE.
Qualified leads can be placed into different priority buckets, and hot leads are forwarded directly to a client’s salesperson for immediate follow-up. Noel Doherty, President and CEO of Goodway Group of Massachusetts, says that “Some campaigns have been so successful that the response has been too great for a client’s sales force to handle.”
The company also uses interlinkONE internally to manage its inventory and projects. From Doherty’s perspective, interlinkONE “just makes doing business simpler, and allows employees and customers from all over the country access information in real time.
Vote in the Printing News Readers’ Choice Top Products Awards
I do need to take a moment to ask for a little favor.
interlinkONE’s flagship product, ilinkONE Version 8, is nominated in two different categories in the Printing News’ Readers Choice Top Product Awards. We are nominated in the VDP and Web-to-Print software categories.
If you have a moment, and feel like our software might be deserving for an award in either of those categories, I’ll love you forever. Or I’ll at least buy you a drink the next time I see you.
Thanks very much in advance. You can click here to vote >>
