Print Fulfilment

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Print-Fulfilment: The Answer To Multi-Site Commercial Printing

Contents

Print-Fulfilment: The Answer To Multi-Site Commercial Printing
Building Brand Consistency
How Does Print Fulfilment Work?
How Can I Make Print Fulfilment Work For Me?

When global supply is suffering from uncertainty, delays, and shortages, having the right outsourced print fulfilment and management partner can be a cost-effective alternative to multi-site printing on one side, and depending on a large head office on the other.

At TL Colour, we support brands with high-quality, print-on-demand fulfilment services, reinforced with the power of collaboration. This guide explains the role that print fulfilment plays in ensuring brand identity and gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse into what TL Colour can achieve for your business.

What is print fulfilment?

Print fulfilment is the comprehensive solution to multi-site commercial printing. Whether the requirement is for marketing materials, signage, point-of-sale documents, or business inventory, print fulfilment is the most reliable, cost-effective, and flexible solution. For companies, replacement documentation can be ordered with a single click. As such, the strategy is the go-to option for businesses with regular printing needs, such as franchises, retail chains, and hotels. By selecting the right print fulfilment company, organisations can ensure coherence within their brand identity, and enable complete control over their printing requirements, no matter how many locations they have.

Building Brand Consistency

Consistency is vital for brands. Research repeatedly shows that sending a unified brand message “muffles price sensitivity whilst increasing advertising effectiveness,” leading to increased financial returns. For the consumer, studies show that a consistent brand will “generate trust and retention over time as they develop an affinity toward regularity and common patterns.” However, this can be a challenge in multi-site operations, where brand identity can become dislocated. Indeed, so important is consistency that it has been shown to be pivotal in organisational success in cases such as franchises. Thankfully, consistency can be easily achieved with techniques such as coherent marketing materials, signage, and point of sale literature.

Sending the right message

For a hotel, it may be comfort and security. For a retailer, it may be quality and design. Whatever the message of your brand, communicating it effectively through your printed material is vital. Communicating a brand is not only about the lived experience, it is also about the mediated experience, which is the part played by packaging, stationery, and other forms of printed media – collectively known as marketing collateral, or tangible marketing.
Research shows that paying attention to the mediated experience strengthens the consumer-brand relationship, especially in industries such as hospitality where consumer involvement is often brief. Building the brand experience, therefore, means paying attention to fonts, colour combinations, and detail at every level, ensuring that every point of contact with the consumer sends the right message.

Value to employees

Multiple studies have shown that it is not only consumers who benefit from a strong, consistent brand message. When an organisation has a strong identity, employees have a clear understanding of why their role is important, too. As such, a coherent printed branding strategy can be powerful enough to “foster positive employee attitudes and actions that go beyond their job responsibilities. Intrinsic motivation is well-known to be crucial for empowering organisational agility, as well as being a primary contributor to employee retention and the associated benefits.

How Does Print Fulfilment Work?

Print fulfilment gives managers across multiple sites the ability to manage their marketing materials whilst remaining true to the brand. Via a simple, one-stop access portal, users can click to order the print runs required to satisfy organisational requirements with the confidence that the brand message is intact.

As such, managers are given enhanced flexibility regarding quantities and delivery dates without having to worry about juggling figures, missing out on quality, or wasting time shopping around. A little like the company stationary office, outsourced print fulfilment enables a core set of branding designs to be agreed upon, and then accessed as needed. This saves time and money, building efficiency whilst improving productivity.

Case study: Curiosity Box

With their promise to deliver fun science, education, and curiosity to at least one million children, Curiosity Box has built a loyal fanbase among families, nurseries, and schools. A small yet fast-moving company, Curiosity Box are constantly producing new science experiments to ship out to regular customers and new audiences. These are created by a diverse group of STEM leaders, geographically apart yet connected by a shared vision.

The challenges

Curiosity Box, therefore, has a dual challenge. Firstly, it has to be agile. For instance, the arrival of the Covid pandemic created an urgent spike in demand for educational solutions at home, generating an unexpected boom in learning products. Secondly, Curiosity Box produces content in response to real-time events, creating a challenge for building brand consistency. For example, the pandemic demanded the team to build a portfolio of Covid-19 relevant resources, whilst events such as a space launch or climate summit prompt the creation of boxes such as the Cosmic Blast Off and Amazing Earth. With so much diversity, to remain connected to their audience Curiosity Box need to communicate their core vision and values clearly, coherently, and with unwavering consistency.

How We Helped

TL Colour has helped with this in several ways, all of which result from the collaboration. Firstly, we worked with Curiosity Box to create a master portfolio of designs and templates that communicate their brand identity. Designed by experts and approved by management, the outlines and content are digitally saved so that they can be accessed by authorised members of Curiosity Box as a quick-to-use catalogue that makes standing artwork available at short notice. The print-on-demand service means that the Curiosity Box team simply need to fill in the item quantity to order, and the document is printed using highly efficient digital print technology.

The simplicity of the TL Colour approach means that it is easy to integrate with CRM and PLM systems. This is crucial for agile business models, with enhanced flexibility enabling tight inventory management.

Reducing waste

Curiosity Box benefits from bulk-buy discount deals to ensure cost-effectiveness. However, the purpose of the print-on-demand fulfilment approach is to ensure that no wasted paper sits gathering dust, no resources are used needlessly, and no unnecessary waste is created. Curiosity Box benefit from having tighter control over their bottom line, and also from the reassurance of knowing that their carbon footprint is as small as possible.

How Can I Make Print Fulfilment Work For Me?

At the point of use, print fulfilment is as simple as clicking a button. However, the real secret to success lies in effective collaboration between your business and its print fulfilment partner. TL Colour are more than just a rapid, high-quality print-on-demand service. Rather, we work closely with our clients to ensure that our side of the service is optimised for their unique organisational requirements. For instance, by communicating with Curiosity Box we can help to predict spikes in demand and ensure that our printers are primed and ready to roll as soon as the order is required. As such, to get the most from your print fulfilment, creative two-way communication is central.

Secondly, easy-access online software is crucial for print fulfilment. On the customer’s user dashboard, this means ensuring secure yet simple web architecture with cross-device capabilities. Behind the scenes, it means using the latest digital printing solutions so that service delivery processes are automated, rapid, and cost-effective. With AI integration, print runs can be organised to reduce waste, save time, and optimise resources, so that bottlenecks and delays are avoided. Print fulfilment companies that fail to invest in integrated software are prone to inefficiencies, so it pays to work with a supplier, such as TL Colour, that takes its software seriously.

Finally, when it comes to creating and maintaining brand identity, quality matters. Countless research studies have shown that aspects such as print quality, substrate quality, colour, detail, and texture are all crucial in constructing and maintaining a positive brand image. Therefore, second-rate printing will always send the wrong message. Quality is determined by the machinery, the software, and the supply chain network. As such, the ideal print fulfilment company will have trusted and consistent suppliers for guaranteed results.

How Can TL Colour Help?

At TL Colour, we understand that companies need print fulfilment solutions that are rapid, reliable, and reasonably priced. To enable this, we aim to automate manual processes and eliminate inefficiencies at every level. For our clients, the one-stop portal is easy to use from any device, offering multi-site retail organisations and franchisees the ability to fulfil their printing requirements with a simple click.

This saves time, decreases errors, and eliminates uncertainty. On the other side, our advanced software and equipment are optimised for efficiency and productivity, ensuring that the on-demand service enables rapid solutions to emerging needs.

What next?

Print fulfilment is a highly efficient way to save time, reduce waste, and lower costs when ordering printed materials. However, the quality makes all the difference. For more information about infusing your marketing with flexibility, agility, and brand consistency, please have a chat with one of our print fulfilment specialists today.

Tel: 01235 520444
Email: enquiries@tlcolour.co.uk