If your business takes advantage of printed marketing materials, promotional products, or direct mailers, then there are high chances for you to hear about certain terms like web to print, web to print shop, etc.
Web to print solutions is regarded as a service that involves offering printing services and products online, especially through an eCommerce storefront. This particular technology can be utilized to design or customize and print on demand a wide diversity of products. It is also referred to as print commerce or remote publishing.
Web to print allows online printing companies to effectively maximize their efficiencies by automation the production of printing materials. It also facilitates live quotations along with faster order fulfillment. And it ultimately aids in building robust customer relations.
If you are not sure about how to implement web to print software, then you are at the right place! In this comprehensive guide, we will focus on letting you know about the best ways in which you can seamlessly integrate web to print software.
Steps To Follow For Implementing Web To Print Software
The first and the most important thing is to ensure that you have decided on a Person of Contact. It is a crucial step, and you should mandatorily follow this. You can allocate the responsibilities to them and start the implementation process.
And the next step is to gain a good understanding of the different aspects of the project execution phase.
Now, that you have done all these, it is time to focus on executing the integration of web to print software in your printing business. And to achieve this particular objective, you need to follow certain steps which are as follows:
- Careful Planning Of Project
It refers to the stage where the web to print vendors tend to share the overall project plan which incorporates setting deadlines against each of the milestones.
It also involves stating all dependencies from your side. For the successful accomplishment of the project, it is important for you to provide all the necessary information on time.
Again, to ensure effective collaboration, your vendor could also utilize certain project management tools like Basecamp, Trello, or Zoho.
- Checking Of Status And Approval Process
The project owner needs to stay in touch with the web to print software provider team. We all are aware of the fact that both collaboration and communication ensure the success of any project.
The vendor will check in with you every time and ask for your approval for each of the milestones they focus on releasing. At this phase, the project owner will talk to each of the team members about it and finally provide the necessary input or feedback to the vendor.
- Server Setup Along With Configuration
You should be well aware of the technicalities of your online printing site for the successful execution of the project. It will aid in effortless server setup as well as configuration.
- Collection Of Data And Store Population
It is not enough to implement web to print technology. In this regard, you need to share certain data points with the vendor to populate your site. There are typically six important elements that your team should prepare during the execution phase. It includes the following:
- Images and graphics
- Identify relevant keywords
- Content writing for the website
- Make a catalog sheet along with product entries
- Set up the pricing of the product
- Create design templates
- Gather client testimonials and reviews for the site
- Finalization Of Payment Gateway And Setup
Steady cash flow can be called the lifeline of any particular business. It means that you should focus on making the checkout procedure seamless for your prospective customers. Nobody likes to be bogged down due to hidden shipping costs or more importantly, the lack of payment alternatives.
So, your main goal should be to select the payment gateway that is most acceptable in your country or region. Based on the volume of your transaction, you can consider negotiating with the payment gateway providers on their fees.
Finally, you need to confirm with your web to print software provider the payment gateways which they support. Also, don’t forget to check, if they can integrate the system with your selected payment gateway.
- Shipping And Delivery Setup
Once you are done with setting up the payment gateway, it is time to select a logistics provider. You should focus on configuring their shipping costs, particularly in the system. It will ensure that the end customer knows about the shipping costs (if any) beforehand.
So, it tends to avoid any related confusion. If you are started receiving high volumes of orders, then automation becomes very important. With the help of the app program interface, the logistics partner can know about the orders which are required to be picked up and delivered and by when.
- Team Onboarding And Training
After you have got approval for every milestone release, it becomes important for the web to print software provider to make the project accessible for UAT. But, before that, they should focus on conducting training programs for you as well as your team. Mostly, the training is carried out through GoToMeeting, Zoom, or Skype.
Many of the vendors are involved in dividing the training session into distinct parts to ensure that new info can be consumed effortlessly.
If you want, you can even ask your web to print software provider to record these training sessions so that your team members can see this later on. Your project owner again should make sure that each member of the team is available for the training. Their feedback and input play a crucial role in successful implementation.
- External And Internal Testing
After the completion of the training, you should focus on creating a real-time work environment in the system. It could include building workflows for departments, products, and teams in respective departments. Not only that, but it also involves generating login credentials for every individual who is going to work regularly on the system.
- Things To Check For Before Going Live
Now, before launching your web to print storefront, there are certain things that you should keep in your mind. It includes the following:
- Performance of the site
- Browser and device compatibility
- Initial feedback from friends, team, and clients
- SEO And Marketing
Marketing is proven to be a valuable tool if you are looking forward to generating website traffic, earning customer trust, nurturing quality leads, etc. So, before you launch your storefront, you should essentially make sure that your content is SEO-optimized. Also, ensure that it is geared towards the targeted group of audience.
- Consider Finding Out Relevant Keywords
The next step is to make a list of all the relevant keywords that your end customers may utilize to search your services. In this regard, you can choose from a distinct range of keyword tools like KWFinder.com, WordStream, SEMRush, and Keyword Tool. You need to check the competition level and the search volume of the keywords. Read More About Techzille SEO Services
Depending on this, you can finalize your keywords, especially for the homepage, individual product pages, and category pages. You can create an excel sheet to keep a record of those keywords for each of the pages. Later on, you can utilize it for tracking the ranking in the same excel sheet.
Another important thing that you should do is to write meta titles and descriptions for the category and product pages. Finally, after getting the right page structure, you should focus on setting up the initial email format along with the design.
- Go-Live
Finally, it is time to go live. Once you have ensured all the checkpoints are met, you can ask your web to print software provider to launch your new site. After that, you can ask them to submit dummy orders to ensure that the checkout process goes seamless.
- Training Of The Existing Client
Once you have carried out the preliminary testing, you can request your already existing end customers to try out the site. You can even arrange a live training session to show them how to utilize the new system. Finally, you can ask them to sign up for it as well as create user accounts.
- Onboarding Already Existing Clients
If you discover that your end customers find it challenging to utilize the web to print software, you should take it seriously and adopt certain steps to overcome this. Also, whenever you share the website URL amongst your clients, never forget to give them a coupon code. It is the coupon code that they can utilize for buying a printed item.
So, you can provide them with a coupon code, a referral code, or run a 1+1 free sale, whenever they focus on placing an order from their systems. Offering incentives is one of the best ways to attract customers to your business. So, you can adopt this particular approach to reap the maximum benefits.
In A Nutshell
So, the above-discussed ones are some of the key steps which you should focus on following for proper implementation of the web to print software. Hopefully, you have found this detailed blog post to be insightful.
