01.31.2023
As the gatekeepers and guardians of all things brand, marketers have a unique challenge—empowering employees with access to marketing materials while also maintaining control and governance over their use. For marketers working for large enterprises or geographically dispersed organizations (franchises, for example), managing physical and digital brand assets is easier said than done.
The Challenge Managing Brand Assets
When we say “brand assets,” we’re referring to any physical or digital materials that are owned by and require oversight from a brand manager. This could include:
- Promotional materials and SWAG
- Seasonal signage
- Brochures and business cards
- Branded corporate forms
- Digital assets like logo files
- Branded apparel
All of these resources are developed to enable employees across the organization to effectively operate and/or market your brand and its services. But for marketing departments, maintaining the most up-to-date versions of digital assets and distributing physical assets across the organization can be a time consuming and tedious task.
Consider these scenarios:
Your marketing team has developed an incredible, personalized employee onboarding kit—but every time a new staff member is onboarded, someone from the team needs to manually assemble and distribute the gift. With other priorities top of mind, it’s easy to fall behind, leaving the onboarding experience lacking. How can you streamline and automate this process?
Recently, your company rebranded and updated its logo. This means staff across the organization will need updated business cards. However, you know that not everyone uses business cards, and therefore printing them for everyone would be a waste of resources. How can you enable staff to order their own business cards without having to manually manage the entire process?
You work for a retailer that develops seasonal promotions for franchisees to leverage in their local markets. These promotions typically include updated window signage that can then be personalized to each location. How can you ensure your franchisees are appropriately leveraging the designs and personalizing them within your brand standards?
The Solution: A Branded Storefront
An internal digital storefront is a website that hosts your library of brand assets. From a user experience perspective, it's just like online shopping. Staff can simply log in, click on the items they want to order (business cards, brochures, t-shirts—you name it) and the order is sent for manager approval. Check out WCD's customer-facing storefront by clicking here.
Undoubtedly the best part of having an internal digital storefront is the time you'll save. With automation built into the backend, the storefront streamlines the entire ordering experience, eliminating your team's need to intervene in the process.
This automation prevents you from having to repeat mundane tasks like:
- Sending creative to print
- Packaging products
- Creating shipping labels
- Kitting multi-item orders
- Managing inventory
- Emailing proofs back and forth
- The list goes on!
Why WebConnect?
WebConnect is a user-friendly digital platform that enables anyone in your business to order corporate materials with the click of a button. It's valuable for large organizations or franchises who need a simpler way to print, manage and distribute collateral and promotional products.
Using its powerful web-to-order capabilities, marketing departments can work with WCD's developers to customize a WebConnect storefront and upload brand materials like brochures, business cards, signage and more.
Staff can simply log on, add items to their shopping cart, customize products within brand-approved guidelines, and order those items on-demand. WCD then prints, packages and delivers the finished product directly to their chosen location.
Learn more about WebConnect
If you think an internal digital storefront could save your marketing department time and money—you're right. Let us show you how with a live demo (no strings attached). We promise you'll love it.