How to generate revenue with Web-to-Print - 20/03/2009

The economic principle applies to everyday business reality: get your result as high as possible with the slightest efforts in order to maximize profit. In tougher economic conditions, you even should be trying harder to follow this principle. Of course, this also counts for Web-to-Print software. In fact the key to be a successful Web-to-Print service provider depends on one thing: preparation. Indeed, before you invest in Web2Print software, you should already know very well what you will do, how you will do it, etc. Need inspiration to prepare your Web2Print project?

Web-to-Print business models: B2C or B2B?

The first thing you need to realize in advance is the difference between "Web-to-Print business models for the consumer market" and "Web2Print business models for the business market". The needs of both markets are quite different. A consumer doesn't have the printing needs of a company. Consider this "ordinary" distinction as the first step in the strategy behind your web-to-print project. Deciding which market you want to address with your solution will already narrow down the number of Web-to-Print applications that fit your needs.

Business-to-consumer

The B2C market seems indeed quite interesting: allow everyone on this planet to create, personalize and order his print material online. Your market thus is very big: 6 billion people. However, the question is: how many of them have printing needs? And how many of them have recurring printing needs? If you think about it more in detail, the B2C market does not seem as interesting and profitable as one might think at first glance. Nevertheless, if you want to go for this market, you probably need to have a Web-to-Print solution that includes some kind of "free design" functionality.

Business-to-Business

The B2B market however is interesting and profitable. Companies have lots of printing needs (e.g. from business cards over brochures to catalogs and manuals) and these printing needs do not vanish because of economic slowdown. Moreover, companies have to re-order print materials a lot of times which leads to recurring jobs. Those recurring jobs are highly profitable. If you can accomplish these kind of jobs without any efforts, your profit is the highest. And this is exactly what a classical web2print webshop offers you. But according to the Vit2Print definition of w2p, other web based publishing solutions can be equally profitable. Consequently new, innovative web2print business models arise.

Web2Print business models (B2B): brand management services, correction services, translation management services, asset management services, ...

You could think of many services that can be provided to companies via Web2Print software. Since Vit2Print is a modular solution for B2B purposes, we shall briefly discuss the Web-to-Print business models arising from those Vit2Print modules.

Brand management services with FormVit

With FormVit you allow your customers to create and order his corporate documents online. Without any graphical knowledge they personalize and order documents according to their corporate identity. Imagine, how much time and money you save on your prepress side and how much money you could be making with re-orders.

> Read our case study: "Vit2Print, powerful tool for brand owners"
> Read more about FormVit

Correction services with CorrectVit

With CorrectVit you allow your customers to do last minute text corrections and provide the prepress with additional remarks. This speeds up the correction workflow a lot. Imagine how much time and money you save on your prepress side if only the customer is able to correct his InDesign document online.

> Read more about CorrectVit

Translation management services with TransVit

With TransVit you are able to optimize the translation process for the production of multilingual documents. Via the TransVit platform graphic designers, marketers and translators work interactively on the production of multilingual documents.

> Read more about TransVit

Asset management services with PhotoVit

With PhotoVit you offer your customers an asset management service. All their digital assets are stored and visualized in PhotoVit - allowing the customer to quickly find his assets.

> Read more about PhotoVit