Here’s a good question: How do brands design and publish effective digital workbooks and catalogs for their reps and retailers, when their entire pipeline is geared towards print? The answer to this question has eluded brands for years because, time and again, we’ve seen them try to solve the wrong problem.
The trap so many brands fall into is that instead of creating a solution to the previous question, they try to answer the question of “Why switch from print to digital?”
It’s an understandable reaction. Budgets aren’t unlimited. Additionally, digital B2B platforms are still new enough that many brands haven’t grasped that they need a solution for creating print content as well as one for digital content.
This misunderstanding of the challenge creates a narrative built around cost savings and printing less, so the wrong solution gets implemented. When it fails to get traction or yield results, brands move back to designing for print. And the cycle repeats.
Let’s put an end to that cycle, because we’ve finally answered the right question: How do brands design effective digital workbooks and catalogs for their wholesale B2B systems?
They use Digital Press. And the best part is, it will still reduce your print costs.
If you bought into the print savings narrative, you aren’t alone. Fortunately, when you solve for the right question, you can still lower costs, while also driving new revenue.
To hit that benchmark, you need a desktop publishing tool that’s easy to use, creates content that looks on par with your print materials, and makes a final product that is B2B-aware.
Digital Press does all those things.
First, Digital Press is easy enough for anyone to jump in and create, using templates, familiar drag-and-drop tools, canvas control, and B2B-aware tools. And designers will find much of the power they’re used to in their more print-focused systems.
Your team likely spends a lot of time putting together print workbooks and catalogs, then saving them as digital versions to share with reps and retailers. What happens when there’s a pricing change, or an image update, or a description rewrite?
Your team has to dive back in, spending even more time to update every single catalog and piece of content with that new information, across both print and digital, then get it all sent out to reps and retailers.
That’s a huge cost.
With Digital Press, once it’s changed in the B2B backend, it’s changed EVERYWHERE. Automatically. Online digital catalogs are always up-to-date. And, if a new PDF is needed, it can be easily downloaded, shared, or printed.
Since it’s all built within the B2B platform, all data is pulled from the single source of truth keeping it accurate, always. This is a huge time saver (which translates to lower costs!), and a relief for a brand to know that everyone sees the correct data at all times.
Digital Press workbooks and catalogs are entirely shoppable and customer aware. Imagine having a single digital catalog that looks different for a variety of reps and retailers who are viewing it. Build once, and allow segmentation to take over. Easily customize what everyone can see, and who can see it. And everything they are looking at can be added to a cart with a click.
This makes it easier for reps to share and suggest with their retailers, and for retailers to place orders. More orders equals more revenue. And, with strong, easily updatable content, brands can keep both reps and retailers more engaged and excited about their products.
A print focused pipeline simply can’t produce material that takes advantage of the power of your B2B platform, and so you need a separate solution to create those digital workbooks and catalogs.
In the end, that’s how you increase revenue and reduce costs. Not by necessarily aiming to print less (although you will), but by making it easier for your team to create content that drives stronger engagement from retailers. Your team creates more catalogs and workbooks in less hours, and retailers are placing larger, smarter orders more often.