Why It’s Time for You to Make the Move to an Online Marketing Portal

By LeRay Warrior, Principal at MEDiAHEAD.

Marketing a company is often a complex process that involves many moving parts. However, it doesn’t always have to be this way.

Here at MEDiAHEAD we’ve been helping our clients consolidate and centralize the marketing process for over 15 years with our tailored online portals. But what exactly are online portals, and how can they dramatically improve the marketing process?

What is an Online Marketing Portal?

As a company grows, so do the marketing and sales departments. Marketing teams located in different regions can often begin to diverge from agreed branding guidelines. And last-minute customizations to print runs have to pass through several hands before being approved. After a while, even the simplest of tasks such as finding the latest version of a sales brochure can become unnecessarily difficult.

An online marketing portal provides an online media warehouse for all of your marketing materials in one handy, central location.

Not only will all employees know where the latest versions of marketing materials are, but businesses can track every penny spent on developing and printing marketing campaigns.

But the benefits to switching to an online marketing portal don’t end there.

What are the Advantages of Moving to an Online Marketing Portal?

Time

An online marketing portal will save you time.Perhaps one of the biggest savings afforded by an online marketing portal is time.

By streamlining all marketing assets into one online repository, undertakings such as customizations or updating of information can all be handled in a matter of a few clicks and will instantaneously take effect across the whole organization. There will no longer be any guessing as to where the latest version of a file is when using a searchable online media warehouse.

Integration with suppliers can make last-minute print orders a cinch. Furthermore, Field reps and sales agents don’t have to worry about liaising with their local marketing department to print the latest needed materials.

Cost Reductions

Have you ever authorized a huge print run of marketing materials only for the information contained within those documents to become obsolete a few months later? Let’s face it, no company wants to get stuck with thousands of flyers or brochures they can no longer use.

With an online portal you can order what you need, when you need it, reducing costs and unnecessary waste.

What’s more, you can set budget restraints on individuals, departments, or divisions to ensure they stay within their allocated budget. Employees can see their spend in real-time, allowing them to make informed choices with their assigned resources.

Improved Return on Investment (ROI)

Online portals produce fully-customizable reports, meaning ROI suddenly becomes easier to measure. By running cost reports against campaign performance you can immediately identify high-performing marketing properties and those that are hurting the bottom line.

By using reports on usage trends and inventory costs, companies can also utilize that information to make some serious savings; leading to further increases in ROI.

Increased Flexibility

Browser-based marketing portals give employees the opportunity to log in from anywhere in the world to access marketing materials. Sales reps who’ve managed to secure last-minute meetings with potential clients no longer have to worry about getting marketing information together. It’s all there, ready to go on one easy-to-navigate platform.

Leaning on a trade show to give you a discounted stand rate but sweating under the pressure of getting marketing assets printed in time? With an online portal, materials can be sent for print and turned around within 24-48 hours. Allowing you to secure the best possible deals on expos, trade shows, and industry forums.

Increased Control Over Branding

Regional variations are a necessity for most businesses’ marketing assets. A message crafted for inhabitants of New York is not going to have the same impact in California or Kansas City. However, maintaining a consistent look and feel across marketing materials is important.

Online portals give management teams the ability to approve materials, ensuring controlled versioning for regional and strategic partners. With a consistent look across all products and materials, changes can be made much quicker and disseminated across the company in an instant.

We are Experts at Creating Online Marketing Solutions

Idea, Planning, Strategy, SuccessAs mentioned, we have well over a decade of experience in delivering game-changing online marketing portals to our clients. We’ve used that expertise to help clients deliver marketing campaigns they could only dream of previously.

After a successful installation, targeted cross-media campaigns can be launched with a few clicks of a mouse. Companies can place orders with a variety of vendors across the country all in one place; and they can print what they need, when they need it, instead of running up huge print overages or costly small print runs.

Management can use the portal to ensure brand guidelines are being adhered to and there’s no more time wasted on collateral, proofing, editing, or searching for the latest version of important marketing assets.

If you feel that your company could benefit from a streamlined, centralized, and fully-functional online marketing portal then don’t hesitate to contact us today.

Take advantage of the following benefits:

  • 24/7 access to all sales and marketing collateral wherever employees are based

  • Create and customize all documents in one location

  • Monitor all orders and materials company-wide to make sure they adhere to brand guidelines

  • Keep better track of marketing spend and determine ROI of campaigns

  • Track and manage inventory of all sales and marketing assets

  • Set budget allocations on individual, departmental, and divisional levels with real-time spend analysis

  • Save time and money on printing costs by only ordering what you need, when you need it

  • Launch campaigns across various media formats with regional versioning from within one central hub

  • Gain access to additional marketing lists and segment them for targeting within the portal

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Want to feel heroic? Then check out what we do for referrals…

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By Michele Stilwell, Director of Marketing and Accounting at MEDiAHEAD.

Do we have a referral program? Of course we do! We absolutely love referrals. And we like to thank the people that refer us business in a memorable way. Do you like feeling like Wonder Woman or Superman? When you refer us to another business you’ll get this awesome kit from us.

MEDiAHEAD Referral Program Kit

People are usually willing to refer business to a company when they’re given good service, feel great about the people they work with and feel great about the product(s) they’re using. The bonus for them is that we give a great unique gift for that wonderful referral.

The Benefits

MEDiAHEAD Referral ProgramReferrals are an important part of a healthy B2B relationship. Not only can you refer people you’re working with, but you can also be referred. Did you know that customers are four times more likely to buy when referred by a friend? The lifetime value of a referred customers is 16% higher, on average, than a non-referred customer.

Recently, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) measured the total marketplace impact at $6 trillion dollars, and found that the value of a single word-of-mouth impression is anywhere from 5 to 100+ times more valuable than a paid media impression.

Spread Brand Awareness

Referral marketing programs can dramatically increase existing customer engagements and help with customer acquisition while spreading brand awareness. We actually have our referral kit on our MEDiAHEAD portal, so it’s easy for us to just enter the referring person’s information and the kit is auto generated. (Yes, we eat our own cooking.)

So next time you are impressed with a product or service you love, be sure to tell people about it. And if you’ve worked with us, please tell other companies how we’ve helped you so that we can thank you heroically. We would love to make you feel like Wonder Woman or Superman!

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Customer Spotlight: Unique Business Cards for Populous

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By Michele Stilwell, Director of Marketing and Accounting at MEDiAHEAD

Populous LogoPopulous is an architectural design firm here in Kansas City. They are well respected and have done projects all over the world. We appreciate one of the statements on their home page, “We design the places where people love to be together.” They have a passion for their work, and we really enjoy working with them.

When we first met with the Chief Marketing Officer of Populous, one of their designers was in the room. We asked him for a business card. The designer said that unfortunately, it had been four weeks, and he still didn’t have a business card. We told them we could fix that. And that’s how the relationship started!

Today, Populous employees have the ability to go to their online, customized portal to order business cards.

Populous - Unique Business CardsSomething unique we are doing for them… they can choose any one of the photos of Populous projects for the back of their business cards! If they upload a hundred project photos, they can have one hundred different business card backs in their 250 business card order. It’s a fun way for their employees to give a personal touch to the sales and marketing process. And all they have to do is log into their portal to order. It’s that simple.

Once ordered, their new business cards will get to them within 2 – 3 days after they approve them in our system. What an improvement over the 4+ weeks it used to take to get business cards!

We love what we do at MEDiAHEAD and no project is too big or too small.

When faced with a challenge, we tackle it head on and always come up with a solution. Often, it’s a customized solution that ends up being the right answer for each and every client. Let us help you streamline and standardize your processes, get faster turn times, and manage your brand consistency and content. Most of all save, you can save your organization time and money.

At MEDiAHEAD, the customer comes first. Give us a chance to show you. Find out more about us in more stories on our blog: https://mymediahead.com/blog

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CASE STUDY: An Awesome Solution to the Annual Holiday Card Headache

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Kat 600x450Post written by Kat McDaniel, Chief Innovator at MEDiAHEAD | Marketing Portal Guru | Variable Data Promoter | Analytics Advocate | Explorer

I never realized what a headache holiday cards, calendars and emails were for the marketing departments of large companies with multiple locations (and multiple senders) until we built MEDiAHEAD’s first holiday portal.

Picture this. Some poor employee printing stacks of cards, guessing on the quantity needed, getting each of them signed, distributing them to other offices within the organization, and then hoping they got mailed before the holidays. Dial 1-800-INEFFICIENCY.

This was the situation when a local advertising agency asked us to build a solution for their client, a large law firm based in Minneapolis, MN.

The agency was dealing with multiple offices, attorneys and administrators and several different holiday card designs.

The portal we built allowed the attorney or administrator to pick the holiday card design, the message, and upload their signature and mailing list…and then they were DONE!

We printed, stuffed and mailed the cards. Even better, because they were produced via print on demand, there was no waste to deal with.

The attorneys were happy! The administrators were happy! And most of all, the person who used to have to manually organize all of this was VERY happy!

holiday cardThe law firm was also able to reduce costs by eliminating pre-printed inventory and by substantially reducing the labor associated with managing the print.

We also significantly reduced time shipped and the risk of fulfillment error by kitting each individual order – most orders shipped in 24 to 48 hours.

Even better, MEDiAHEAD has repurposed this solution for many companies and even added calendars and gifts to the site to make the solution even better.

Here’s what the client had to say:

“MEDiAHEAD literally saved us with their customizable web platform and printing capabilities. We had an unsuccessful experience with another company and I wasn’t sure who could help create a site that actually worked the way we needed it to. After meeting with MEDiAHEAD, I instantly felt like not only were they an extension of our team, but also like people I’ve known for years. They are a solutions-oriented team who use their expertise to develop the right system or site for you. The turnaround and pricing were great and the end product had our client (and us) very happy. Now I am confident in presenting this solution to our clients in the future, since I know I have a partner who can execute and deliver.”

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What Do We Really Do at MEDiAHEAD?

Michele StillwellPost Author: Michele Stillwell, Marketing Distribution Portal Enthusiast | Marketing Guru | Accounting Shark | Lover of All Animals | Bourbon Drinker

Some of you may have heard our company name or you know us personally or professionally, but have you ever wondered…

What do they really do at MEDiAHEAD?

The best way to answer that question is that we build digital marketing and distribution warehouses for clients.

We love to build solutions (we call them portals) that provide customers with the power to manage their print costs, slash expenses associated with obsolescence, and extend print order capabilities across their organizations.

Companies large and small waste time and money on printing overages that sit on shelves for months or small, costly print runs that become obsolete in a matter of days – we eliminate that.

Spending time editing collateral, proofing, communicating changes, editing again and getting quotes, going back and forth – we eliminate that too.

Searching everywhere for the latest version of a file but you can’t find it anywhere – yep, you guessed it. We eliminate that too.

HNTB Portal TestimonialThe reason why MEDiAHEAD’s portal is so amazing is because it’s not a canned solution.

Each and every site is custom-built exactly to our clients’ needs and specifications.

It’s a gateway. We set up each client with a customizable central point of access to sales materials, templates, and merchandise.

The sky’s the limit. You can easily edit and personalize materials with just a few clicks.

Whether there’s one user or 1,000…anyone, anywhere (who’s authorized, of course) can access their portal and get what they need…FAST.

By the way, since we’re talking about how amazing the marketing and distribution portal is, you should also know that it’s awesome around the holidays for personalized holiday cards. Put your card on the site, upload signatures, upload a mailing list, and we print and mail them with a holiday stamp!

For more information about how a portal may be the perfect solution for your business, visit www.mymediahead.com or call us at 816.931.7900.

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