If your company takes advantage of printed marketing materials, direct mailers, or promotional products, you’ve likely heard of the term “Brand Portal,” “Web to Print Portal,” or "Ordering Portal.”

But what exactly do these terms mean and how can this solution benefit you?

Brand Portal companies provide online tools for easily creating and ordering consistent sales and marketing materials throughout your entire organization.

This is helpful to add consistency throughout your marketing campaigns and it can also help you save time and keep costs low. Some companies offering these solutions even provide complementary services as well.

Let’s take a deeper look into what a Brand Portal is, how it works and how these intuitive solutions can benefit you.

What is a Brand Portal?

A Brand Portal is a service that provides print products and other branded materials via online storefronts. It’s also known as a “Wed to Print Portal,” “Ordering Portal,” Marketing Portal,” or “Web to Print Shop."

Both businesses and the general public can take advantage of these services. Most often, businesses use these online print ordering systems to achieve a wide range of marketing goals.

Portal companies have been offering web to print services for decades and they became popular in the late 90s as e-commerce became more common. The practice began with files being transferred from the customer to the printer via email. This gave printers the ability to pursue business clientele far beyond their local geographic area.

Early on, costs were much higher due to expensive software and the high cost of owning and maintaining printing hardware. As technology has advanced and become more accessible, costs for web to print solutions have dropped significantly.

Today’s Brand Portal software allows users to create templates for different print projects. This can include business cards, letterhead, brochures, newsletters, catalogs, direct mail materials, promotional products, and more.

These options are only a few clicks away, reducing the time, energy, and money spent creating and ordering the sales and marketing materials you need. There is even design tools built into your Brand Portal so users can customize certain information including contact info on business cards or addresses on postcards while the overall branded design remains consistent.

How Do Brand Portals Work?

A Brand Portal works by providing a tailor-made, online storefront that houses all your company’s sales and marketing materials. Any user you allow access, can visit the solution through their web browser and quickly place orders for materials like business cards, branded T-shirts, booklets, brochures, and more.

Your company's branded design files are uploaded into the portal and those files become visible to the end-user just like any other online storefront. It also allows for easy personalization with instant proofing. For example, if a user needs to change an image and address on a company postcard to reflect their location, they can easily choose the appropriate customized options and see the design before placing the order.

This provides control over the design and creation of marketing content while not compromising important branded elements. It also reduces the turnaround time during the printing process.

Orders placed through a Brand Portal are also stored making reordering easier than ever while also providing users with tools to view the status of their orders.

Streamlining the ordering and production of print through a Brand Portal reduces the time spent on the most important aspects of your print projects. It also allows you to focus more on the final product.

Why Should You Care About Brand Portals?

Brand Portals offer many benefits that can help your organization save time and money. By creating a simple and efficient process for users, you can make the overall order experience far more productive.

The web to print software offers a friendly user interface, that even novice internet users will be able to use with ease.

With reliable Brand Portal companies you can also count on robust layers of support and security, including secure online payment systems and a complete team of experts who are all trained in your specific portal.

Overall, a Brand Portal can benefit your organization in a variety of ways including:

• Supports marketing needs of a large team
• Ensures consistent branding 
• Easy user and brand asset management
• Enables new hires to order their own materials
• Makes global brand and design changes easy
• Improves efficiency through streamlined ordering
• Reduces waste by providing on-demand print ordering
• Provides inventory storage and management
• Easy phone number, address, logo and other personalization changes
• Mailing to prospects and customers quickly and easily
• Launching new brands and managing print and direct mail campaigns with ease

Using a Brand Portal

Brand Portals help increase efficiency when producing company-wide, standardized printed materials. This option makes it easy to manage print materials while staying consistent with your marketing strategy.

Portals add the ability to control who has access to your Web to Print solution and what materials each user has access to, but also what content is editable, such as names and phone number fields. This allows for personalization but keeps standardization in place for other aspects including the layout, logo, colors, and other essential branded elements.

The use of a Brand Portal as a primary printing method creates an efficient and cost-effective way to have all your marketing needs met.

Watch our Brand Portal video below to learn more or click the button to schedule a free demo today.