SourceForge recently caught up with Rick Aberle, CEO of Propago, to talk about their web-to-print solution and the vital role that platforms like Propago have to play in the print industry of today and tomorrow.
What is the story behind Propago? When and how was the company formed?
Propago was born and raised in Austin, Texas. Our story is a little different than most software companies.
Propago started within a large commercial printing conglomerate as an internal application to serve clients and support backend operations. Born as a straightforward solution to streamline the company’s production and fulfillment processes, Propago matured over the years to become a comprehensive Marketing Management and Fulfillment Platform.
In 2015, the team responsible for building and maintaining the Propago platform was given the opportunity to spin the technology away from the parent company and form a completely stand-alone organization. The rest is history.
What kind of companies use the Propago Platform?
Our platform is designed to be the ultimate tool for print service providers who want to win and support enterprise clients with private, feature-rich marketing portals. Beyond our bread-and-butter demographic of mid-to-large print service providers, our platform is used by fulfillment providers, brand management agencies, and brands that operate across many locations.
Any brand that wants to centralize their marketing assets, streamline the process of getting the right assets to the right people, and connect all their producers to one platform can be a good fit for Propago.
What role does web-to-print play for a print service provider?
Web-to-print is rapidly becoming an essential tool for the modern print service provider. According to a recent report by NAPCO, 50% of commercial printers now use a web-to-print solution. This number is growing.
The reason is that web-to-print enables printers to modernize their business, greatly expand their customer base, and add new revenue streams. With a modern web-to-print solution, printers can:
- Land larger clients by offering a tool that has the advanced workflow capabilities that many enterprise brands require.
- Support ALL their client’s marketing assets on the storefront, whether they produce them in-house or not, paving the way for additional revenue.
- Further cement their relationships with their customers by centralizing their entire marketing asset catalog on an intuitive storefront that employees become accustomed to using.
What sets Propago apart from similar solutions?
We believe Propago is the most advanced web-to-print solution out there today for several reasons. To name a few:
- An intuitive, modern design that makes for an amazing user experience.
- Seamless support of many product types that are highly configurable and route effortlessly to the proper vendor.
- Flexible and granular controls to protect the client’s brand, budget, and inventory and support complex business rules.
- Intelligent use of data to simplify everything. For example, user data will auto populate fields on personalized products to make proofing as easy as possible.
What challenges are today’s printers facing and how does Propago address those challenges?
Printers are facing an era of high competition and a rapidly shifting market. Print buyers have changed and they expect more than high quality goods and low prices. Printers that want to not just survive, but thrive, need to modernize.
That means offering potential clients an attractive online platform and positioning themselves as complete solution providers. This is what Propago does for print providers. It gives them a tool to distinguish themselves ahead of the curve and above the competition.
How does Propago support its customers and help them succeed?
At Propago, our driving principle is that our success is tied to our customers’ success. This comes across in the way we develop our product and how we do customer support.
We value our clients’ input. Most features come from collaboration with them. As we have grown, we stay focused on serving our customers’ needs and everyone is entrusted with that core responsibility. How we collaborate is as important as the products we develop.
Being a small team, we can be very nimble and adaptive. We’re always working to stay ahead of the changing landscape of the print industry. The Propago Platform is constantly improving because of this.
This homegrown, customer-centric focus extends to our customer support. It’s important to us that our customers never feel like they’re lost in a help ticket queue. We work hard to be more than just a faceless software vendor.
For example, with our Enhanced Services program, we offer specialized help with marketing storefront creation, personalized product template design, and more. Essentially, our team can work as an extension of our customer’s team.
Can you describe some of the cornerstone capabilities of Propago that you haven’t touched on already?
Reporting is a core component of the Propago Platform. Our customers and their clients can create customized reports and schedule the reports to be emailed to those who need them.
The platform is also a complete supply chain management tool. This includes features for streamlining high-volume fulfillment, forecasting inventory demand, and managing procurement.
In addition, the front end includes a full digital asset management module so clients can access, share, and utilize digital marketing assets just as easily as they can order physical assets.
Looking down the road, what shifts do you see taking place in the print industry and how is Propago looking towards the future of print?
The print industry is evolving, no doubt. And it must, because the world is changing. Today’s best marketers are crafting tightly integrated multi and omni-channel campaigns, tracking touchpoints as customers move along the sales journey. They need their producers and fulfillment providers to be similarly tech-savvy and capable.
The ubiquity of e-commerce has raised the bar for what print buyers expect from their print partners. There’s no spare time or resources to deal with endless phone calls and emails just to get a proof approved and a quote for a job.
Web-to-print solves for this problem but the best solutions go beyond simple online ordering. That’s where Propago lives. We’re continually enhancing our platform to make the user experience and supply chain as streamlined and automated as possible. Competition is at an all-time high in the print business and printers need to think big to thrive. Thinking big means doing more for your clients and giving them all their marketing needs at their fingertips. That’s what the Propago Platform is all about.
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