Why You Need a Collateral Storefront

How does your company currently manage collateral?

Large companies typically have a marketing department that maintains a catalogue of beautifully designed, clinically reviewed and legally vetted pieces that are available to order by request through some well-thought-out process that maps the request with the department expense… it’s a thing of beauty. Cue angels singing.

Now… let’s look at what actually happens, especially for many senior living operators.

A facility operator in a remote location decides to hold an event to promote the community… next week. They call into the corporate office to request an invitation only to be told that it will take at least two weeks to design, print and ship this item to them. Frustrated, they decide to just create something themselves and go down to the local copy shop and voila! They now have invitations!

I’ve seen these invitations, flyers, business cards and brochures, and they are… the polite way to say it is they were not “brand consistent,” which is code for I was totally embarrassed our brand was out in the wild like this. The pieces may contain skewed logos, random color choices, typos, odd clip art and many more eyeroll-eliciting ‘design’ choices.

But it’s hard to blame an operator. They tried, and we made it too hard to do business for them. They improvised and got what they needed, but now our company’s brand is in the community looking like a bag of day-old donuts. Eek!

The collateral storefront can be a lifesaver for a company that has multiple locations or a distributed team who needs collateral on demand. I’ve setup a couple of these storefronts that include both customizable printed collateral and inventoried promotional items. Once they are up and running, they truly are a godsend to the team and can help streamline and track expenses by cost center.

While Cumulus Communications certainly can help with a single piece of collateral for your company, we like to think bigger here. Contact us about getting a collateral storefront up and running for your company today!