Pixartprinting has many unique features that set it apart from other businesses. The company, which has just celebrated its 23rd birthday, created the web-to-print market in Italy, before exporting its winning model abroad.
It currently has 600,000 active customers, 700 employees working at its 376,000 sq. ft headquarters near Venice and 400 products in its catalogue, with a total of 3 million possible combinations. It completes 10,000 print jobs a day, equating to 3 million packages sent every year to over 50 countries.
At Pixartprinting's heart is its Production & Technology department, which works closely with Marketing & Sales to maximise the value produced by the company. New products are created through several different routes: the pioneering use of innovative technologies, the work of the R&D department, which captures unmet demand from users, and marketing activities to develop new markets, as happened recently with the firm's packaging range. Marketing has undoubtedly had a significant impact on the company's growth. Indeed, Pixartprinting has a dedicated in-house marketing team, predominantly focused on online advertising, comprising 45 employees with significant skills and experience. This department is now headed by Federico Gonzalez, who began work as the new Marketing & Sales Director on 1 October.
Originally from Argentina, Gonzalez moved to Italy as a 20-year-old to further his career as a professional athlete; he was part of the Argentinian national handball team. He continued his studies in Italy and increasingly developed a passion for marketing. After graduating in Business Administration and Management, specialising in marketing, from Ca' Foscari University in Venice and completing a range of professional experiences, Federico joined Pixartprinting. So began a long and stimulating career path, which saw him covering increasingly important roles: from being a problem solver in the customer care team to Digital Marketing Manager, and from Commercial Manager to his current role as Marketing & Sales Director. "Pixartprinting is a unique company, not just because of its undisputed leadership in the market, but also because of the opportunities it offers to develop skills within the company, which is what happened to me. One of the firm's strong points is undoubtedly its ability to instil in its employees a passion for their work, which pushes you to work as a team to achieve increasingly ambitious milestones together", Federico said.
Gonzalez now heads a very wide-ranging marketing team, the envy of most Italian companies, and with further additions planned in the near future. Currently the activities carried out by the team are divided up as follows: Communication, which includes localisation, copywriting, content marketing, graphic design and creative work; Digital Marketing, which includes SEO, SEM and digital advertising; Web Design, focused on optimising the conversion rate and improving the user experience; CRM and Customer Strategy, responsible for the loyalty programmes and aiming to maximise the customer life-cycle; R&D, which works to develop new products; and Planning & Analysis, responsible for the commercial planning of advertising campaigns, pricing, monitoring the competition and data analysis.
So what are Pixartprinting's objectives for the near future? "We are taking steps to reinforce our leading position in the Upload & Print market and to ensure that the double-digit growth achieved in recent years continues despite the changing environment", Federico Gonzalez explained. "The market is undoubtedly more crowded and, as well as our direct competitors, our diversification policy has seen us challenging businesses in vertical markets that go beyond simply providing printing services. It's an increasingly absorbing challenge, and that's why we plan to further develop our team into skill areas not currently found within the company".
A new marketing strategy that aims to improve coordination between online and offline activities is already underway. The three overarching areas in which Pixartprinting is working are: customer investment (for example new loyalty programmes like PixartPro dedicated to resellers and graphic arts professionals); investing in products to create new, specific ranges in vertical markets; and investing in markets to increase growth abroad, with the aim of becoming the undisputed European leader in the sector.
