What Does ‘One to One in One’ Really Mean?
By Larry Zusman, worldwide marketing manager, XMPie, A Xerox Company
Have you ever wondered what the XMPie slogan “One to One in One” really means if you don’t already know? Is it a term borrowed from Aristotle describing the highest state of intellectual enlightenment? No. Does it represent the fact that our software was developed by members of One to One, a 1980s Canadian pop music group, in one minute? Definitely not. So, let me try to explain…
One way many people implement cross-media publishing is by bringing in multiple toolsets for each channel (print, Web and email), which also brings in multiple workflows…and potential problems. The variable data print component is relatively straightforward – customer data help designers create variable data designs, and both the data and designs go through a personalization engine to reach the printer and ultimately the recipients.
However, adding additional channels with different vendors isn’t so straightforward. For example, adding personalized websites requires some conversion of the data from the customer’s data source and hosting it on a Web server. From there, the data is used by the Web designer to create a website, and is then sent through a new personalization engine to the recipients. If respondents provide data back, such as answering a survey, somehow you will need find a way to get it back into the customer data source. 
If we add email to the mix, we add another level of complexity with data. Do we coordinate with the Web database or the customer database? And, with this multi-vendor approach, how can we ever be sure that the variable data and business rules in all of these three systems are in sync? In other words, how do we guarantee that a specific recipient received the exact same offer and message in print, Web and email if the database and systems are different?
With XMPie we have one system, centralized with a single server solution (the XMPie uProduce Server) that seamlessly connects with the customer database and generates print, email, personalized Web pages, and mobile communications – hence the slogan, “One to One in One”. It also allows important information learned from personalized Web pages – such as surveys – to be returned into the customer database for immediate use. Best of all, because you are working with only one system, you can easily track and analyze every customer interaction in a campaign, across all channels.
So, whether you are a marketing services provider, creative agency or enterprise marketer interested in creating and implementing integrated, measurable 1:1 cross-media campaigns, there is only one right answer: XMPie.
