Something Old, Something New – Looking Forward to 2012
By Christine Winter, PR/marketing programs manager, XMPie, A Xerox Company
Here we are…almost through the second week of 2012 already! And while I feel like 2011 went by way too fast, I’m extremely excited about the year ahead.
This is going to be a big year for me for a number of reasons – both personally and professionally. First of all, I am getting married! Nothing beats that. If only I could get Robin Nelson at Trialogue Direct to put together a wedding campaign for me…hmm…
Another reason? I am going to be traveling to Europe for the first time! No, I’m not referring to my honeymoon (we haven’t decided on a destination yet). I’m referring to the world’s number one trade fair for the printing and media industry. That’s right; it’s time to start thinking about drupa 2012. It’s going to be an amazing show with some exciting announcements and new opportunities! I hope you’ll get to join us in Düsseldorf.
And since I don’t think I need to list any other reasons to prove why it’s going to be a good year for me, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading the XMPie Blog. It is my goal to bring you more customer success stories, event highlights, and 1:1 tips and trends every month this year.
Now tell us: Why is 2012 going to be a big year for you or your business? What other topics are you interested in reading about this year?
Five Good Reasons to Attend DMA2011
Filed under: Cross Media, Events, General, Marketing, One-to-one
By Christine Winter, PR/marketing programs manager, XMPie, A Xerox Company
Unless you’re a N.Y. Yankees fan, why wouldn’t you (the real-time marketer) want an excuse to visit Boston for “the global event for real-time marketers?” Exactly. GRAPH EXPO has come and gone, and now it’s time to shift focus towards DMA2011. Here are five reasons to register today:
- We’ll be there! Visit booth #620 to see first hand how XMPie can help you reel in more business and profit with 1:1 multi-channel marketing communications. And, of course, we’ll be showcasing the new solution that got lots of buzz and won a Must See ‘em award at GRAPH EXPO — XMPie uVideo. In fact, hear Xerox CMO Christa Carone talk about why she’s excited about new video technologies here! That leads me to #2…
- Xerox CMO Christa Carone is the Sunday morning keynote speaker. She’ll discuss how to break through information overload with customized marketing and personalized cross-media communications. Her speech, entitled “Are You Talking to Me? Mastering Relevant Messaging through Mass Customization,” will begin at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 2. Click here for a sneak peak!
- Boston is a very cool, fun place. Lots of things to see and do. Did you know it’s one of America’s oldest cities? Check out this list of some sights to check out while you’re in Boston for DMA2011.
- It’s the perfect opportunity to check out the coolest, new cutting-edge marketing tools and techniques, of course! Acquisition and lead generation. Creative and production. Real-time and trigger marketing. Mobile strategies. Direct and digital marketing fundamentals. Cross-channel strategy. Data, measurement and attribution. Retention and loyalty. Brand, social and content marketing. These are the hot topics this year, and over 400 technology partners and solution providers (like XMPie) — and many more marketing experts — will be there to help guide you in the right direction for your business.
- Did I mention XMPie is an exhibitor? Sorry; I couldn’t resist.
Hope to see you there!
They Came by Plane, Train and Automobile…to the First XMPie Users Group Meeting in Germany
The XMPie Users Group in Germany kicked off their first meeting on May 24th. Hosted at Xerox Germany offices in Neuss, the event was a successful initial gathering where some of the top CEO’s and consultants in the direct marketing business attended.
In addition to networking breaks, the agenda at the meeting consisted of discussions about the need for a German-speaking Users Group, discussion of important case studies, as well as presentations given by key people from XMPie, including Yaron Mohaban, Vice President of Sales, EMEA, who spoke about the XMPie vision, strategy and roadmap.
The next meeting will be held on November 11, 2011 and will be organized by the managing board. Stay tuned for more details.
On a similar note, we are excited to announce on behalf of the XMPie Users Group that they have launched a new website (www.xmpieusers.org)! The new site has more publicly available content and offers improved networking and education functionality to better enable online collaboration.
New tools and features include:
- Improved online communities with photo galleries, discussion forums, libraries and wikis;
- A Career Center to post and search for positions related to working with XMPie (Note: this benefit is only available to full, paid members);
- A dynamic member profile with the ability to share resumes, upload images, and pull and share content from personal LinkedIn, YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter accounts;
- An enhanced XMPie Users Group membership directory;
- Member and community “walls” to exchange messages with other members; etc.
They have also added a new Guest Membership option. Guest Membership provides increased access to the site, including the ability to participate in the online communities. This new option is intended to make the site more inclusive and provide potential members with better insight into all the group is able to offer, and best of all, it’s free!
We encourage you to head out to www.xmpieusers.org and sign up as a Guest Member to test out the site if you’re not already a member. If you have any questions about using the new site, please email admin@xmpieusers.org or call +1 (312) 321-5115.
7 Shining Examples of 1:1 Marketing
Filed under: Awards, Cross Media, Events, General, One-to-one, Web-to-Print
By Christine Winter, PR/marketing programs manager for XMPie, A Xerox Company
Last week, Caslon, a PODi Affiliate, announced that the all-new 2011 case studies are now online, along with the Best Practice Award Winners. These impressive campaigns will be featured in-depth at the AppForum, which is fast approaching!
I was proud to discover that the campaigns and applications from the following PODi case studies were powered by software solutions from XMPie. In fact, a extra round of applause is in order for the Dermalogica case study, which was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Marketing Resource Center category for PODi’s 2011 Best Practices Awards! Check it out…
Dermalogica Supports Stockists with Web-to-Print Solution
Dermalogica is an international skin care company that sells its products through trained skin therapists. The South African operation of Dermalogica has over 550 stockists that need marketing collateral support. Through a Web-to-print portal, the stockists are able to create personalized marketing collateral while Dermalogica is able to maintain brand consistency. The new solution is also much more efficient as turnaround time from order to delivery was reduced from weeks to 72 hours.
DaVinci’s Restaurant Serves up Results with Cross-Channel Marketing
DaVinci’s is a newly renovated, gourmet Italian restaurant that re-opened its doors with a fresh look and a new menu. To ensure the grand opening was a success, they implemented a cross-media program that incorporated digital print, e-mail, Web and social media. Personalized postcards invited potential customers to see the renovation and transformation of the restaurant. By visiting their Personalized URL, and answering a few questions, customers received a coupon via e-mail. The campaign generated a 4.8% direct mail response rate and helped DaVinci’s grow their customer database.
HP Value Added Reseller Cross-Media Marketing Campaigns
Hewlett Packard’s product and channel managers need support for conducting integrated lead generation campaigns. A marketing resource center solution was developed by JFM Concepts that supports eight different product lines and enables Value Added Resellers to deploy complex variable data campaigns. Cold sales lists have produced consistent direct mail response rates in the 4% to 6% range while highly segmented offers to warm leads have generated response rates of 30% or higher.
JDB Fine Hotels and Resorts Provides Personalized Memory Books
JDB Fine Hotels & Resorts is a comprehensive hotel and resort marketing organization representing the finest and most unique properties in the upscale travel market. Travel agents work through JDB to book vacation plans for their clients. A personalized memory book program was developed to strengthen the relationship between JDB and travel agents, and to increase referral business from consumers. The digital print books are customized for each client with details of the trip, exquisite photos and contact information for the travel agent.
NewPage “Dream, Green” Campaign Grows Awareness
NewPage needed a lead generation direct marketing campaign that would encourage printers to sample NewPage papers and develop brand awareness. A multi-touch, cross-media campaign with a “green” theme was deployed. The campaign incorporated personalized postcards, die-cut mailers, e-mail, custom posters and Personalized URL response mechanisms. The campaign achieved a direct marketing response rate of 4.7% and captured valuable information from print service providers.
Print Media Management Variable Content Magazine
MBA Group*, in partnership with their client Print Media Management magazine and technology supplier Xerox, set out to produce the world’s first fully digitally printed 64 page colour magazine with variable advertising and editorial content for different market sectors personalised to each of 12,400 subscribers. It helped generate 24% advertising revenue for the publisher and advertisers achieved a 256% increase in responses on variable data advertisements targeting to specific market sectors compared with the results for generic advertisements.
Progressive Communications Uses Personalized Cross-Media Promotion
Progressive Communications* wanted to highlight their new capabilities powered by digital print. A direct marketing campaign was developed to drive awareness of their services and illustrate the power of personalized communications. The cross-media program incorporated direct mail, QR codes, e-mail and Personalized URLs. Progressive Communications achieved a 11.6% direct mail response rate and new business from customers.
*Also a Xerox Best-of-the-Best award winner!
Join the High Tech Revolution – More on QR Codes
By Christine Winter, PR/marketing programs manager
You’ve probably heard the mantra “we live in a world where we are bombarded daily with irrelevant and generic data, messages and information.” And by now, you’ve probably heard that embedding personalized images and URLs (PURLs) into your targeted marketing campaigns can help you cut through the clutter and generate a higher response.
While all of that remains true, marketers – and the service providers that support them – must continue to adapt to the ever-changing marketing culture across print and new media. In today’s mobile society, that means the integration of such digital technology as quick response (QR) codes within traditional direct mail pieces. And this trend is gaining major momentum.
So, what is this technology? What marketing goals do they meet? Why should you include them in your marketing? Here’s what we think.
QR What?
To be literal, QR codes are two-dimensional barcodes that have significantly greater storage than that of a traditional barcode. They were originally used for tracking parts by vehicle manufacturers, but are now quickly gaining popularity with the mobile phone industry. When incorporated into one-to-one marketing communications, smartphone users can scan and decode them with a QR code reader to be automatically linked to websites, pictures, videos, product reviews, social media sites, etc. For print providers, they offer a unique way to use the print component to drive a response through other media and continue the conversation.
So, okay, you’ve heard all this. But what you might not have known is that XMPie makes generating QR codes within one-to-one marketing communication pieces a breeze. We have customers using them already to direct recipients of their direct mail pieces to PURLs – what we like to call response URLs™ (RURLs) – videos, and even dynamic maps. And they are seeing results, which they attest to the fact that scanning a code to get to a website is much easier than typing the address in a mobile browser, for example.
The XMPie Advantage
When creating personalized QR codes, XMPie and its Automatic Dynamic Object Replacement (ADOR) technology has a unique edge over other technology providers. This is because with XMPie software, you never have to worry about the information in the QR code (i.e. Jane Doe’s contact information) matching the information in the personalized communication piece on which it was included (i.e. Jane Doe’s business card). Consistency between the QR code and its context is automatic because XMPie encodes and images a QR code in the same step, leaving no room for mistakes in selecting the code image for a given individual.
This differs from non-XMPie solutions in that many times the creation of a QR code image and the coding of the image are done by separate tools. The room for errors in selecting the wrong image is wide open, and the process coordination investments in order to minimize these types of errors are very high. Hence, with XMPie, a match is effortless – it’s just built in – and creating QR codes is really simple and reliable.
Just Five Easy Steps
Process for Creating QR Codes in XMPie
- Open static art in InDesign
- Link to data source
- Create a new Content Object (information to be encoded into code can be a combination of static text and variable text)
- Create a graphic box on the design where the QR Code will go
- Select the new graphic box and double click the Content Object to link the two together
The bottom line? QR codes are soon-to-be-everywhere, and they make it easier for your customers to access the information you want them to respond to. And let’s not forget that with XMPie, you can actually track QR codes just like any other event or action in a campaign. So, yes, you should include them in your marketing. It’s as easy as X-M-Pie. Cheesy, I know.
Check out the previous blog post by David Baldaro for an example of a campaign XMPie executed using QR codes, and stay tuned for more on this very fascinating technology.
XMPie is ExactTarget’s “2010 Embedded Partner of the Year”
Filed under: Awards, Cross Media, E-mail, Events, General
By Ranen Goren, VP, Cross-Media Products & Enterprise Solutions, XMPie
ExactTarget, which has been an XMPie partner for the last three years powering the e-mail technology behind the XMPie e-Mail Service, recently presented XMPie with the “2010 Embedded Partner of the Year” Grand Prize Award!
This is an important milestone for the partnership between XMPie and ExactTarget because it shows that interactive marketing experts acknowledge the power of the integrated e-mail service, as provided by ExactTarget, within a complete cross-media solution, as provided by XMPie.
Here’s what the judging committee had to say about the XMPie solution.
XMPie’s embedded ExactTarget offering…
1. Provides seamless integration as part of software and services offering;
2. Enables clients to offer sophisticated use of e-mail;
3. Includes advanced personalization; and
4. Delivers a strong feature set and superior deliverability.
For example, the XMPie e-mail below includes a personalized image, greeting and URL, which are sophisticated features that have proven to increase response rates for us and our customers. XMPie makes it possible to do all of this, with the superior deliverability and tracking of ExactTarget, in one single software package that integrates print, e-mail, Web and SMS together into real cross-media campaigns.
Receiving the ExactTarget award was exciting and timely. Just the day before, I presented XMPie’s latest e-mail features of our one-to-one cross-media solution, PersonalEffect 5.0, at the XMPie Users Group Conference in Orlando, Fla. With the wealth of new features and improvements, together with the new lower pricing options offered by the XMPie e-Mail Service, we had a lot of great news to deliver.
For our customers who are not using the XMPie e-Mail Service, I believe the best news for you is that we now provide a free trial option that allows you to evaluate it very easily and for free, with no commitment at all. With this new option, every XMPie customer 
with the cross-media edition would benefit from checking out our much improved – and affordable – e-mail options.
We were a bit surprised and delighted to see that almost everyone in the audience that came to the e-mail session at the Users Group Conference is already using e-mail in their campaigns. This was a big improvement from previous years when we saw only 30 to 50% using e-mail. It shows again that e-mail has become more than just a “nice-to-have,” but rather a critical ingredient in the cross-media mix.
XMPie MC for iPhone: Cross-Media Campaign Tracking & Analysis On-The-Go
Filed under: Cross Media, General, Marketing Analytics
Today, I am excited to announce that XMPie has just recently launched its very first XMPie iPhone application – and it’s free! It’s called XMPie MC (Marketing Console) and is available in the Apple iTunes Store.
The application allows you to view and share your uProduce Marketing Console Dashboard reports directly from your iPhone. You can magnify the reports to show the table as well as the chart, and you can also refresh the report to update it with more current data and send the report via e-mail. This powerful capability provides new opportunities to continue the dialogue and provide meaningful follow-up within moments of a customer or prospect interaction.
Timothy Perrett, technical solutions specialist at XMPie, gives a brief demonstration of the application in this YouTube video.
Again, this free XMPie MC (Marketing Console) application is available in the Apple iTunes Store. We hope you find it intuitive and beneficial to your business! If you are not currently a user of XMPie’s uProduce Marketing Console for campaign tracking and analysis, and would like to learn more, please visit www.xmpie.com/mc.
Happy 10th Anniversary XMPie!
Last Friday, July 2nd, was the 10th anniversary of XMPie. It was a pleasant, sunny morning here in NYC, and as I was walking east on 48th Street to the office, I reflected on this milestone. My thoughts led me to realize that it is not so much the independence of the business that we are celebrating. What we are really celebrating is the livelihood, strength and relevancy of the XMPie brand.
With the suite of solutions, capabilities, beliefs and vision that XMPie represents, it made a huge difference in the business lives of many of our customers. Some had dreams of practicing cross media, one-to-one communication, but could not see how to do it. Others never realized that personalization in digital printing is just a piece of one-to-one communication, which is a much bigger and more promising business space. For both of these customer types, XMPie showed the way and gave the platform from which they could innovate, expand their businesses (sometimes even re-invent their business with a different flavor, focus and even name) and lead the industry. And now, these customers are opening our eyes, showing us where we have gaps, and helping us developing the insights of where the next frontiers should be.
This synergistic relationship between us and our customers, which spans these last 10 years, is what we are celebrating. And this relationship is what we desire to maintain and expand as we go forward to the next 10 years.
Editor’s Note: Jacob Aizikowitz is President of XMPie
Personalization for Improving Health
There are many thought-provoking success stories that can be attributed to campaigns that involve personalized publishing, but here’s one that was sponsored by the England’s Department of Health that has made a definite positive social impact.
The British government announced Change4Life, England’s first and the world’s most ambitious social marketing campaign aimed at reducing rising levels of childhood obesity.
Lateral Group used XMPie® and the Xerox® iGen3® 110 Digital Production Press paired with a CX Print Server powered by Creo® to achieve the objectives of Change4Life - to motivate families at risk of obesity by encouraging them to respond and engage in long-term behaviour changes.
To help them with this important program, Lateral Group created a compelling “How Are The Kids” package, printed on recyclable stock certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, which included a Handbook for Healthy, Happy Kids, a personalized action plan, and a Change4Life calendar with activity stickers for families to easily track their day-to-day progress. The personalized packages were produced as a result of responses to quesionnaires that were submitted.
You can read more about this Xerox Best-of-the-Best contest winner at http://www.xmpie.com/change4life