Initially focusing on the public sector, and in particular the education market, where the response to student enquiries to Colleges and Universities offers an ideal application, Customation has assembled an experienced team with expertise in marketing communication, creative design, content layout, personalisation, web design and development, and print management.

Initially focusing on the public sector, and in particular the education market, where the response to student enquiries to Colleges and Universities offers an ideal application, Customation has assembled an experienced team with expertise in marketing communication, creative design, content layout, personalisation, web design and development, and print management.

Customation uses XMPie to create the customised content.

All organisations continuously search for improvement in the effectiveness of their marketing communications and the Customation approach offers significant benefits over the traditional bulk printing of generic collateral with the associated storage costs and wastage. Building a positive relationship with your prospects and customers while simultaneously reducing your carbon footprint must be an attractive proposition to everyone.

uEdit is completely integrated into uStore, XMPie’s solution for rapid deployment of branded, e-commerce enabled,online stores without involving programmers. uEdit extends uStore’s document ordering and customization features by allowing real-time, remote template design editing.

What is also great about uEdit is that is can be used as a standalone tool within a custom developed application. Combined with XMPie’s API and programming tools it becomes easy to create, edit and compose custom-made personalised documents.

This screencast introduces you to a fictional real-estate example. In this example you are able to select a template, upload and manage images that the user wishes to use. Then edit the template by editing the text, images and styles. Once the template is complete yu can upload the recipient data and produce the final PDF for downloading.

For more information take a look at XMPie’s website (www.xmpie.com). Thanks to Tim Perrett for recording the screencast.

Whilst at MediaPro the folks at PrintSpeak did a quick 3 minute interview with me over the topic – as it was creating some ‘buzz’ on the floor’

So I thought that I would share it with you all (and thanks to PrintSpeak for enabled the ability to embed their videos into posts for me!)

The campaign was tightly integrated into what we (XMPie) were doing at a UK trade show (MediaPro Expo 09) and was specifically targeting people to allow them to jump the queues and get a ‘VIP’ badge to attend the demonstration.

This campaign was exclusive to Twitter; which meant that anyone that wanted to experience it had to be a member of Twitter.com and they had to follow the account that we had set up. This again kept the campaign contained to a particular medium. When the campaign was initiated we seeded the viral element on about 5 twitter accounts, and we created a small press-release that went out.

Everyone therefore came into the campaign by responding to a viral message promoting the campaign or came in because of the press-release. There were a few that responded because of word-of-mouth.

Looking at the final results I believe that the viral element to the campaign was ‘potentially’ seen by 20,000 – 30,000 people. I say ‘potentially’ because only a small percentage of people will actually read every ‘tweet’ that they see from someone they are following – so the chances of seeing the viral tweet from the campaign was small. To that effect I cannot really draw any conclusion – except that the potential audience was relatively confined and small (in comparison to what it could have been if we had continually tweeted the viral element).

140 people responded to the call-to-action and followed the Twitter account that we had set up – but only 110 (79%) of those people actually came into their personalised website (RURL), which is interesting. I can assume therefore a good 15-20% of those that followed the account were automated bots or accounts looking to grow there ‘followership’ (by hoping we would follow back). There were a few that simply didn’t realised that we had sent them back a direct message and that they needed to click on the link!

Out of the 110 people that came into their personalised website 90 (81%) of them actually clicked on, and went through the process of authorising via Twitter. By doing this it enabled us to do two things within the campaign. Firstly it enabled us to validate who they were (so that we could collate more, valuable data) and it enabled us to send out the viral ‘tweet’ on their Twitter stream.

So, to that effect we only sent out approximately 85 viral tweets, promoting the campaign (excluding the seed tweets that we started from).

It was hard to gauge at the show itself how many people actually came in and presented their Twitter VIP Badge – primarily because we had such a slick set-up that no-one actually needed to jump the queues! There were certainly a few people waving them about. But, if I am honest that was not the sole intention of the campaign. The proof that this could be done and the buzz that doing it has created was the real goal. MediaPro was a vehicle upon which to base the campaign.

Talking about the buzz, the campaign has created some very interesting conversations – both on Twitter and externally. Whilst the campaign pulled in complimentary comments it also pulled in some negative comments. Primarily people were objecting about the way in which we implemented the viral elements. The most notable of which can be followed on the Print CEO blog, written by Eric Vessels from WhatTheyThink.com.  Reading all the comments from those that objected they did so because of the way in which we virally ‘tweeted’ out, although the campaign asked people to essentially ‘opt-in’ and agree to the viral element. This campaign however did not give them a choice of entering without virally tweeting, or editing the tweet that was in-turn sent.

It is interesting – the majority of those who objected were the long-standing Twitter users (Tweeple) who tended to use Twitter as a medium to enhance their personal branding. In this instance, although the viral tweet was informative and not overly assumptive it was not the words of the those that were apparently sending it.

I personally agree with these comments – tweeting virally on behalf of someone needs to be approached with great caution. I appreciate that their are hundreds of third party sites that actually do the same  on a much larger scale), but people probably either expect it with those services, or they are not as concerned about their personal branding. That said, it’s probably the one area that I would change it I did things again, providing more choice about the viral element.

With all said and done – the campaign was a huge success. We secured new prospects from the back of it (and hopefully future business) and we proved once again that XMPie is pushing forward in this industry forging new ideas and pathways within the Cross Media marketplace. This is the start of Cross Media 2.0 in my opinion. The merging of integrated cross-media and social media.

It is possible to use social media as a out-bound communications channel – however this is not what we did. We used Twitter to create a buzz, and asked anyone that was interested to express that interest by following us. Only then did we start immediately engaging them in conversation and drawing them into the campaign. We did not send out 10,000 emails (spray and pray) to try and gain some interest, we used Twitter in way that said, if you are interested then come and express that interest and then we shall engage you in conversation.

Think about the possibilities:

• A University or college could set up Twitter accounts directed at general admissions (UniOfLifeAdmissions for example) and anyone that followed that account automatically received a personalised website (RURL) that allowed them to ‘formally’ express an interest and receive a personalised prospectus pack – with follow-on communication about open-days and events!
• What about a corporate organisation who sent out personalised website (RURLs) to anyone that followed them effectively creating a personalised website for anyone interested in that company? The website could collect more information, suggest subscriptions to other news sources within the organisation – or even direct people in the right direction to other more relevant areas based on their personal interests.
• What about a book publisher, looking to promote a new book. Anyone that followers the author’s or publisher’s twitter account gets pulled into a campaign to engage them in conversation about the book, collecting data and allowing people to share it amongst others? Maybe even offering a personalised copy of the book as an incentive.

To me Twitter is about following the people that you are interest in, or aspire to become – and about promoting yourself and engaging in conversation. Integrated Cross Media is all about engaging people in conversation across different forms of media. The integration of Twitter and XMPie’s Cross Media enables people and organisations to engage in conversation and then to become more personalised (and relevant) in their engagement.

There is a huge responsibility of on those developing these types of campaigns as well. Doing this particular campaign has raised a lot of questions. The one that I had to keep asking myself was, “I know that we could do this – but should we?“. For example we could have continually tweeted out virally, we could have sent all the followers of our follower direct messages promoting the campaign. We could have sent personalised websites to anyone that mentioned ‘XMPie’ or ‘MediaPro’ in their tweets. We could have done a huge amount. We did however choose to keep this campaign exploratory and specific – and even then we generated some negative buzz!

As Gary Vaynerchuck recently said in a presentation, “Technology has no feelings” – make no mistake this will happen and it will become more commonplace. How this evolves from here is where it gets interesting!

To a room full of commercial printers, market and service providers I could see them struggling to understand just how Twitter was important to them in delivering better communication services for their customers. I have to say, I was struggling as well. However I had a rare ‘moment’ in which I could see a way of using both technologies together to achieve an effective goal.

Twitter as we all know and love is great for micro-blogging and real-time social communication. Twitter exists for people/companies to act as content providers and for others to decide if they want to listen to them. They do this by ‘following’ those accounts that they have an interest in. Cross-media campaigns on the other hand exist to allow marketers to develop a conversation with a customer about a service, product, event or process. However in traditional campaigns marketers are normally forced to select customers that they would like to target the campaign at. Sometimes at random and sometimes selectively.

So, what if Twitter could be used to drive ‘interested’ people into a cross-media campaign about a product, service, event or process that they are actually interested about?

To test this principle we used the UK event, MediaPro Expo 09 as the topic of a campaign.

The process goes something like this:

• A Twitter.com user openly decides to follow @xmpiemediapro09 as the account set up to promote XMPie’s activities at the show
• A bespoke application written using XMPie’s APIs then recognises that a new account is ‘interested’ and enters their Twitter details into a database
• The application then sends a direct message (DM) back to the original user containing their personalised website or Response URL (RURL)
• Once the user has received their RURL – they can directly access their personalised site, which already contains personalised information (taken from their Twitter account)
• We then ask the user to simply ‘authorise’ themselves. By authenticating through Twitter they are effectively allowing us access to their profile information
• If the user accepts we then ‘tweet’ back out on the user’s account to all their followers – indicating what the user has just done
• The user is taken back to their personalised website, where we ask them to update their details and allow them to produce and download a fully personalised ‘all-access’ badge to the show at MediaPro 09
• The badge is personalised in various ways – including the use of their Twitter profile image, their updated details, their unique barcode, and even a personalised QR Code to take them back to their personalised site

All through the process XMPie is tracking (through the use of XMPie Marketing Console) who is accessing their personalised websites and what actions they are taking.

I have to take my hat off to Tim Perrett for the implementation of this campaign using XMPie’s APIs and open source platforms – as well as the folks at MediaPro for their help in getting this going.

The beautiful thing to this campaign is that it starts with no user data – their are no recipients in the database. Every single person that comes into the campaign has chosen to do so on their own initiative. Primarily because they have seen someone they are following on Twitter (and thus interested in) already go through the process.

Whether you call this conversation marketing, social media marketing or simply cross-media marketing – the opportunities are immense. This is going beyond what others may refer to as Cross Media. This is an example of an integrated cross-media campaign that is being driven by social media. This is a campaign that uses social media as a real customer acquisition platform. This campaign does not need to ask who the customer is. This campaign automatically knows who the customer is. That is the power of twitter and what happens when social media meets cross-media.

For more information and to experience the campaign – head over to http://mediapro09.xmpie.com

The report from Forresters (Click here for report) shows the dramatic shift away from traditional marketing spend onto new interactive media; things like search, display, email, social and mobile marketing. In summary an increase from $20 billion to over $55 billion over the next few years. And where is this new spend coming from? Certainly not from an increase marketing budget – but instead by reducing the spend in other areas.

When surveyed 60% of marketers said that they would be reducing their budget away from traditional marketing. 40% would be cutting direct mail spend, 35% would be cutting newspapers spend and 28% would be cutting magazine spend.

This is a huge swing away from traditional printed media – and in some ways my doorstep will feel better for it.

However, would I be happy to have the amount of direct mail reduced only to see a dramatic increase in junk that is coming through to me via email, mobile and online medias? I do not think so.

It seems like marketers and organisations alike are desperately moving away from traditional medias because they are expensive and not cost effective – whereas online is cheaper and has potentially better results. However I come back to ‘me’, the customer – what would I prefer?

In contrast  within the Infoprint survey (Click here for the report) 50% of respondents stated that they would prefer to receive marketing information about new products or services via traditional mail rather than email. Three out of four respondents said that they would consider opting for traditional mail it they were informed it had less of a negative environmental impact than email.

This is interesting – given the choice many consumers would still prefer traditional mail opposed to email. I think that given the choice of highly relevant and personalised marketing – even more people would prefer traditional print than digital communications.

So if that is the case – are marketers running the wrong way with their marketing budgets. Shouldn’t they stop and take stock of WHAT they are actually sending out via traditional means and then revaluate how they can develop a more targeted conversation with that customer; opposed to flooding them with expensive and wasteful direct mail?

Sure, increase the spend on interactive medias – but don’t just do it at the expense of traditional mail because it’s expensive and unfriendly. A targeted, relevant and timely personalised piece through my door using recycled paper will beat a thousand emails and text messages!

What do you think – let me know – and take the poll. Would you prefer paper, or digital media if it were personalised? Take the poll here or click on the answer below.

Recently though they seem to be spending me more catalogues than normal! I’ve had two now through the door in as many weeks. The previous one caught my eye as it carried the heading, “Have we done something wrong?” – which was interesting as it obviously recognised the fact that I had not put any business their way in recent months (or ever!) – but was strange attempt at being personal.

The one that I received one carries the heading, “Am I on the naughty step?” – and half of me thinks, “Yes you are – for sending me this in the first place”.

Why produce, print and send a several hundred page catalogue (even if it is on recycled paper!) when I have not given you ANY business and the previous tactic in sending me a brochure didn’t work either?

Please God, marketers stop doing this. Stop producing mass marketing, with some strange attempt at making it personal. Boden I have a sneaky suspicion that you could’ve saved a load of money by producing a simple direct mail piece carrying the same campaign – but making it actually personal. This way, there would’ve been no need to print the whole brochure – you could’ve given me a personalised website or asked me to contact you if I was actually interested in receiving the brochure. Then once you know that I am interested again – and it’s relevant – you could print and send the brochure.

Nice campaign, poor execution I am afraid!

My understanding is that 3 different printed direct mailers went out; new for new customers, one lapsed customers and one for current customers – all that carried personalised content and personalised images – and all driving customers to their personalised websites. All nicely timed for the start of the new season.

The cool bit for me is that on the site http://www.skybet.com/dream/ there’s a great tool for delivering online personalised UK football fixtures. The generic landing page, collects details about you and your club, along with a shirt number and then presents you back your own personalised RURL which not only contains the club fixtures of your chosen club but also a personalised image of your shirt. This is done quickly and with great effect.

What is also very nice is that they haven’t stopped there – Alphagraphics and Sky have also implemented a viral element to the campaign which is integrated into the primary campaign. If you click on refer-a-friend you are asked for a friends details and their email address. Again a personalised email is created, incorporating a personalised image and sent to the recipient.

It would’ve been outstanding if the refer-a-friend element of the campaign was directly linked to the original landing page – so that it knew that I was referring a friend; and therefore not asking me to re-enter my own details. However it still works beautifully.

I am hoping that we can get some ROI figures from the campaign; which may be hard from an organisation like SKy – but talking to the folks at Alphagraphics North East the campaign has been a success; driving uptake of people to the site, and delivering results to sky. I believe that I heard, “a 50% increase on respondents” in there somewhere!

All in all a great high-profile campaign using XMPie to create dynamic Direct Mail as well highly personalised and creative web sites with on demand content and images – and with a viral element as well. What is great to see is that all the pieces are connected, in the same style and working together to drive customers. Good going Alphagraphics!

I received one of the most powerful pieces of personalised communications today. It wasn’t trying to sell me something and it wasn’t some ground breaking piece that used 6 different mediums and multiple touch-points. It was a single email, personalised simply and it would’ve normally paled into insignificance. However this piece was different …

The ‘WhatTheyThink’ Newsletter arrives in my inbox daily – and some days I look at it and some days I have to admit that it goes straight into the bin. Which is a shame, as the WhatTheyThink content is normally pretty good. Maybe too much of a good thing huh. Anyway, the words, “Goodbye from WhatTheyThink” struck a cord.

I have to admit that I thought that they were going bankrupt at first – but that was not the case…

WhatTheyThink were dumping me! They were actually going to stop sending me things! They were being conscious about cluttering up my inbox – which is the contextual equivalent of the infamous line, “It’s not you, it’s me!”.

Eric Vessels was personally dumping me. Wow!

I’m sure if it was male pride, a hurt ego or a re-vitalised interested in WhatTheyThink, but you know what?

I clicked on that link, and updated my profile bloody sharpish. I’m not having no Eric Vessels, COO of WhatTheyThink dumping me!

It got me thinking though – it’s a brave and wise tactic. Let’s look in our database and extract out all the customers whom haven’t responded to one of our communications, and let’s go out and tell them that we are stopping. It’s a win-win situation. You either win because your reduced the size of your database by removing those that have no immediate interest in you or you win because you have just reaffirmed that the people in your database are actually interested and want to hear from you.

So, if your marketing campaign is failing, and your database is full of hangers-on; then go out and tell them that you are leaving them – and see what reply you get!