When you think of personalized communications, what comes to mind? Possibly something along the lines of “Hi Joe, check out this offer” or “Isn’t New England cold this time of year?”. But what kind of value does this sort of personalization actually provide. With advances in technology and new media, why are we not providing more value through personalization rather than just trying to impress them with our fancy greeting.

Well, we at Magicomm have been thinking a lot about this recently and have worked hard to come up with unique campaigns that go beyond traditional personalization. For example, in a recent campaign we did for Canon USA we wanted to establish each prospects pain points and address their issues in a unique manner. We achieved this through a set of video testimonials that reorganizes itself based on the individuals responsibilities. What we ended up with was the beginning of a conversation that we hope to continue in the free webinars that are a component of the campaign, which includes personalized mailer, purl, responding email, and the videos.

So the more information I have about my prospect the better?

Well not necessarily. You don’t want to scare them away as there is such thing as TOO personal. Instead of talking about how you know where they were last week (creepy), why not instead use that information to write a more appealing call to action.

Now taking this idea of personalization to your every day marketing strategies, wouldn’t it be cool if you could welcome your users to your blog with a customized message based on how they came across your blog. For example, if you know someone found your site through YouTube, why not also ask them to friend you on YouTube and check out the rest of your companies videos. The technology exists, it’s just on us to push it’s limits.

Personalization was fun at first because we could “see our name in lights”. Now it’s time we become more sophisticated with our marketing communications by providing relevant information that is taylored to the receiptants interests. It’s not rocket science … just the next logical step.

Recognizing the merging of media workflows is HUGE for Printers and their customers

I have reviewed the new Adobe Creative Suite 4 features and I have only one thing to say…AWESOME…INCREDIBLE….WOW!

Ok, that was more than one word, but Adobe has really outdone themselves this time. What is clear is that they have recognized that “Content is King” and the creators of the content need to move faster and be more efficient, while enabling them to move across different medium seamlessly. Consider It Done, Number 1!

In reviewing the key new features of the entire CS4 product line, I have some thoughts. I know that many of you will be surprised at that, but let’s discuss that at another time. My thoughts are below.

• Speed Enhancements: Photoshop really got a supercharged upgrade. Moving large file without having significant wait times is a big deal. None of us get paid extra for watching the screen refreshing. That just costs us time and money. Besides, we have a tendency to be bored and then our attention will wonder to Twitter (@ricklittrell) or check the local news on the economy (well, maybe not. I don’t want to get depressed). Also, adding real time Preflight lets us fix things while we are working on them and will help us down the road as these files get deeper in the process, where all changes are more expensive and could impact the final delivery. Multiple art boards in Illustrator shows that they recognize the reality that in integrated marketing has many parts and that they all may not be the same. Good Call!
• Image Editing: Content-Aware scaling is INCREDIBLE! When I first saw it in the announcement, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’m sure that situations will arise that will cause some hiccups, but just making the scaling algorithm more “content sensitive” is very cool. I don’t know how they did that, but my hats off to them (whoever “them” is at Adobe). Additionally, enhancing the editing of 3-D images will make these tools a “must have” for those of us (and who would not qualify in the graphics industry) that provide solutions integrated with the internet. I can only image what type of Avatars will come from this feature set. This will be fun to watch.
• Video: They have clearly shifted into high gear with the video functionality. With video being one of the fastest growing areas on the internet, having more tools at your finger tips for video and audio editing and integration will be a huge time saver, as well as allowing us to better build the imagery that our clients push us to. Variable video will become easier to produce and deploy. By adding their new “Speech to text” abilities that will link directly to the metadata, will enhance our ability to search for specific scenes and make these clips more internet search friendly. The search engine optimization friendliness of this function is HUGE! Don’t leave home without it.
• Interaction between Adobe applications: They have completed (for the time being) the integration of Macromedia into the Adobe core product line. Bouncing from medium to medium, without losing significant features in the process, allows designers/illustrators/photographers to play in all mediums at once. This will not replace the skill sets required to excel in each medium, but this recognizes that being “multi-media” friendly is the new world (and very fun world) for the creative and graphics production community. Kudos to Adobe for giving us the ability and tools to do this more easily. This is a step forward with enabling us to produce cross media solutions quicker. It’s still a challenge, but the mediums have so much overlap in today’s marketing, graphics production, and creative world, it just got easier to do. NOT EASY, just easier.
• Collaboration: By bundling in with Acrobat Connect, they understand that everyone on the team for a project may not be in the same location. That is the reality today for most of us. Due to the complexity of the integrated campaigns that have become the norm, most of us partner with others to expand our abilities to support our clients in an expanding media world. NO ONE, not even the biggest companies, can have on staff the necessary skill sets to produce, at a high level, an integrated campaign without assistance from outside groups and individuals. With “the outside” being potentially beyond your country boarders, even on the other side of the world. We are in a worldwide economy (the past week’s events confirms that even more), we need tools that allow us to build best-in-class teams, from a selection of partners that potentially could be located anywhere in the world. We will still have the language and cultural issues that have to be dealt with, but the geographic issues just got reduced and we all are now closer and the better for it.

So, that’s my cut on the new Adobe Creative Suite 4. With Magicomm focusing on cross media solutions, that use variable data printing, customized emails, personalized url’s, and variable video (with social media thrown into the mix for good measure), we are very excited about this release. Many of you already know that I have been a HUGE (both physically and philosophically) supporter of Adobe for many years and with this released they have confirmed my support. Great job, Adobe! Now the challenge is…What do you do next to top this?

“See” Ya Later,

Rick Littrell

Magicomm, LLC

The term ‘viral marketing’ gets thrown around a lot but do people really know what it means. A lot of the most popular viral videos were unintentionally viral, so what do they have that my marketing campaign doesn’t.

Here’s my basic rubric for viral success:

• People enjoy quality original content (You have to stick out from the rest of the crowd so this is extremely important)
• Simplicity (Load times and ease of use weigh heavily on viral marketing campaigns)
• Scalability (Can your server handle the rush?)
• Viral enabling tools (We use a ‘refer a friend approach’ but you can use social media sharing buttons like ‘AddThis’ or ‘ShareThis’ that utilize social media to drive visits)

The most important component of any viral marketing campaign is again, the quality unique content. Magicomm uses rich interactive media in our websites to try and stick out, whether it be a variable video or some type of flash application. It’s becoming harder and harder to catch Internet users off guard because we’ve already seen a lot of it.

So remember the number 1 rule: Quality Original Content

Moving from a “Push” model to more of a “Pull” model.

The New England Printer & Publisher Magazine just published an article “The new marketing and sales business model” by John R. Graham, who is president of Graham Communications. This is one of the first articles that I have seen in a Print-focused magazine which discusses the concept of “social media marketing” and how it is impacting conventional marketing wisdom. It is important that printing companies that want to become “marketing solutions providers” pay attention to this trend. I think that he is DEAD ON in his assessment!

There’s an interesting dynamic going on now in the global marketplace. The individual is taking control of their communications (now being more appropriately called “conversations”) with corporations. Now, an individual that is not satisfied with a product or service can communicate that worldwide in nanoseconds through the power of the internet. The traditional editing process that publishers provided during the dissimilation of information has been reduced, if not completely removed in most instances. With YouTube, blogs, discussion groups, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc….The individual (or community would be a better description) has taken control of the message from the corporations. Corporations must “interact” with their customers if they expect to thrive in the future.

The concept of “Open” bi-directional communication between an individual and a corporation should be the rule, not the exception. By using this strategy, while engaging in a conversation, you will reap surprised by the results. But putting this into place requires commitment of resources and time. You have to develop a culture that wants to share and be committed to create an “individual” conversation between your customer/market/prospect. Strategies will vary, but the result will remain the same…Have conversation with individuals, Enhance relationship with market, Expand revenue opportunities. It’s as simple as that.

“See” Ya Later,

Rick Littrell

Magicomm, LLC

So it’s no news that a personalized landing page as a response portal to any kind of direct marketing campaign can increase response rates dramatically, but where’s the next step up?

Well it seems as if there are multiple cross-media technologies emerging from the web to help engage, interact and even entertain the user, therefore increasing conversions. We’ve seen how XMPie can personalize images with its powerful VDP engine, but what if the user could change their name at runtime? Furthermore, what if the users name wasn’t in an image, but in a short movie? This is the future of PURLs and will be a hit in the social media world.

I received a link through Twitter for a website about a TV Show on FX and I was amazed at what they had done. Here is the PURL someone made for me. This type of PURL has both a viral marketing factor to it and a huge fun component. Everyone wants to be the star of their own movie and show it off to all of their friends. Personalized video could very well be a key component in the future of PURLs as VDP in images becomes all too familiar.

Another key component will be the “on demand” factor. General URL’s are limited in how they perform once you leave the realm of your database. So how do you appeal to the masses with personalized landing pages? Well, why not have the website change at runtime. Here’s something my own company put together. Basically I wanted the user to be able to interact with the flash movie in real time from outside of the movie via the web-form. Using JavaScript, I was able to insert the users name into the newspaper at runtime and it’s had an amazing response. Using this method there are endless possibilities to creating unique personalized experiences where everyone has their own PURL.

People need a break from their everyday activities and these fun side trackers give them this opportunity and not only will these methods produce higher responses, but they’re great for PR. So the future is about Interactivity and Engagement, have fun!