DirectSmile Debuts Latest Online Marketing Solution, Cross Media 4.0, at GRAPH EXPO
BERLIN—09/27/2010—Following the success of its European launch of the first intuitive software for personalised online campaigns, DirectSmile will show, for the first time in the USA, its revolutionary Cross Media solution incorporating an intuitive cross-media toolkit, Cross Media Designer.
Cross Media Designer is a single-screen interface which allows user to harness the power of Cross Media 4.0 without any knowledge of html coding. It incorporates every element required to quickly build personalised websites and integrated e-mail campaigns. According to Axel Marciniak, General Manager at Direct Smile, “Cross Media 4.0 with Cross Media Designer is a software revolution for online marketeers. There is no other software in the world that can build response-intensive PURLs and e-mails as easily, just by dragging and dropping elements into a layout.”
Drag-and-drop functionality, with the ability to collect and manage digital assets, preview designs and interrogate the recipient database, enables users to easily create highly targeted and effective campaigns in a totally new and more flexible way. This single-screen approach to creation, testing and despatch dramatically increases the potential for campaign success, through fast implementation and real-time design freedom.
“Without HTML know-how and programming skills, anyone can now easily produce layouts for PURLs and e-mailings, including personalised customer-relevant images, headlines and body copy, and distribute the finished result to a database of individual recipients. This provides a highly effective and low cost entry into digital marketing with fast start up”
The heart of the design toolkit is a dynamic preview area which not only shows progress in real time, but also shows exactly how the campaign will look in all common browsers. With the recipient database on the same screen, users can choose a record and see the matching individualised preview at once.
The total capabilities of Cross Media 4.0 bring key benefits to Print Service Providers (PSP), Agencies and Corporate enterprises. For example, PSPs traditionally provide only the printed element of campaigns. Now, with very little investment and no extra skills, they can provide a more comprehensive service to their customers by adding the digital element. For agencies a wide variety of campaigns can be built, from SME sales promotions to major campaigns for blue-chip brands, all using existing resources with no involvement from web designers or IT specialists.
“And for corporate, the solution provides an answer to that everlasting question of campaign measurement,” adds Axel. “Cross Media 4.0 presents detailed data of customer behavior, making the ROI of campaigns transparent. Also, time and money efficiencies are derived from in-house implementation rather than working with outside agencies.”
The benefits are applicable to all users. The complete Cross Media 4.0 solution provides easy access into the world of personalised digital communication. It provides a fast and cost-effective solution to online marketing, from which users can drive new revenue streams due not only to its flexibility but also its integrated and creative capabilities.
“Statistics show that digital marketeers have on average only two seconds to catch the attention of at least 50% of their target audience. For this reason alone, it is essential to get the right mix of creative design, messaging and fulfilment, “comments Franziska Müller, Marketing Director at DirectSmile. “A personalised web page is always an added stimulus for recipients to investigate further, especially if you add Direct Smile’s unique image personalisation. Using the latest capabilities of Cross Media 4.0, personalised campaigns can be created, with images, headlines and body copy all individualised to the recipient directly through links to the database.”
The speed of campaign development is essential for the fast-moving digital world. Using Cross Media Designer, Cross Media 4.0 allows shorter development cycles and faster review with stakeholders and colleagues as well as test market opportunities, using website statistics, to gauge campaign effectiveness and to refine further communications based on recipient behaviour.”
“The trend towards more online campaigns is clear. For example, current trends suggest that online brand-focused ad spending will increase to 42% over the next four years,” concludes Franziska. “As the first integrated tool to create personalised websites without html, Cross Media 4.0 is clearly one of the easiest ways to participate in this growth and make a dramatic impact without having to invest in a team of web-programmers, designers and IT specialists.”
About DirectSmile
DirectSmile is the inventor of image personalization and one of the leading suppliers of software for variable data printing and cross-media marketing. Award-winning DirectSmile solutions allow users to implement sophisticated personalization tasks with ease, efficiency and smooth workflows, and leverage the power of one-to-one-communications across all media. DirectSmile solutions are designed for true mass-personalization, allowing million-volume database-driven communications both in printed and digital media with the ability to track detailed campaign feedback. www.directsmile.de