Of course, there never was a real tennis match at the show and those that tried their luck at “winning” were actually winning something very different. Rather what they “won” was the chance to experience first-hand the power of video personalization with XMPie. This experience at Print 13 was the first time that any exhibitor has taken live video footage of participants and combined it with real footage and imagery in order to play out a compelling sports scenario. Best of all, after the movie was created, it was emailed to recipients and able to be downloaded, and shared on social media. If you want to see the final product, check out mine at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq5sKjmhF2w&feature=youtube_gdata . It is pretty amazing considering that just a few years ago, videos were not even displayed on websites. And now, live footage is being magically combined with other clips and images to create a truly personal, memorable experience for attendees.

Of course there is no magic in this. It is done with the power of XMPie and any MPS, agency and enterprise marketer can do it too. Essentially, that is the point of the showcase – to demonstrate that with Adobe After Effects (AE) and the XMPie plug-in uDirect® Video, you can easily offer your customers the experience of personalized video. Just think of the impact of a movie where every text field, image, graphic, and movie clip is specially selected for each campaign recipient. What do you think is the response rate to a campaign in which your recipient views a movie on a tablet or smartphone with messages just for them? That answer can be found on one of my previous blogs here (http://blog.xmpie.com/2013/06/news-flash-personalized-video-secrets-revealed/.

So how are these movies created?  In short, the process is very simple and if you want to see how the US Open Tennis campaign was done please check out the short “how to” video clip on this webpage www.xmpie.com/PEVideo.

The point here is that personalized video is here – and growing very fast in usage by marketers in all types of industries. For providers that serve these companies with integrated, multi-channel campaigns, adding this capability has unmatched competitive advantage, providing new, highly profitable business opportunities and growth. It is truly the winning formula for success —and the perfect time for you to get in the game.

To learn more about XMPie Video personalization, contact me today at larry.zusman@us.xmpie.com or contact your local XMPie or Xerox sales representative.

uCreate XM is your Design Center: As a single point of control for all functions of site creation and design, uCreate XM provides a simplified, easy to learn workflow.

A single process for all email types: From a single command center, uProduce, define, test  and send both batch and triggered emails.

Gain insight into emails: Track and analyze triggered emails and track recipient clicks on any link (PURL, external site) embedded in an email through PersonalEffect Analytics.

Better email viewing through mobile: Mobile devices are growing in popularity as the go-to device for email, and this release provides a new and improved email experience for recipients viewing communications on these devices.

Preview email: From the uProduce online editor, know exactly what the recipient will see when they view their email.

These are just a few of the enhancements we’ve made to the PersonalEffect experience. For more details on these enhancements and to learn about others, visit the PersonalEffect release notes page on the XMPie 1 to 1 Portal (accessible only to XMPie customers) at http://1to1.xmpie.com/app/cip.nsf/pages/20078.

The statistics are mind-boggling. All over the Internet there is news about the explosive growth of video sites such as YouTube® and Vimeo®. If you sift through the data, you find amazing metrics for YouTube that include the following: 60 hours of video gets uploaded every minute; 4 billion videos are watched every day; 800 million visitors per month; and 600 million views per day on mobile devices. But even more striking is when you get to the “meat and potatoes” related to growth in the business sector. YouTube is monetizing over 3 billion video views per week globally; 98 of AdAge™’s Top 100 advertisers have run campaigns on YouTube and the Google® Display Network; and more than a million advertisers are using the Google video ad platforms, the majority of which are small businesses www.jeffbullas.com/2012/05/23/35-mind-numbing-youtube-facts-figures-and-statistics-infographic/.  In the case of Vimeo the growth has been very impressive, as well. Socialtimes.com recently reported that over 5 million people joined Vimeo in 2012, bringing the site’s total to 14 million, and more than 675 million people tuned in to watch Vimeo videos last year.

So where is the tie-in to personalized videos? As I have already blogged about, XMPie introduced the concept of video personalization using a versatile Adobe® After Effects™ plug-in, in 2011. Last year, we released our first version of our uDirect® Video software and the interest among marketing service providers, agencies and their corporate marketing clients has exceeded expectations. In many industries, including automotive, higher education, real estate, education, financial services, and non-profits, the XMPie personalized video solution is being used to efficiently pre-generate highly targeted, relevant movies with text, images and video footage specific to the recipient. Most of these campaigns are running on mobile devices and some are extensions of more comprehensive cross-media campaigns utilizing emails and RURLs/PURLs.  Some have used original After Effects (AE) personalized video templates and others have been generated using pre-created AE templates, such as those found on www.revostock.com.  As described in my last blog, the initial response data with personalized video campaigns is showing over 50% click through rates and over 95% conversion from qualified leads to sales (http://blog.xmpie.com/2013/06/news-flash-personalized-video-secrets-revealed/.

In our latest release (XMPie uDirect® Video 1.5) we ensure that customers can leverage the explosive growth of both YouTube and Vimeo. This release allows the user the option to first optimize the rendering of movies, using our unique MovieSet format, and then automatically upload the rendered personalized movies to YouTube or Vimeo. The process is very simple. You just enter in your YouTube or Vimeo credentials, identify the location where you want the videos placed, and the software does the rest. Even better, you can set it up to work with private or public YouTube or Vimeo sites. And for those with the XMPie cross-media platform, the news gets even better. You can now easily integrate videos uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo into an existing XMPie PersonalEffect® multi-channel campaign. Another nice feature of this new release is that you can now use static and variable fields to name your movies, making it easy to name a file Happy Birthday <FirstName>.mp4, for example.  If you are concerned about the complexity of generating these videos, it requires some know-how of Adobe After Effects and base level experience with video content. Other than that, all you need is a database with the personalized content and the XMPie desktop software – which is designed as a “plug and play” solution. If you are worried that jumping into this new media will bankrupt you, let me assure you that at less than $10k for the software package, it will pay for itself with your first campaign.

There are few opportunities that have come along in the past few years with more potential than personalized video campaigns on YouTube and Vimeo.  Marketers know the reach and response power of advertising campaigns utilizing these sites – especially on mobile devices – making the development and implementation of these programs a case of “when” and not “if”.  For providers able to offer these high-value services, the sky is the limit. Investing now in this capability or partnering to deliver it provides a springboard to becoming a true MSP –Multi-channel Services Provider.

For more information on XMPie video personalization, email me at larry.zusman@us.xmpie.com.

From 2009 through 2011 (the awards were not held in 2012), XMPie users produced impressively innovative work, and we’ll be sharing their stories with you. Stop by our page and read about door hangers that got a personal message across, personalized calendars that had orders rolling in, a program that had an impact on the lives of thousands of children, a personal touch that gave prospective students a taste of campus life, a deliciously innovative gift and much more. We are very proud of the work that our clients achieve. We work with so many talented people, and we want to share their success stories with you. So stay tuned each week. We’ll be sharing at least one story all the way through to the first week of September, and then we’ll be announcing the winners!

And best of luck to the XMPie users who’ve entered this year’s competition!

To follow these stories, visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/xmpie.

We developed Circle because we saw a real need for parties involved in cross-media campaigns to easily convey and interpret ideas and plans. Anyone who’s participated in a cross-media campaign, whether it be as the provider or the customer, knows how complicated it can be to visualize the campaign. There are so many elements to a cross-media campaign – print pieces that lead to PURLs that spur emails and mobile messages, and much more, in numerous combinations – and all of these elements can quickly lead to confusion. Circle addresses this by providing users with a virtual storyboard, where a campaign can be articulated to all parties involved in a highly visual manner, with creative examples too.

One of the areas where we’ve especially gotten praise for Circle, has been on the tool’s ability to help a salesperson pitch a campaign. As service providers are often faced with pitching campaigns to people with no working knowledge of cross-media (or sometimes of marketing in general), getting buy-in can sometimes be quite challenging. Circle users have found the tool to be a major asset when describing the concept of a proposed campaign, as it gives them the ability to tell a campaign’s story in pictures. For example, Graham Reed, New Business Director at Varia Solutions, had this to say about how Circle has helped his team sell campaigns:

“One of the fundamental issues that I have in sales in working with multi-channel solutions is how do I get buy-in and adoption from my customers. It is all well and good me and my team understanding the applications and benefits of a cross range of digital and print solutions, but sometimes the customers struggle to understand fully the journey and how all the various elements of a complete end to end marketing communication strategy can work together and in what order. Circle from XMPie has solved all these issue for us. This online campaign planning tool enables us to ‘Visually Articulate’ our ideas and solutions, which has assisted us to achieve much greater customer understanding of our ideas and strategies.”

To see what PODi has to say about Circle, take a look at their blog post here: http://www.blog.caslon.net/slick-tool-to-help-design-collaborate-and-sell-marketing-solutions and their product briefing here: http://www.caslon.net/XMPie-Circle-PODi-Product-Briefing.html and for a quick intro to Circle, watch the video below. Thank you very much to PODi and all of the Circle users who’ve given us so many compliments! We’re happy that Circle has contributed to your success!

You can download Circle for free at www.xmpie.com/circle.

Don’t be intimidated by numbers, but master them using this webinar replay.  You will understand how to conduct a marketing business conversation based on numbers with much more confidence, hence gain credibility with C-Level of corporations.  Furthermore, you will surely increase your own closing rate and revenue target.

To access the webinar, visit the XMPie 1 to 1 Portal at http://1to1.xmpie.com/App/cip.nsf/pages/20457. If you don’t have access to the portal, contact marketing@xmpie.com to request access to the recording.

For example, the ability to collaborate is both wonderful and necessary, but how do you best put that ability to use? How can you turn your team’s harmony into a true competitive advantage? By implementing tools that are specifically designed to enhance and cater to collaboration. XMPie Circle, our free, cloud-based campaign collaboration and visualization tool, uniquely allows you to map out your cross-media campaign plan on a virtual storyboard. It gives your team – and any other stakeholders you want involved – the ability to work together in a highly visual environment that makes it easy for all parties involved to understand what the plan is and what people’s roles in the project will involve. Even those who work well together can experience communication issues, and when envisioning a cross-media campaign, its complexities can lead to misunderstanding. With a tool like Circle, you can ensure that everyone is on the same page, so that any feedback or suggestions given will be as effective and helpful as possible. You can view a short video demo and download the software for free at www.xmpie.com/circle.

Tools aren’t necessarily tangible things, though. Some of the best tools out there are strategies and knowledge. Ultimately, a team made up of good people is only as good as the strategies and knowledge that drive it. The approach that an MSP takes when pitching a cross-media campaign, for example, is critical to the company’s success, and there are a number of hurdles that are commonly faced here, such as how to: sell the idea overall, avoid the classic pitfalls, factor in budget and pricing, set the right expectations and position the ROMI. Armed with the proper strategies and knowledge, these hurdles can be easily overcome. This is the topic of our upcoming webinar on June 18 at 8am EDT, “Mastering the Numbers Game of 1:1 Cross-Media Marketing”. Join XMPie and cross-media expert Helene Blanchette to gain the necessary tools to combat these obstacles and help your team succeed. To register or to request a recording of the session, visit bit.ly/11MpHo3. 

The reality is that any clients will have doubts when exposed to new marketing strategies and new channels.  If you are not prepared to dig deep into the second layer of answers and augment your sales approach, you might rapidly stumble and lose your opportunity. If your conversation is too optimistic, such as, “You can reach 10 to 15% or even 30% response rate,” while talking to a mature marketer who only pulls a 2 to 4 % response rate, you might just bluntly insult your client – or your boss if your client is the internal CMO.

In fact, for most people, activities such as discussing budget or marketing performances in detail or having to defend the higher price of a cross-media campaign against the multiple other ways to do marketing in the digital age, fall in the discomfort zone.  Truth be told, unless you master the numbers game and understand how to discuss it with clients, you might simply work a lot for little success.  In other words, your closing rate will be low.

To increase your chance of success, come and learn how to overcome these challenges at XMPie’s webinar, “Mastering the Numbers Game of 1:1 Cross-Media Marketing”, on Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 8 a.m. EDT. Follow this link to register: bit.ly/11MpHo3 

And that (hush-hush) is exactly what you now can do. XMPie uDirect® Video software is the solution for creating pre-generated, After Effects-based, personalized, mp4 videos: http://www.xmpie.com/PEVideo. But why is it so easy to sell these personalized videos for those firms not positioned as traditional video production houses, like MSPs and DM agencies? Because you are not selling static movies – you are selling recipient-specific video messaging that is an extension of your multichannel campaigns – oftentimes using similar content to the other campaign components, i.e. print, email, Web. For providers, you are presumed to be providing this component – and tracking and measuring its success, as with the other parts of the campaign.

There are more secrets to share. First, to use the XMPie solution you do have to have a working knowledge of After Effects but do not need Hollywood-level design expertise. The key is being able to manipulate content and work with layers in an AE project. There are college students graduating from Graphic Arts and Video Production programs everywhere that know how to do this. Right where you do business there is probably a video firm or two that can assist you with creating a custom template. And to help you get off the ground quickly, there are even stock video sites with ready-to-use After Effects templates – thousands of them in fact. Check out www.revostock.com,  for example, and feast your eyes on some fantastic templates that can be used as is, modified or shown to prospects as excellent idea-starters. Best of all, if you need assistance with creating custom personalized video templates, we have help for you through our advanced video technology partners (more on this later).

Personalized videos are being sold and developed in many industries. For automotive companies and dealers, targeted movies showing the new model is the perfect “vehicle” for marketing of lease renewals:

In the travel and hospitality industry, customized videos display relevant location, hotel, activity and contact information for each recipient:

In the financial sector, personalized videos have been very effective at generating double-digit response rates and conversion rates exceeding 95%. Other industries with significant growth opportunities with personalized video campaigns include retail, event marketing, gaming, sales motivation and manufacturing. This new world of video personalization is clearly a world of opportunity for those able to deliver it.

Once you have the data linked to the AE project, generating and rendering the movies is relatively simple. The magic is in the ability of the solution to render the static content once and stitch it together with the variable content for each individual video – automatically.  After the rendering of the mp4 movies is complete, there are many options for deployment, hosting and delivery, and none of them are something secret. For example, you could use an email tied to a PURL with the video embedded on the landing page. The PURL and video reside on a server or cloud. XMPie personalized videos are treated no different than any other mp4 movie. In our soon-to-be-released next version, you will be able to render the videos and automatically upload them to YouTube® or Vimeo®.  However you set it up, it’s easy, straightforward, and should certainly not be a barrier to adding this to your service offerings and using it to drive response.

OK, you know you can sell it, but are not sure you can create, host and deploy it. For those of you who want to dip in the pool and not dive in, we have the perfect roadmap. You start by using one of our advanced video technology partners for the whole project or part of it. Your success is guaranteed. You get a lot smarter about how to do it. And once you establish a track record as a provider or a competence level as a user, you make the needed investments to go into this business and make it part of your campaigns.

And the price to get into this video personalization business?  That is the biggest secret of them all which must be revealed. The XMPie solution is under $10,000 (US). And Adobe After Effects is around a $1000 (US). In short, we are talking about a very small investment with a very large return.

As IDC summarized in their most recent Product Flash on uDirect Video, “PSPs (which are often referred to as marketing service providers these days) understand the value of personalization to increase the chances for success in reaching end customers. Previously 1:1 marketing meant print, email, and Web content, and now, video can really take a campaign to the next level…XMPie has packaged and priced uDirect Video to make it widely accessible.”  

So what are you waiting for? Why be last to the party? Grab your share of the revenue, profit and business growth with this exciting new media. Want to experience more personalized video samples and hear more?  Click on the link to our 1to1 Portal below and learn all about this new market and the XMPie video personalization solution in our recent Webinar on the subject. If you don’t have access to our Portal but want to view the webinar, email me a request at larry.zusman@us.xmpie.com.

XMPie Webinar Replay: Lights…Camera…Video Personalization and Maps in Action!

http://1to1.xmpie.com/app/cip.nsf/pages/20448

What is a key element to these endeavors? Signage. Companies need to ensure that customers will be aware of special offers each time they enter a store, and the most sure-fire way to do this is with signage, and other point-of-sale materials as well. Signage, though, can be a challenge for companies with multiple locations, especially during times of increased promotional activity. How do you ensure that each store has the signage and materials they need – items that look professional and adhere to the corporate style guidelines? It might seem simple to some, but this can be a truly difficult task to manage. Often what ends up happening is that individual stores will create signage and other point-of-sale materials on their own, and while these efforts are well-meaning, it tends to damage brand consistency.

Marsh Supermarkets, a grocery store chain with 97 locations across Indiana and Ohio, was experiencing this very problem. Their method for ordering and producing signage was time consuming, stores that needed to promote something quickly resorted to creating signage on their own and over half the materials Marsh produced were thrown away. To improve and speed up this process and to gain consistent brand control, Marsh worked with the experts at DesktopMedia to create a storefront driven by XMPie PersonalEffect and uStore Web-to-print software. Each store was given its own login, where they could order template-based customized signage in the sizes and quantities they needed. After implementing the solution, production costs were cut in half (thanks in part to significant waste reduction and reduction in man-hours), just-in-time print production was enabled and brand control issues became a thing of the past.

As the summer season kicks into high gear, chances are that many companies out there will be combatting the same issues that Marsh once did. To learn more about how Marsh overcame their challenges, read their case study, available on the XMPie 1 to 1 Portal and our website, and watch a replay of their webinar, Web-to-Print in Retail – A Customer Story, also available on the 1 to 1 Portal.