Printing for an Audience of One: Variable Color Output and the Future of Marketing by Thad McIlroy

PRINTING FOR

AN AUDIENCE OF ONE

VARIABLE COLOR OUTPUT AND THE FUTURE OF MARKETING

PRINTING FOR

AN AUDIENCE OF ONE WHY DO WE DESIGN JUST ONE MESSAGE for all of our customers, and then print and distribute thousands of copies? Surely we could achieve greater results if we designed the message with each customer in mind — individually, personally. But until recently the only technology available for quality color printing was the offset press, and that meant printing the same message for everyone. With digital color printing systems like the Agfa ChromapressTM, we now have the tools available that let us create individualized marketing messages. This publication is intended to change the way you think about print communication. We’ll show you how variable data printing creates the unique opportunity to produce personalized print materials for an audience of one.

THE PROMISE OF PERSONAL COMMUNICATION

DIGITAL COLOR PRINTING GETS PERSONAL

TARGETING AN AUDIENCE OF ONE

ONE-TO-ONE MARKETING IN ACTION

FOUR DEGREES OF CUSTOMIZATION

CREATING CUSTOM DOCUMENTS

TH E PROM I S E O F

PERSONAL COMMUNICATION THE SPOKEN WORD can be used for groups, or in one-on-one situations, but the printed word has always been a tool for mass communication. Few people challenge the wisdom of sending one message to everyone. Historically the economics of

publishing have always favored mass delivery. We face large up-front costs for design and production, and so we’re inclined to try and spread those costs over as broad a delivery program as possible. This broad delivery program necessarily reaches a diverse audience. People are separated by so many different factors, everything from race to sex to their attitude toward what kind of beverage tastes best. The drawback to mass communication is that you’re forced to find a single message for a single audience. That means finding the “lowest common denominator“ — a message that appeals to the largest number of people. A message that must hold some appeal for many is often a message that few people identify strongly with. Trying to reach the masses, our statement is

often so bland and general that it passes through the marketplace without really being noticed.

Project Management

Prepress/Proofing

Design

Printing

Writing

Storage

Illustration/Photography

Shipping/Distribution

Production THE HIDDEN COSTS OF PUBLISHING You have only to look a little below the surface to find that printing is but one of many costs associated with the publishing process. The real cost is much greater than most publishers assume.

For years marketing and communications managers have wished they could find a way to reach customers and prospects with a more direct and personal message. It just hasn’t been possible. There are two different problems, one related to customer data, and the other related to publishing and broadcasting. Many companies didn’t know their target audience as individuals. They saw them as aggregates, or groups.

AUDIENCE REACH IN MEDIA As band width narrows, targeting tightens. When the target becomes an individual, one-to-one marketing begins.

NARROW REACH MAGAZINES VIDEO WORLD WIDE WEB BROCHURES CD-ROM

ONE-TO-ONE TELEPHONE SALESPERSON WORLD WIDE WEB WIDE REACH

E-MAIL

TELEVISION

CUSTOMIZED PRINTING

RADIO NEWSPAPERS MAGAZINES DIRECT MAIL BROCHURES

For those few companies that could identify their customers as individuals, there was no available system able to tailor communication to each individual within the group.

Printing, publishing, and broadcast media — these have always been the tools of mass communication. In the 1990s, all of these conditions have changed dramatically, and very rapidly. The

The major impediment to using corporate databases for targeted publishing is access. The databases are carefully guarded, and most corporations don’t think that marketing communication is a good reason to grant access.

development of powerful, distributed database systems allows companies to collect and process data in increasingly effective ways. The only limit to how much data can be collected is what a firm is willing to spend collecting it, and what information customers are willing to divulge. The World Wide Web is showing the way to custom publishing. A broad range of Web publishing systems can deliver individual page views based on the viewer’s stated preferences. Print-based systems face a challenge in matching the capabilities of this technology.

Two major developments have changed broadcasting and publishing. The first is the spread of the Internet and the creation of the World Wide Web. A cross between broadcasting and publishing, the Web is proving to be a powerful and versatile tool for marketing communication. The latest Web publishing software enables companies to target customers as individuals, delivering only the information the customers request, or that the corporation thinks will be of interest.

The second major development is variable data printing. A merging of database information and digital imaging technology, variable data printing makes it possible for each printed page to be different from all the others, tailored to the person who’s going to receive it. It’s a big step toward completely personalized communication, and it’s the perfect complement to what’s happening on the World Wide Web.

D I G I TA L CO LO R PR I N T I N G

GETS PERSONAL THERE ARE THREE PARTS in the term digital color printing: “digital,” “color” and “printing”— but “digital” is the most important. The process is entirely digital. The document is created on a computer. From there the file is digitally transmitted directly to the press. Because the press is digitally driven, the data can be customized. It can vary from print to print, just as fast as the printing system can image it. Systems like Agfa’s Chromapress image up to 70 different 8.5" x 11" (or A4) pages per minute. That's a key differentiator from offset presses, which are designed to handle only one original document at a time. The trade-off is in cost per impression. Unit costs are higher on digital color presses, so it’s important to consider the added value and greater impact of customization.

Industry surveys have shown that up to 35% of all print collateral is recycled or destroyed without ever being distributed.

But the key to understanding digital color printing doesn’t relate to the printing systems themselves, but rather to what you do with the digital features of the system. Here the concept breaks into two distinct areas — short-run printing and variable data printing. Short-run printing is just as it sounds: fewer impressions than we could normally economically undertake with offset printing. Because of press make-ready costs, 4-color sheet-fed offset is rarely economical in press runs under 1,000 copies. These new digital presses are designed for fewer copies — as few as one copy. There is little or no variable press cost because there is little or no make-ready

OBSOLESCENCE FACTOR

involved. Therefore, you can print just what you need, when you need it. Shorter

PRICE CHANGES

runs have higher unit costs, but this is often offset by the decreased storage cost,

NEW SPECIFICATIONS

and, more importantly, by the much greater accuracy of the printed material.

DATES AND SEASONS

With digital printing systems, document obsolescence can be eliminated.

NEW CONTACT INFO NEW LOGO/VISUAL STYLE CHANGE IN FOCUS NEW SERVICES NEW PRODUCTS

The pace of change in technology keeps accelerating, but we still print the same way we did 25 years ago. Because the start-up costs on a print job can be very high, people tend to print many copies and store them in offices and warehouses. The result is that a significant percentage of printed materials becomes obsolete. Because print is expensive, we generally keep distributing it, even with minor errors. Eventually the extent of the inaccuracies becomes unacceptable, and we must dispose of the balance of the press run, then print up another large quantity. Can’t we find a better way?

MASS COMMUNICATION Traditional mass communication offers a single message. The chances of finding the perfect message are slim.

VERSIONING Because every audience varies widely, whether by demographics or stated preferences, different versions of a publication can speak more directly to different groups of readers.

CUSTOMIZATION When we can leverage the information in a corporate database to distinguish between each customer or prospect, we can design a publication that acknowledges what makes that person unique.

WOULDN’T IT BE GREAT IF YOU COULD SPEAK TO EACH PERSON? Most print marketing documents are either “product-centric“ or “customer-centric“. Productcentric print collateral focuses on the features and benefits of the product. The collateral is widely distributed to a broad group of customers. Customer-centric collateral describes the product benefits for a specific individual or group. This collateral can be tightly focused through variable data printing.

With “variable data printing” you create short runs, but short runs that vary. We call this “versioning.” Once we introduce variable versions, print can be more closely targeted to the audience. Perhaps your customers differ by geography, or by sex or by age, and collateral can be designed that reflects these differences. Of course the shortest run length is a run length of one. Varying the message for

each recipient is the most powerful form of variable data printing. We call this “personalization” or “customization.” You can change a name, blocks of text, pictures, the style of the design, or all of these. Just think about what this can mean to you and your company. You can speak to

each person differently; you can treat each customer like the individual he or she is. Instead of feeling like they’re anonymous and faceless, they’ll feel like you understand what it is that makes them special to your company, why it is that you value their business. Instead of your company broadcasting to the masses, you become one supplier talking to one customer. It’s a revolutionary change. In fact, there’s a name for this new kind of marketing. It’s called One-to-One Marketing.

TARGET I NG

SEX

AN AUDIENCE OF ONE

AGE MARITAL STATUS LIFESTYLE

THE TERM 1:1 MARKETING was coined by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., with their best-selling book, The One to One Future: Building Relationships One

RACE

increased market share (share of market), one-to-one marketing encourages businesses to build customer share (share of customer). “Instead of selling one product at a time to as many customers as possible,” the authors explain, “the goal of the 1:1 marketer is to sell one customer at a time as many products as possible, over the lifetime of that customer’s patronage. Mass marketers develop a product

GEOGRAPHY RENT OR OWN OCCUPATION

and try to find a customer for that product. But 1:1 marketers develop a customer and try to find products for that customer.”

EDUCATION

Central to the 1:1 marketing theory is the concept of encouraging a dialogue with each customer, and letting this dialogue foster a “Learning Relationship.”

# OF CHILDREN

The customer specifies what products or services he or she requires. The vendor provides them. The customer provides feedback and specifies new products in this

LANGUAGE(S)

collaborative relationship. Over time the customer will educate his or her supplier, and will be less likely to change vendors because the re-education process is so

COUNTRY OF BIRTH

demanding. For this same reason, a successful one-to-one marketing company can stave off the competition.

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS POLITICAL BELIEFS HOBBIES

LTV

LIFETIME VALUE OF CUSTOMER

SPORTS

ASSUMED DEMOGRAPHIC DATA The process of targeting begins with demographics, though much of this is guesswork.

OBSERVED DATA As we gain experience with our customers, we can observe their buying patterns and preferences. Targeting becomes more precise and long-time customers gain value.

QUANTITY OF CUSTOMER DATA

KNOWN DATA When your customers trust you enough to tell you what they really want, then you can work to meet their precise needs. These are the most valuable customers.

There are many kinds of demographic data that can be learned from customers and prospects. Not all of the information is relevant to our marketing strategies. The objective is to get beyond demographics and to learn about our customers on a one-to-one basis.

Receipt 00234

Technology has multiplied the ways that we can communicate with customers (and they with us). It also provides the means to record and analyze that communication, and turn it into effective marketing programs.

TODAY

1950’s

While “getting close to the customer” is also a long-standing mantra in business, technology is the key differentiator in 1:1 marketing. “For what it cost a 1950s marketer to keep track of all the individual purchases and transactions of a single customer,” Peppers and Rogers point out, “today’s marketer can track the individual purchases and transactions of several million customers, one at a time.” Today, both database and communications technologies have reached a point of wide deployment and low cost. Small business can afford technology, and Fortune 100 companies can justify the cost of maintaining extensive databases on millions of individual customers. This is what enables 1:1 marketing in the mass market. Even a decade ago, the cost was prohibitive. The cost of 1:1 marketing is balanced not against the next order you might receive from a customer, but on the customer’s lifetime value (LTV). A customer’s LTV is the present value of all the future business they’re likely to offer the firm. You’ll balance the cost of an ongoing communications program against the anticipated LTV.

The authors argue that mass marketing was an industrial age approach to selling finished goods, the only kind of approach that could work efficiently with the manufacturing and communication tools then available. In this new information age, with

its elaborate low-cost data processing structures, mass customization and individualized communication are now economical. Personalization has always been preferable; it just wasn’t practical until now. As the authors point out in a separate Harvard Business Review article on 1:1 theory, new technologies don’t just enable 1:1 marketing, they demand it. Once busi-

nesses begin a process of treating customers as individuals, old methods of broad mass marketing seem hopelessly clumsy by comparison. When one leading firm in an industry begins an intimate dialogue with its customers, other firms will have no choice but to compete on the same basis. This is where variable data printing comes into the picture. It’s the only method of printing that makes the specific, individualized communication of 1:1 marketing possible. Companies that believe in 1:1 marketing will use variable data printing as part of a broader 1:1 communications strategy that includes sales, customer service, telemarketing and the World Wide Web. In the 1:1 future, all communication is individual and personal.

ONE - TO - ONE MA RKET I NG

IN ACTION 1:1 MARKETING AND DIGITAL PRINTING are simple-sounding concepts that belie fairly complex methodologies and sophisticated technological advances. Electronic publishing technology has, indeed, greatly simplified the communications process. The challenge of personal communication has as much to do with figuring out what you want to say as it does with figuring out how to say it. Communicating with your audience individually is a lot different than broadcasting to them as a group. What you say is a function of how much you know about each individual. When all you knew about the audience was that they might be interested in your product, it was relatively easy to figure out what to say. You just decided what were the most compelling features of your product or service and described them as clearly and appealingly as you could.

In the 1:1 age, it’s a whole new challenge.

A recent industry study from CAP Ventures indicates that personalized printing offers a 36% increase in response rates over conventional direct mail. The average order size is nearly 25% larger, and response times are one-third faster. Most significantly, personalized printing results in a nearly 48% rate of repeat orders, proving that it helps strengthen customer relationships.

PERCENTAGE OF IMPROVEMENT USING PERSONALIZED PRINTING AVG ORDER SIZE/ ORDER VALUE

24.5

OVERALL REVENUE/PROFIT

31.6

RESPONSE TIME

33.9

RESPONSE RATE

REPEAT ORDERS 0%

10%

47.6 20%

30%

40%

50%

SIX FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF PERSONAL COMMUNICATION

Develop or acquire the skill sets required to plan and execute variable data print campaigns Planning and executing variable data print campaigns involves very different skills from conventional printing. The last chapter of this publication outlines the basic mechanics of variable data printing. You’ll need to know exactly what’s possible in variable data printing so that you can plan your campaigns with precision.

Find something relevant to communicate to each customer or group What types of customers derive the greatest benefits from your products? In what ways do different customers value your products differently? As you develop different messages for different groups, you may discover that your company doesn’t know which of its customers fall into each group.

Establish and maintain a database of relevant data When companies decide to embark on personalized communication, they often discover that they don’t really know much about their customers. Marketing and MIS may not have collected relevant data, because there wasn’t much to do with it. An essential step in establishing a successful personal communication program is analyzing just what data you have on your customers today. The next step is developing a list of the data you wish you had. Then you’ve got to find ways to gather that data.

Foster a learning relationship with your customers The philosophy of 1:1 marketing preaches “learning relationships.” There are two parties to this learning relationship, you and your customers (and prospects). You want to learn about your customers, whereas they want to learn about your products. Like many relationships, this one is built on trust. You must show your customers why they should trust you with information about themselves. You must reward them for offering this information, and you must absolutely guarantee that this information will never be used without their knowledge and consent. This relationship also evolves over time. The education process necessary to understand whether or not to buy your product could involve more than one session. Likewise, your customers need time to educate your company. They’ll reveal a little bit more about themselves with each transaction. With each additional piece of knowledge, you should be able to return more precise information about your product. This is a learning relationship, and it’s the cornerstone of 1:1 marketing.

Recognize that all targeting has value On one side of the scale is our current practice of mass communication. On the other side is the process of designing each piece individually for the recipient. There’s a world of communication opportunities in between. One-to-one communication is the ultimate achievement. But any attempt to target more precisely adds value to communication. Not every variable data printing campaign is going to be strictly 1:1. Some may be segmented campaigns, with a few different versions.

Understand that targeting demands precision The more you tailor your message to an audience, the greater the responsibility that you target precisely, and make sure the message reaches its intended recipient. Untargeted, generic messages can be sent to everyone. But a specifically targeted message must be delivered to the right individual.

FOUR D EG RE E S O F

CUSTOMIZATION IT’S TIME TO move beyond the theories and show you some examples of variable data printing in action. We’ve illustrated four diverse samples on these pages. Each one shows how an organization leveraged the capabilities of variable data printing to deliver extra-impact marketing communications.

CINÉMA SOIRÉE The Cinéma Soirée is by nature an elite event, and the invitations and RSVP cards convey the sophistication of the evening. By personalizing both the invitation and the RSVP card, Cinéma Soirée was able to convey the sense of caring about each invitee individually. The message is “we really want to see you there.”

Title of piece: Cinéma Soirée Target Audience: Elite Invitees Quantity: Hundreds Purpose: Personalized invitations mailed to elite invitees for the opening of a film

NAME

Printed by: L.V. Imprimerie, Paris, France

Personalized for the participating audience. The name on the invitation matches the name on the reply card.

T RO P I CA N A 1 9 9 8 PA S S P O R T TO F U N With new casinos and gaming opportunities being created around the country, competition for the best customers can be strong. To deal with this challenge, the Tropicana casino in Las Vegas, NV created a personalized mailing targeted at its most loyal customers. The goals were to increase attendance at slot machine tournaments and to build brand loyalty in the Tropicana name. The Passport to Fun resulted in a 22% response rate and helped the casino sell out its slot tournaments in record time. The self-mailer was designed to resemble a passport and contained a message from the customer's personal travel host along with a reply card that allowed the recipient to select the tournaments they were interested in attending.

Title of piece: Passport to Fun Target Audience: VIP visitors Quantity: 10,000 Purpose: Personalized invitation to Las Vegas slot machine tournaments

NAME The prospect’s name and address are printed on the back, and the name is repeated on the front of the passport.

PHOTO The sales consultant’s picture is changed based on the prospect receiving the mailing.

SIGNATURE

Printed by: Thebault DI, a division of the L.P. Thebault Company, Parsippany, NJ

The sales consultant’s signature reflects the personal nature of the passport.

NAME

ADDRESS

The first name is spelled out in a ‘breakfast cereal’ font created from a variable alphabet of 26 graphics files.

Customized address panel with person’s name, title, company and address.

INFORMATION The first name is flowed into the body copy.

A G FA B R E A K FA S T S Y M P O S I U M How do you get on the schedule of some of Madison Avenue’s busiest executives? Speak to them one at a time! Because of the ability to personalize on the Agfa Chromapress, this high-impact creative piece cut through the clutter and reached the top in many of the nation’s largest ad agencies. The results—a full house of individuals eager to learn more about the future of one-to-one communication. Title of piece: Invitation to Agfa Breakfast Symposium Target Audience: Top marketing executives in the New York City area Quantity: 2000, each personalized Purpose: Motivate top marketing executives to attend the event while, at the same time, demonstrate the abilities of the Agfa Chromapress

NOVA RT I S S EEDS The Novartis Seeds catalog isn’t just personalized to an individual, it’s personalized to his or her unique business. Using variable data printing, Novartis can highlight the seeds a farmer ordered and those the salesperson is trying to cross-sell. This is done by using images and text that are specific to where they live and how they farm. Even the color of the farmer’s brand of tractor (green or red) is taken into account in photos. Illustrations reinforce the type of farm (livestock or cash grain) and copy supports the relationship with the salesperson and what is being recommended.

Title of Piece: Novartis Seeds “Your Choices for 1998” Target Audience: Large-farm agriculturalists Quantity: Thousands Purpose: After an order is placed, Novartis Seeds dealers are able to offer additional products to customers designed for specific growing conditions.

ILLUSTRATION The line art varies depending upon which of six types of farming operations the customer has.

NAME/ADDRESS Note that the customer's name is placed on the cover and that the sender’s and receiver’s addresses are personalized.

LETTER A personalized letter from the dealer varies the “I’s” and “We’s” according to the sender.

Printed by: RT Associates, Schaumburg, IL, USA

PRODUCTS

HISTORY

The products described are selected from 750 possible versions, based on the customer’s geographic location and growing conditions.

This brochure reflects the vendor’s acknowledgement of what the customer has already ordered.

C R E AT I NG CU S TOM

DOCUMENTS THERE ARE TWO major aspects to creating customized print communication. The first is the mechanics of combining page designs with customer information. For example, Agfa’s Chromapress system employs Personalizer-X software, a QuarkXPress XTension, to merge variable text data with the page layouts. We’ll show you how that works. The second, less straightforward aspect, is ”engineering“ your print document for personalized communication. When each customer is different, you’ve got to start to think differently about how you design the piece you send. In the design, then, you’ll want to maximize the opportunity to let your customer know you’re thinking specifically about them. With this sample custom tour brochure, we’ll show you how it works.

D E F I N I N G A C U S TO M B RO C H U R E At Personal Travels, every tour is tailored to the customer, based on their unique tastes in accommodation, dining and sightseeing. The Personal Travels tour brochure is its primary marketing vehicle, prepared in a way that demonstrates to its customers and prospects just how responsive the agency is to their interests. Using a carefully designed Web site, Personal Travels collects all the data it needs to produce an individualized itinerary.

CO L L E C T I N G T H E DATA The Personal Travels Web site is built around a series of questionnaires. Using simple bulleted questions, the prospective customer indicates his or her preferences in hotels, dining, transportation and cultural interests. Once Personal Travels knows where the traveller is starting from, a route map can be prepared. This company uses the information it has learned about its customer, and provides a detailed itinerary that directly addresses the plans and desires of that customer.

Home

What We Do

Reservations

MiniGuide

The Place to Go for a Personalized Vacation

Destination Destination Budget Vacation Type Accommodations Cuisine

this series of checklists and forms allows you to build your own personalized miniguide to use for your next vacation. there are three steps to take. first, on this page, type in your preferred destination -- city, country, or continent. or, if you don't know exactly where you want to go, select an area on our interactive map. next, you'll respond to a series of basic questions about your travel preferences. once you are done with this part, our database will then formulate a series of personalized questions for you to answer, specific to your interests. after these three easy steps, you'll receive your very own travel guide in the mail, including your hotel, transportation options, and itineraries. let's get started! Type in where you want to go:

Paris

Home

City

State

What We Do

When you move past the Personal Travels home page, the first question is about your destination. The database contains listings for over 400 cities around the world.

Reservations

MiniGuide

When you’ve figured out where you want to go, the next question is what you want to do there. A wide variety of interests can be noted, from cultural to culinary.

France

The Place to Go for a Personalized Vacation

Country

Vacation Interests

Submit Destination

Or pick a continent on our interactive map: Budget Vacation Interests Accommodations

When you travel you probably have several interests that you enjoy exploring, from dining to sightseeing to hiking on mountain trails. All vacations can consist of more than just one interest. Some interests that you thought could be explored only in large cities can actually be discovered in the most remote regions of the world. Please indicate your preferences below. If you're unsure about a topic, click on the name for more information.

Vacation Interests

Cuisine

Interested

Not Interested

Animals/Safari Architecture Arts & Culture Bicycling Car Touring Entertainment Food/Culinary Gambling/Casinos Gardens Golf Historical/Archaeological Outdoor Activities Photography Relaxation Romance

Home

What We Do

Reservations

MiniGuide

The Place to Go for a Personalized Vacation

Other

Museums-Art Accommodations Cuisine Architecture Museums-Art Music Dance Theaters

Clear Form

Paris is perhaps the greatest city in the world for museums and art galleries, featuring everything from priceless masterpieces to the avant garde. You'll want to try to visit as many of these famous sites as you can cram into your itinerary. Please indicate your favorites below. If you're unsure of the best choices, click on a name for more detail.

Museums-Art

Interested

Not Interested

The Louvre Musée D'Orsay Centre Georges Pompidou Museum of Modern Art

Entertainment

Musée Picasso

Gardens

Musée Rodin

Museums-History

Musée Delacroix

Historical Houses

Home

What We Do

MiniGuide

Reservations

The Place to Go for a Personalized Vacation

Musée Marmottan Musée Guimet

Palaces

Musée Cognacq-Jay

Cathedrals

Musée des Arts Décoratifs

Summary Summary

Place du Terte Place Emile-Goudeau Hameau des Artistes

Submit

Rue Férou

Back for Changes

Congratulations! You've just designed your own seven-day family vacation to Paris. Isn't it great to be in control of your travel choices! Here's a summary of your accommodation, food preferences and itinerary. Click on "Submit" and your personalized full color brochure will be in the mail to you within 24 hours. Click on "Back for Changes" if there's any item you need to revise.

Summary Clear Form

Accommodations Marseilles Hotel

Personal Travels is very specific. When you’ve provided your broad interests, the company asks for another level of detail.

Cuisine Local International Moderate Family-Style Interests Museums-Art

Louvre

Museums-Art

Musée D'Orsay

Museums-Art

Musée Picasso

Museums-Art

Place du Terte

Museums-Art

C. Georges Pompidou

Summary screens, such as this, confirm your choices to ensure that your custom brochure will truly illustrate your dream vacation. If you change your mind, you can easily return to the earlier screens.

C O N S T R U C T I N G T H E F I LE Most systems for variable data publishing rely on the industry-standard QuarkXPress page layout application, which most designers prefer. Agfa’s Personalizer-X software is a QuarkXTension to make variable print design easy for non-technical users. The major difference in approach for the designer is visualizing page variances, rather than thinking of a single static page.

O R G A N I Z I N G T H E D ATA B A S E Using CGI scripts, the data collected on the Web site is placed into a tab-delimited ASCII text database. The latest version of Personalizer-X supports up to 256 fields in the database and associated QuarkXPress document.

The Personalizer-X database accepts standard delimited text files, where the first line of the file specifies the field names. There is no limit on the number of 256-field entries in the database.

D E S I G N I N G F O R VA R I A B L E D ATA The designer decides which of the text and picture boxes remain static, and appear on every version, and which will vary according to user-specified preferences. Not all of the text and images need to be exactly the same length or size, provided the outer boundaries are considered. Here you can see the areas of this document that are variable, outlined in red, which contain text and images that are stored in your database. The Personalizer-X software allows the designer to view the database directly while in the QuarkXPress document, aiding in the variable design process.

L I N K I N G VA R I A B L E D ATA It’s relatively easy to imagine and design for variable text placement, but variable images are a new challenge for most designers. Personalizer-X software provides the user with flexible choices in image sizing and positioning, based on the familiar QuarkXPress tools. Image files are stored in industrystandard formats, such as EPS, TIFF or JPEG. Of course, for print output, CMYK images are preferred.

In the Data File Settings dialogue menu the names of each field are specified from the database, as well as the default location of the image files.

The Variable Picture Box dialogue menu is used to set image attributes, such as positioning and scaling.

The Variable Picture Folder shows the contents of the image folder, and allows the designer to swap one image for another. Up to four folders can be specified for each document.

Based on the designer’s specification, a variable image is selected.

P R E PA R I N G F O R O U T P U T The rest is easy! The designer prepares the file for output as they would any other QuarkXPress file, collecting the master page(s) with variable field designations, fonts, linked files, and the ASCII database, and submitting them to the digital print service provider.

TH E F I N I S H E D P I ECE As you can see, for Personal Travels personalization begins with the customer’s name. It goes on to include a custom route map, an itinerary, a specific hotel property, restaurants and attractions. Delivered to the prospect within 72 hours of their Web visit, the Personal Travels brochure indicates clearly that every tour is personal, and that no two customers are alike. Recognizing and acting on this, as is done here, is the key to successful 1:1 marketing.

Personalized information includes the Bayers’ names and family data, as well as a quick summary of the itinerary and food preferences.

The recommended hotel is illustrated and described.

Welcome to Paris! Here’s the Bayers’ flight information, highly personalized. This includes the airline, departure and arrival airports and times, and how to get to the hotel.

Photos and descriptions of evening entertainment choices are color-coded for easy location on the map at right.

A personalized activity summary reflects the needs of the Bayer children too.

A custom map illustrates the “hot spots” close to the Bayers’ hotel.

Personal Travels tour brochure includes personalized day-to-day itineraries, too.

Once again, a quick summary reveals the degree of personalization.

Each spread illustrates another day of the Bayers’ seven-day itinerary.

A detailed city map helps pinpoint the location of that day’s tour.

A color-coded map reveals the specific location of each stop along the way.

Each stop is illustrated with a small photo, along with locations and hours of operation.

Personal Travels really lives up to its name with these customized tour brochures. Until the advent of variable data printing, tour marketing communications had to be targeted to groups. By combining the power of database content management with digital printing technology, variable data printing allows Personal Travels to treat each customer as an individual, and market in a true one-to-one fashion. Industry studies show dramatic response and purchase rate improvements from personalized communication. One-to-one print marketing costs more per customer than mass print marketing, and takes more time to prepare, but the results more than compensate for the added cost and effort.

THE FUTURE OF MARKETING is one-to-one. Today’s advanced digital color printing systems are essential tools for marketers looking toward a one-to-one future. They are particularly effective because on-demand immediacy and convenience allow you to choose the timing and the delivery of your message. As we develop the ability to communicate with our customers as individuals, mass communication will seem inadequate and costly by comparison. The future of print communication has arrived.

Technical Direction and Concept: Eugene Hunt Agfa Corporation Creative Direction and Design: Maria Giudice Renee Anderson HOT, San Francisco Writing: Thad McIlroy Arcadia House, San Francisco Illustrations: Arne Hurty Assadi-Hurty, San Francisco Cover Photograph: Beverly Harper

XEIKON N.V. Vredebaan 72 2640 Mortsel - Belgium Tel.: +32 (0)3 443 13 11 Fax: +32 (0)3 443 13 09 http://www.xeikon.com e-mail: info@xeikon.com

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