The Banker has just published an article in this month’s supplement called “Personalise or Perish“. It’s based on research that was sponsored by Xerox and published in a report called “The Future of Communications in Retail Banking“.

The essence of the report is that bank customers want their banks to market to them in a much more personal way, sending offers and promotions that are relevant and timely. The banks understand this desire (about 88% wanted to deliver more personalised messages) but are constrained by technology and a lack of good customer data.

The conclusion of the article is that few banks have been able to achieve the goal of personalising customer communications but I have worked with a number of insurance companies and investment firms who are making good progress and the way they began was to start small and grow. For example one insurance company chose a new product launch and promoted the new product using personalised communications. They now have over 100 personalised marketing pieces available in multiple languages. An investment firm wanted to use personalised communication to attract high net worth clients and they started using the technique to invite clients to just one type of promotional event. They now use it with dozens of different communications and are incorporating smart document technologies to automatically respond to their clients.

Julian Troake
Global Industry Marketing Manager
Xerox Global Services

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Even in the world of jaded media mongers like me, the partnership with Xerox and XMPie for the production and delivery of the December 2006 cover of Graphic Arts Monthly is something special.

The vibrant color and hip personalization rocketing across more than 70,000 one-of-a-kind covers (first name formed from stars, company scripted across the belly, initials embossed on the nose cone) is cool, to be sure. And a special lagniappe is the fact that each recipient also has a personal URL. Our database department had fun putting that together. Most amazing is how well it works!

All this creates a living laboratory, proving that digital presses are durable and able to run industrial print jobs. And to show Graphic Arts Monthly readers live and online, not just the power of print, but its Internet impact. (We’ll document the results as subscribers update their records. And one added note: our Internet page ranking is certain to soar as news of this project has spread through the media. Nothing more fun than googling yourself and finding your article among the top results. (Hmmmm. . . maybe I should have placed my byline more strategically near the lead.)

Bill Esler
Editor in Chief
Graphic Arts Monthly

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Well the holidays are here again and that means that we can track the growth of what I like to call the “personalization of America.” Don’t just look at those much smaller, more-focused catalogs (my wife just got one from JC Penney’s with 16 pages of “highly targeted” merchandise in her style, size, and even colors) or the myriad of mailers and promotions that are in some way personalized – look at everything being sold and how it is sold and let’s start a list. I’ll begin with jeans, computers, iPod music, cellular phones, books, cards, T-shirts, and jewelry. What have you seen? Tell us about some of the coolest personalized gifts out there and we’ll keep a running list on this blog. No fabrications, though. Web site links to the product will give us reason to believe that this is no “Santa Claus” story.

Larry Zusman
Worldwide Marketing Manager, VI and Workflow Solutions
Xerox Production Systems Group

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