"At Print Sf, we provide a smarter way for Salesforce customers to manage marketing collateral, direct mail & digital media. Our solutions cut waste and increase results with Free Content Management, Web-to-Print, Personalized Direct Mail and Cross Media Campaigns. Get started for free, and turn your Salesforce data into more compelling communications."Full disclosure: I'm not getting any comp from these folks. Also I have not tried it so I don't know if does what it promises. But, if it does, how cool would it be for a digital printer to offer this added value to their clients? Maybe someone will do it with Facebook and the real fun will begin.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Printers: Look at This
PrintSf.com -1-to-1 Print, Mail & Digital Media for Salesforce.com:
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We are having real fun with enthusem.com - a groundbreaking web app to send a single VDP mailer to a single lead: one-at-a-time. Our API is open and will work with any CRM system like salesforce.
ReplyDeletecool. I'll check out the link.
ReplyDeleteFor all of our viewers. here's the link to enthusem's blog
ReplyDeletehttp://enthusem.wordpress.com/
And here's the pitch that marcfors was polite enough not to spam..
ReplyDeleteThe Enthusem Concept:
An online service that makes sending postal mail (yea, the printed kind) super simple and seamlessly integrated with online content.
The service lets users send direct mailers one-at-a-time (or to a list of recipients) from a Web browser or through a set of web services. In addition, Enthusem mailers can include online attachments. The attachments link the printed communication to online content much like an attachment to an email message.
The www.enthusem.com website lets end users send Enthusem mailers while a set of web services let 3rd party applications send direct mail without all the complexities associated with your typical Web-to-print solution. So, for example, using the web services, a developer could create an add-in for Microsoft Outlook that would allow Outlook users to send direct mail in addition to email.
Hi Folks: Mark here at Print Sf.. Michael, thanks for mentioning our new Salesforce focused venture.
ReplyDeleteWe've built a very, very robust W2P & Direct Mail platform woven into CRM workflow. Postcards...yes.. but this platform connects any CRM data or custom data object as a live digital publishing feed... all personalized, proofed and ordered in real-time..and spit out to production partners as PDF/PPML. We're talking 1:1 Welcome Kits, Event & Appt Reminders, Tickets, Badges, Ads, Presentations, Custom Catalogs, PURLS, etc.
The "Glue" that connects our publishing platform to Salesforce, is a layer of web services that pulls CRM data, and also write back activity histories, follow up tasks, and/or workflow triggers. In the future, we will connect the same clue to the SOCIAL NETWORKING sphere, including LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.
We welcome collaborative projects from the community, and our software platform is available for any partner to use.
Cheers - Mark
Mark,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. If anyone has any success stories, with either service, it would be neat to tell us all about it.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteJust curious. Can a printer decide to plug into your network? or is the business model that you will print and deliver?
Surely. We've been "taking our own medicine" for the past few months, as we've developed the platform, and done some projects for customers that use Salesforce.
ReplyDeleteNo official "Case Studies" yet, but here's a quick example of what we've executed working in Salesforce.com and our integrated AppExchange product..
Our own Dreamforce Promo Campaign: We used a list of 2000 marketing and sales execs we know use SF, plus built our own list of 200 contacts Exhibiting at the show. That was a "Campaign" in Salesforce.... a list of leads and contacts.
Here is the 1:1 postcard we went.
https://go.printsf.com/Site/ViewDoc.aspx?LId=251&DId=283
(100 proof records of our mailer)
We made it look like their Salesforce home page for relevance, and even listed their co-workers on the left "Recent Contacts" panel to really get their attention. The recipient was invited to visit our booth at the show and/or request more info on our app via a PURL/Landing page... all running on top of XMPIE BTW in the background.
See PURL page at:
http://www.printsf.com/DF08/mark.cira
Responses are closed loop and flow back into our Salesforce instance, and can talk to workflow triggers to schedule tasks, send alerts, etc.
Note our platform also does all the address validation live so the customer is proofing with their final, valid mail list.
IF you want to see more of what the platform does, there are Video Tours at:
http://www.screencast.com/t/k8MbQmUb1Ss
We welcome joint projects...
Mark
Also, this one is fun - note message in the bottle is driven life by Salesforce.com fields from account and contact objects... and custom fields we've added..
ReplyDeletehttps://go.printsf.com/Site/ViewDoc.aspx?
LId=133&DId=161
Note the PURL is no longer active
And a simple 1:1 holiday card we sent out, built using a "public" template available to anyone using our Free Edition from the AppExchange:
Low res proof at:
https://go.printsf.com/Site/ViewDoc.aspx?LId=599&DId=636
Cheers, Mark
On your question - we are printer agnostic, and are connecting to print partners. We have incubated it on an inhouse production process with HP 3050, but are now connecting our first print partner, R&R Images in AZ.
ReplyDeleteWe are open to connecting to anyone, but as this piece takes some technical work by both parties, we are taking it on a case by case basis for the near term, based on join revenue opportunties and/or a project based approach.
Mark
Just to toss our name into the mix, Postful offers websites and applications the ability to send single letters or postcards using either email or our API. We've had users integrate a number of different platforms including Salesforce, iPhone, and various photo services.
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to see the different directions we're all taking with this challenge. One way or another, as more and more information and documents are produced and stored online, print as a service seems set for huge continued growth.
Justin,
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely with you on the bright horizon. I can't wait until all you folks train your sites on education, health and government. Imagine how cool it would be for a school to be able to send out truancy notices ON the day the kid skipped school Or reminders to show up at the doctor's office.
I know the money on the table today is direct mail, but I have a long screed about why that's going way in about 2014, when Google locational data is available in a datastream. It's going to allow someone to target by zip code and traditional demographics. IMHO, as that scales, direct mail for selling and prospecting, goes quietly into the night.
But take the money that's on the table now. Just be ready when it goes away.
I agree that the direct mail market is going away (and soon). Actually, the next blog post I was going to write was on how we consider ourselves a transitional technology, bridging the gap between what's feasible now and what's developing rapidly around us. Locational data is opening a lot of new opportunities.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, in terms of the doctor's office example you mentioned, we actually have a couple of partners who are working on that right now. As soon as the appointment is entered, a reminder card is queued to be sent.
Cool. I'm a strong believer in "there are no new ideas" and "the future is here, just not evenly distributed."
ReplyDeleteWhen you get the post done, send a link in the comments and we can continue the discussion at your place.
Here's the post I mentioned:
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.postful.com/2009/01/07/transitional-services/
here's what caught my eye from the post...
ReplyDelete"While billions of documents are still printed and mailed every day, the information that composes those documents is increasingly stored on the web. Providing a bridge between that data and print output is a huge task and offers equally large opportunities."
Yup!
Justin,
ReplyDeleteI just spent a little time trolling your postful website. Am I correct in understanding that this would be really easy to use for a salesperson who wants to follow up an email or a phone call with a postcard or letter?
Is there a tracking system that records on line who got sent what when?
Absolutely. We have salespeople using our system who walk out of appointments and send a follow up thank you note from their blackberries (or iphones :)).
ReplyDeleteRight now, there aren't extensive tracking tools built into Postful (you can see who you sent to and when you sent). The best results we've seen have been people who've integrated Postful with existing CRM systems.
Neat.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe any sales people who are viewing, might stop yutzing about how they don't have time to keep in front of the customers....and use your website. Customers love a thank you. That and answering the phone is the most effective way to build a brand anyways.
Luckily, I'm out of the game, so I know it's easy to say but hard to do, but still . . . .