This innovation saves businesses time and ensures more effective and personalized messaging

BOCA RATON, FL – While savvy marketers are quickly rediscovering the impact of traditional print marketing, businesses have been reluctant to embrace it because of the extra time, work, and expense it entails, along with the logistical challenges of coordinated print and online campaigns. Boca Raton-based software developer Daruma Tech has overcome these obstacles with a new technology that lets businesses launch targeted print campaigns as quickly and easily as e-mail or other online campaigns.

This innovation saves businesses time and ensures more effective and personalized messaging by integrating Microsoft Dynamics CRM online and on premise customer relationship management (CRM) software with trusted variable data publishing (VDP) platforms such as FusionPro and Xerox’s XMPIE.

This integration lets businesses export detailed customer information from Microsoft Dynamics CRM – such as location, age, and buying history – directly into their VDP platform to automatically generate personalized print assets.

“Before, businesses that wanted personalized print campaigns would have to download their customer data from their CRM, reformat it and upload it into XMPIE or FusionPro,” explained Rob Kennedy, co-founder and CEO of Daruma Tech. “This was tedious and time consuming, and of course, there was always some loss of data. Now you can export customer data directly from Microsoft Dynamics CRM into your VDP.”

This functionality, Kennedy said, not only lets businesses personalize direct-mail assets as quickly and easily as e-mail assets (for instance, different flyers or brochures can be automatically generated and mailed to customers according to their ages, interests or other factors), it ensures more consistent messaging across channels.

“With Dynamics CRM-to-print functionality, businesses can be sure their customers are getting the same messaging from their direct mail as they are from the push notifications on their store app or their e-mail blasts,” Kennedy said. “This gives businesses a much more polished look and has a bigger impact on their customers.”

This technology also saves companies time and work hours by letting them coordinate and launch print campaigns using familiar, automated tools they already use for their online campaigns. Using standard Microsoft Dynamics CRM features, users can automatically identify target customer groups, access mailing lists, schedule and track mailings, coordinate print and online campaigns, and track customers’ responses. Because mailing lists are updated in real time, this technology also cuts mailing costs and paper waste by eliminating bounced or misdirected mailings.

Another advantage of Daruma Tech’s CRM-to-print functionality is its easy fit with either the user’s own cloud-based wave marketing platform or Daruma Tech’s own Tsunami platform. This cross-platform compatibility helps companies save even more time by giving them the power to manage everything marketing-related from deploying sales staff to designing assets to tracking marketing budgets from a single cloud-based site. Daruma Tech’s technology also lets users to print the materials directly or send the data to a commercial printer to print and mail.

While direct mail may seem old-fashioned in today’s predominantly digital marketing world, tactile assets still have an immediacy and impact that digital assets don’t, Kennedy said. “Printed assets don’t get lost in spam filters. And with so much online marketing today, people almost automatically delete a lot of their e-mail. But an attractive, personalized card, letter, or gift tells your customer you really care. Think about it – which would mean more to you, an e-mailed birthday or thank-you note, or a handwritten birthday card or thank-you note sent right to your door?”

And because the contents and look of print assets can now be customized for individual customers with just a few mouse clicks, direct mailings now have even more impact than before, Kennedy added.

Daruma Tech is a privately held software design firm based in the FAU Research Park in Boca Raton Florida. Daruma Tech’s mission is to provide its clients with custom business software incorporating both cutting-edge technology and designs focused on the unique logistical and human needs of each client. For more information, contact Susan Erickson at 561-206-6291.