With GraFx Publisher, Sell leverages personalization for powerful cross-media marketing

The challenge – Opening up to personalization

The rapid advance of the internet and digital printing has provoked a sea change. Mass marketing has given way to one-to-one marketing. “You don’t sell the same roof tiles in Lille as you do in Marseille. So it’s essential to be able to create catalogues that are tailored to the market, to the area… containing only and precisely the information that readers are looking for”, Bruno Rambaud, CEO of SELL, explains.

The solution – Integrating a powerful online editor in SELL BASE

At first SELL envisaged developing its own personalization tool. After studying the market, however, the company decided to integrate GraFx Publisher in its SELL BASE content management platform. “We were impressed with the performance of GraFx Publisher, its user friendliness as well as its ability to provide a collaborative workspace. So we finally opted to integrate it in our environment, rounding off the tools we already had”, Rambaud continues.

The workings of the combined platform are very simple. Brand data, such as product names, references, specifications, images, etc., are handled in SELL BASE. A module integrated in the workflow, GraFx Publisher enables online personalisation of marketing documents using design templates that reflect a company’s corporate identity and brand guidelines. These templates can be delivery notes, business cards, flyers, brochures, invitations, catalogues and more.

This makes it very convenient for anyone involved in document creation, wherever they may be, simply to call up a template and personalize it as they wish, based on validated, secure data stored in SELL BASE. Once the document is completed, the validated PDF is sent for printing. “We work closely with CHILI publish. Both of us are small organizations shaking up outdated models, and we share the same philosophy, namely to simplify to the max the creative process from start to finish – through to end users who will be able to design their own documents”, says Rambaud. A successful collaboration which the two companies are expanding further, responding together to calls for tender from much larger organizations.

The benefits – an innovative solution for business development

The combination of SELL BASE and GraFx Publisher increases the overall productivity of the workflow, reducing manual effort by 50%. Between SELL BASE, which provides an up-to-date data pool and reduces the risk of errors, and GraFx Publisher, which makes personalized layouts accessible to all, the creative process has become that much less stressful, that much faster and more secure. “Our focus is on sophisticated marketing documents. GraFx Publisher meets this need in a user-friendly way while opening up a multitude of other marketing applications – such as personalizing a flyer at the right time in the right place”, highlights Rambaud. In fact, if a sales representative can produce a visually tailored brochure with relevant content that reflects the customer’s profile, their pain points and their situation, this is a powerful tool to attract and retain attention. If well done, personalization can have a major impact.