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Ricoh Launches Cloud-based Marketing Services Software Suite

Thursday 18. April 2013 - New approach to dynamic variable data and cross media marketing powered by PTI

Ricoh Europe is expanding its software portfolio with MarcomCentral and the FusionPro VDP suite from PTI Marketing Technologies. It forms a comprehensive, integrated set of cloud-based marketing services. It is designed to meet the expanding demand for automated marketing capabilities from print services providers (PSPs) and organisations that want to improve marketing processes and brand management.
MarcomCentral is a SaaS-based marketing asset repository that allows companies to build and store print and non-print based assets (such as logos and marketing kits) from a centralised site. The advanced cross media architecture delivers a broad range of features and capabilities that support operations who are aiming to grow their value-added-services and take advantage of the expanding digital marketing opportunity; as well as driving incremental print volumes and higher margins. These include web hosting and personalised print, while offering easy access to clients via a web browser.
The full MarcomCentral solution comprises marketing asset management, web to print, VDP and cross media marketing. The SaaS solution enables print operations with limited or no IT resource to manage their own, or their clients’, brand identity and collateral; deploy a full web to print service; and to create and run integrated, multichannel communications campaigns.
Ricoh announced a strategic investment in PTI Marketing Technologies in August 2012 and is excited to now bring print services providers in Europe the full MarcomCentral solution as a result of the Ricoh and PTI partnership.
As MarcomCentral is cloud-based, it enables PSPs and enterprises without extensive IT capability to grow their services and offerings and is easily scalable as requirements grow. The benefit for them therefore, is that they can increase their investment as business growth opportunities materialise.
In addition, MarcomCentral will support progressive organisations to seize new business opportunities: “PSPs and print rooms are seeking to provide services beyond print and MarcomCentral enables them to participate fully in their clients’ marketing process, broadening their involvement – often at a more strategic level – and the value they provide to their clients,” says Benoit Chatelard, Ricoh’s General Manager Solutions, Production Printing Group, EMEA.
“For example, if a high street bank wants to run a campaign, their PSP can deploy MarcomCentral, with personalised mailers or microsites to increase the recipients’ likelihood of responding to the campaign. Personalised emails can be used to further highlight the offer. Specific elements of the campaign can be adapted from branch to branch, enabling authorised members of the branch’s team to access documents in the cloud and make the relevant changes without compromising brand integrity, specifying the quantity of printed pieces required for a specific event via the e-commerce functionality.”
In this way, MarcomCentral empowers local creativity within corporate brand guidelines. Aided by a simple, intuitive user interface, it creates a streamlined, efficient marketing production process that is designed to increase the speed of marketing response and reduce time to market. All of which help to reduce an organisation’s marketing costs and increase return on investment.
“Because of its open architecture and application programing interfaces (APIs), MarcomCentral can easily be integrated with third party applications and workflows,” adds Chatelard. “It can link to many other systems within the client, or the corporate user’s, infrastructure, including MIS, ERP or marketing automation systems.”
MarcomCentral also utilises the FusionPro VDP suite. It comprises: FusionPro VDP Creator, the variable data publishing solution; FusionPro Producer composition engine, which allows cloud based VDP processing within MarcomCentral; FusionPro Expression, which enables advanced image personalisation; and FusionPro Links, for personalised URL and microsite creation along with campaign tracking. FusionPro VDP Creator offers plug-ins that seamlessly integrate with, for example, Adobe Acrobat and InDesign for fast, simple and intuitive creation of VDP templates that can be uploaded to the cloud for access within MarcomCentral by authorised stakeholders.
“These new marketing services, powered by PTI, adds to Ricoh’s intelligent marketing
(i-Marketing) framework,” says Chatelard. “i-Marketing is designed to deliver a range of variable data and cross media marketing capabilities to all production printing-based businesses aiming to extend their services into the field of marketing services. The solution already includes existing Ricoh strategic services such as Precision Marketing, Data Analytics, and personalised cross media and direct marketing tools including those from Objectif Lune and DirectSmile. By implementing i-Marketing, print services providers and corporate marketing departments or print rooms can readily differentiate themselves”
“In a challenging market that demands business transformation, the availability of these services and solutions is timely. MarcomCentral and our additional i-Marketing services enable business to develop stronger partnerships that will strengthen client loyalty, drive volume and repeat business, generating a greater return on investment and increased value across the entire marketing supply chain.”