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DemandBridge Exceeds 2008 Targets for DB/Enterprise Adoption...by September!
When DemandBridge decided to unveil DB/Enterprise (DB/e) to its customers in 2007 as a product in early beta, there was a great deal of excitement among the customers and employees regarding the promise of this online system. However, with any new product, there are certainly transition and rollout complexities that have to be endured before it can really "hit its stride". That's why the executive team at DemandBridge really tried to take a slow, measured approach and do things right with the rollout of DB/e in 2008. Projecting to limit the number of sales and activations of this software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering to only 12 systems for the year.
Perhaps Eisenhower said it best when, during the D-day planning he offered that "before the battle, plans are everything, but as soon as battle is joined, plans are worthless". Accepting our 15th online customer by the end of September, we've already exceeded our plans for DB/e in 2008, and the pace seems to be quickening. This has been possible, quite frankly, due to the great feedback we've received from our early customers, and the very rapid software development we've used to close gaps and provide solutions where needed. By having regular feedback sessions (weekly in most cases) with our customers and turning around major software releases on a monthly basis, the product has quickly crossed over from being an e-commerce product developed for one unique customer into a truly multi-tenant, end-to-end online commerce engine. The rapid feedback/release cycle is not over by a long shot, but we are without a doubt on our way to something very important.
For some customers, the rich base of relevant features is the driver to adopt DB/e. For others, it's the true end-to-end integration that they have been lacking for years with other products. In the end, however, what we find is common among our DB/e customers is that they are simply more competitive in the marketplace with DB/e than with any other solution available.
While DB/e offers much, much more, we consistently hear that the short list of features below helps our customers compete more effectively in the technology space:
Online, Integrated Direct Mail - This feature allowed DemandBridge to win the Grand PEAK Award in e-commerce for 2008. Variable or static pieces can be ordered online in conjunction with real-time list queries, whether choosing from a customer-provided CRM database, our internal 220-million name consumer database, or any other database to easily create targeted mailings. Allowing your customers to easily manage centralized and decentralized mailing campaigns while maintaining brand integrity and list quality is simply huge today.
Restriction-free Template Scripting - Unlike some of our competitors who impose limits on the types of template scripting that can be done within variable items, our implementation and support of the Pageflex platform for variable print is offered without limitations. Complex scripting and database integration have been used in many of the (over) 10,000 variable templates online in DB/e. Our customers tell us that this helps them say "Yes" when they need to, which is what we all want to do.
Digital Asset Management - A great many organizations suffer with offering decentralized, web-based access to corporate assets (art, photos, logs, etc.) while maintaining centralized control for usage permissions, rights management, and version control. The Digital Asset Management system within DB/e gives you the ability to take this problem away from your customer, create a closer relationship (and raise the barrier to exit), while creating a recurring-revenue offering for your distributorship.
Online Collaborative Proofing - When the creative process involved in most commercial print projects is unpeeled and exposed, for what it really is, it becomes abundantly clear that there is a ton of wasted time in the proofing process. Most of this time is related to the physical delivery, review, and annotation of proofs. Anyone who has seen what DB/e offers through it's proofing and workflow center can see how this tool truly changes the way marketing and creative departments operate. This feature, as well the Digital Asset repository above, offer your company a recurring revenue stream as well as greatly increased value to your customer.
By leading your technology presentations with the features listed above, you will set yourselves apart from your competition and establish your distributorship as one committed to innovation and technology thought-leadership. I know this because I'm doing exactly that each week with our DB/e customers in sales presentations, and seeing them realize tremendous results. Elsewhere in this newsletter you will see mention of how RPM, a DB/e customer based in Dallas, TX closed a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal with a major client in the hospitality industry, and technology was one of the deciding factors in that deal. This is great news for RPM, great news for DemandBridge, and great news for you as well as a member of the DemandBridge community.
If you are a current DB/e customer, I want to thank you for your feedback and help in 2008 as it has been a rewarding first 9-10 months.
Good luck to you, happy selling, and best wishes for the remainder of the year to you and your families.
Brian Fritsche
President & CEO, DemandBridge
RPM Wins $2 Million Account with DemandBridge Technology
RPM leverages DemandBridge’s digital asset management and print on-demand technology to help win a $2 million national hospitality account.
RPM’s combination of technology, resources and experience will allow the hotel chain to execute a national marketing program at the local level via a web-based program management platform that provides each franchisee the flexibility to customize marketing materials while adhering to corporate approved brand guidelines. These local marketing products are expected to substantially reduce the clients need for costly one-off print projects and will represent a significant advantage in giving their hotels the ability to increase sales through customized marketing products.
“Our client needed a system that would provide their franchisees the ability to take ownership of their regional marketing efforts and reduce the strain of fulfilling everyday requests on their corporate marketing department,” said Glen James, Managing Partner of RPM.
With DemandBridge's technology, the hotels will have access to a robust digital asset library that will be linked back to their variable templates. This is a unique capability in the marketplace that will improve the user experience dramatically and allow the client to leverage their investment in photography.
“Our strategy focused on delivering a comprehensive, cost-saving solution by providing a highly customizable turnkey system that helps automate workflow and streamline their operations,” said James. “It’s no longer enough to just provide products or simple services. Clients want more. To remain competitive, distributors must invest in technology that helps them transition from the traditional ‘print and ship’ business model to ‘marketing resource providers’.
DemandBridge Wins PEAK Award
The votes are in and DemandBridge is the Grand PEAK Award winner in the eCommerce category. The technology that brought home the 2008 PEAK Award was a DB Enterprise solution that integrated Direct Mail to Print-on-Demand. According to industry experts, 60% of the success of a direct mail campaign relates to the quality of the list, 30% to the offer and 10% to the printed piece. This technology went beyond Variable Print to solve the bigger problem, localized messaging to customize the offer, and quality list generation.
The Problem
The customer, a franchise organization, used direct mail to promote their early education and childcare programs. There were a couple of major drops each year, coinciding with typical enrollment periods, and several other special promotions throughout the year. The process of producing these mailings was maligned with difficulties. First, it was up to each individual franchisee to provide the contact list for their geographic region. The quality of the lists was inconsistent and therefore affected the success of their campaigns. Secondly, each franchisee had their own ideas regarding the messaging that would be successful in their local market; therefore, it was difficult to get agreement for the final design. Lastly, coordination of the project placed a huge burden on their centralized marketing department.
The Solution
DemandBridge developed a web-based solution that empowered each franchisee to customize their particular mailing pieces, within the constraints set by marketing, with messaging and graphics unique to their local marketplace. The variable print templates were just the beginning. Each franchisee was also able to search a database of 220 million households based upon desired demographics, family income and age of the children within the household. They could enter one or more zip codes and a radius to extend the search. They could then fine tune their mailing list and pay for their mailing with a credit card.
The Benefit
This new web-based program saved a tremendous amount of time and effort for the central marketing team. In addition, with the improved quality of the list pulled from the Equifax database on demand, most of the markets reported better than a 50% improvement in response rates. From an accounting standpoint, having each franchisee choose the size of their respective list and pay with a credit card eliminated the need for the franchisor's accounting department to handle individual billing and collection.
This marks the third time in four years that DemandBridge has won the Grand Prize and the fourth year in a row to win an award. In 2005, DemandBridge (formerly TopForm Software) won for its Image Library submission and in 2006 won for its Internet Enabled RFQ functionality. Both submissions were in the Time Saver Category and were Grand PEAK Awards. In 2007, DemandBridge won an Award of Excellence in both the Time Saver and Money Maker categories for the work done with RPM and XML interoperability.
PRODUCT UPDATES:
DemandBridge Announces New Managed Services
For over two decades, DemandBridge has been providing industry leading software solutions to the print Distributor industry. Our customers have recognized that outsourcing their software development has enabled them to focus on delivering top quality service to their customers. In the late eighties and early nineties, it was inventory and print management reporting systems that distinguished them from their competitors. As we moved into the new millennium, eCommerce systems raised the bar of necessary technology to compete and win new business.
As our distributor customers have become more and more successful, they have found themselves managing increasingly larger database and applications servers. Also, their customers are demanding fault tolerant systems that include redundancy and disaster recovery.
We know that our distributor customers are challenged more than ever with having to support and maintain this expanding infrastructure, all while staying ahead of the competition, achieving business goals and containing costs. This is the reason that we have invested in the facilities and staffing necessary to bring Managed Services to our customers. DemandBridge Managed Services enable print facilities and distributors to improve uptime and reliability of the entire DemandBridge platform and IT environment without the headache and investment of maintaining and managing systems on site. DemandBridge Managed Services provide you with a professionally hosted environment and an array of services designed to keep you up and running smoothly 24x7. We monitor and maintain all hardware, provide timely software updates, and manage and perform critical backups while you focus on your business and your customers.
DemandBridge Managed Services includes all of the following services.
System Monitoring – All systems and services hosted in our NOC are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Multiple technicians with expertise in the entire DemandBridge platform are always on call, and ready to respond. Custom monitoring solutions are available.
Uninterruptible Power – All power is supplied and cleaned through UPS battery back-ups with an average run-time of 20 minutes. Our NOC is also equipped with a 100-kilowatt diesel generator to provide power during any major or minor power failure.
Bandwidth Availability – Our hosting network is multi-fault tolerant. We minimize bottlenecks by maintaining connections to multiple upstream Tier1 providers using multiple paths.
Backup and Storage – Maintaining current back-ups of your files and data is critical. We maintain regular full backups on all servers hosted in our NOC.
Remote Access – You will always maintain full control of your data and files through remote access capability.
Having successfully completed our Beta period with our first customer in September 2008, we rolled out this program to the DemandBridge community at the 2008 Print Solutions Expo in Baltimore, MD. Feel free to contact DemandBridge Sales and Marketing for more details and to hear about how quickly and smoothly we can assume management of your IT operation to free you up to serve your customers.
For more information on DemandBridge Managed Services, contact info@demandbridge.com or call (800) 448-1484.
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Office Products Toolkit Enhancement Offers New "Favorites" Options and MatchBook Functionality
In the last DemandBridge Technology Update, we described new Suggestive Selling features available in the DB Office Products Toolkit. In this issue DemandBridge is pleased to announce additional new enhancements to the Office Products Toolkit that provide even greater levels of service to your office products customers. These new features center around new "Favorites" options and MatchBook functionality in the DB Toolkits.
Although the ability for your customers to maintain a "Favorites" list has been an available feature for quite some time, the following additional favorites support has been added.
- Support for multiple favorites lists by user
- The ability to categorize items within each favorites list
- Item Image and Unit of Measure display within the favorites list
Support for multiple Favorites Lists by user
Users can now add multiple Favorites Lists, in addition to their default list, and they can name the new lists as they see fit. As they continue to use the system, they can also modify their naming convention and delete unwanted Favorites Lists.
The Item operations available are "Add to Favorites List" and "Delete from Favorites List". The List operations are "Create New List", "Update Favorites List" and "Delete Favorites List". If no list is specified, list and item operations will be performed on the "default" list for the user.
DemandBridge System Administrators, can modify the site pages to allow display of the available Favorites Lists and to allow maintainence of the lists. For simplicity, the existing favorites display page can be extended to display a table-by-table listing of all Favorites Lists. This page will allow the creation, update and deletion of multiple Favorites Lists.
The page mechanism to "Add to Favorites List" provides for a "popup" that shows multiple lists to be selected at one time using checkboxes. This will allow the user to add an item to multiple lists at the same time.
Categorization and Images within Favorites Lists
In addition to the option of having multiple Favorites Lists, the items within the list, can now be categorized by the catalog item groups available in the Office Products Database. Images and Item Units of issue have been added to the Favorites List as well.
Find Device Accessories
This is new feature provides an easy-to-use search engine to find compatible ink, toner and other accessories, for a number of specific manufacturers' devices.
The ECOM database includes tables called the "MatchBook" tables. These tables provide information on specific manufacturer' equipment and their compatible accessories. This new "Find Device Accessories" feature provides sequential dropdowns to allow the user to drill down by selecting a "Manufacturer", a "Device", a "Device Family" and then a "Model" from the device family. The final selection of the Model triggers a search for all compatible items for that Model along with descriptive and other data about those items. All of this data is contained in the other ECOM database tables.
The DemandBridge Development Staff is very pleased to bring this additional Office Products functionality to our customers. Stay tuned for even greater Search Engine enhancements in the near future.
For more information on this and other new DemandBridge features, contact DemandBridge Sales and Marketing at:
Email: sales@demandbridge.com
Phone: 770-448-1484 x5313
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INSIDE DEMANDBRIDGE:
DemandBridge Proudly Promotes Cathy Spence
DemandBridge proudly announces the promotion for Cathy Spence to Vice President of Operations. Cathy has dedicated herself tirelessly to our customers and our product initiatives. Her willingness and innate ability to calmly take control of situation after situation, and deal fairly with customers, employees, outside vendors, etc. has earned her the respect of everyone around her.
Cathy's experience and ability to look ahead and plan for the future is incredibly valuable to our current and future direction as a company. Please join me in congratulating Cathy on her outstanding contributions to the company over the years, and now her new position at DemandBridge!
DID YOU KNOW?
The DemandBridge Idea Bank is Up and Running
DemandBridge recently launched the "Idea Bank" as a way to collect and manage suggestions for changes and improvements to our software. Submitting suggestions to the Idea Bank is easy. Simply e-mail suggestions and comments to ideabank@demandbridge.com and we’ll address your ideas, concerns or tips immediately.
NET1 And DemandBridge Offers Integrated Credit Card Processing Solutions
Stop processing with a credit card terminal today and start processing with the integrated credit card module that is a part of your software. No need to purchase additional hardware/software. DemandBridge integrates with the NET1 Gateway and Virtual Terminal. All of the systems are web-based and can be accessed from any computer anywhere.
Increase your bottom line. Not only will processing with NET1 save you time but it will also save you money. With the lowest dealer rates in the industry, and the ability to send level 2 data with just a click of the mouse, you will see an increase in your profit in as little as one month.
BENEFITS OF NET1
- Direct integration with DemandBridge software
- Lowest dealer rates in the industry
- Free cost savins analysis
- Eliminate additional hardware/software
- Stop re-keying customer information - all information posts back to DemandBridge software
- NET1 Payment Solutions is the Approved Vendor of DemandBridge
For your free cost analysis contact:
Brian Morabito
Phone: 800-718-8005
Email: brian@net1creditcard.com
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