In honor of 3/14, or Pi Day as it’s known to many, we’re taking the opportunity to celebrate our own Pi – XMPie, that is. Founded in 2000 at the peak of the dot com era, XMPie is a Xerox Company and leading provider of software for variable data communications and cross-media, one-to-one marketing campaigns.
Merging Worlds
Looking back at its inception, XMPie’s President Jacob Aizikowitz noted, “There were two worlds, each operating separately: the world of personalization in print and the world of personalization on the internet. We noted that personalization isn’t a media-specific technology—it’s a marketing strategy. And we wanted to build a bridge to connect these worlds, as well as to allow designing for variable data to be as free from creative restraints as possible.”
To build a bridge connecting digital printing and digital media required thinking of how to take principles from the world of computer science and apply them to the world of print. With this new technology, businesses could leverage personalization across all media channels and at any point in the customer lifecycle.
A Smorgasbord of Personalization Software
Today, XMPie technology enables the creation of rich and relevant personalized communication across print and digital media: the holy grail of omnichannel customer experiences. This means much more than just printing a customer’s name on a mailer. This includes sophisticated software in several application areas:
- Data-driven print: Power communications with relevant and personalized messages, images and graphics, and automate production of personalized print campaigns. Options range from entry-level desktop solutions to mid-range and high-end server solutions.
- Cross-media: Create, produce, deploy, track, and measure one-to-one communications across all media channels, including print, web, e-mail and mobile, without compromising creativity. This magic is enabled by Open XM™– a personalization technology stack.
- Web-to-print: Build branded, e-commerce-enabled, online ordering portals, available 24/7 – without involving programmers.
- Campaign management: Create, manage, automate and deploy personalized marketing campaigns across all channels, then track results to see which messages work best with which audiences.
So What’s in a Name?
There was a time in the early days of brand formation when XMPie considered becoming XMπ, in a nod towards the company’s technology acumen. This branding never got off the ground, and XMPie was born from the acronym for “cross media personalization in eBusiness.”
Pi, the most famous ratio in mathematics, might be an irrational number, but it has provided the basis for purely rational fun. So today our inner geek gives a shout out to our slice of Pi – XMPie. The company’s technological achievements, and those within Xerox and the world of print, are well worth celebrating—and building upon. As π shows us, the possibilities for future advancement are infinite.
How are you celebrating Pi Day? Let us know in the comments below.
