New York – Traxion, the digital communications division of Sells Printing Company in New Berlin, Wis., opened its doors in 2008 with a mission to be a state-of-the-art provider of digital, one-to-one communication services featuring the highest quality creative combined with uncompromised, interactive user experiences. To accomplish this, Traxion selected XMPie PersonalEffect and uStore along with a Xerox iGen3 110 Digital Production Press, and implemented a team with data, design, programming and production expertise in the digital media space.

Traxion selected XMPie because it needed a scalable solution for variable data printing, dynamic websites and personalized e-mail, combined with solutions for developing Web portals and powerful personalized imaging capabilities. It was also important to Traxion that its solution leverage Adobe publishing technologies through a seamless and streamlined integration.

One of Traxion's first customers, Lentz Design, provides personalized marketing materials to real estate agents through a Web portal. Lentz enables agents to individually create and produce postcards for promoting the properties they are offering for sale. Ease of use and compelling creative were important to Lentz, and the company decided to enlist Traxion's help in implementing its vision for a new realtors' portal.

Using XMPie's image personalization tool, uImage, with the Adobe Creative Suite, Traxion created dynamic postcard templates, which they branded as "The Wow Factor." One popular and effective template features the recipient's name on a street sign, drawing their attention to a message about a new home on the market.

With uStore, its software development kit (SDK), and XMPie's uProduce Web Services Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Traxion created a new Web portal that retained the look and feel that Lentz desired, but provided backend capabilities that not only brought about more compelling creative, but also significantly improved the realtors' user experience. Among the improvements, postcard customization and ordering time was reduced to a few minutes instead of hours, driving increased activity and repeat orders. Also, uStore's support for online field mapping, which enables agents to upload mailing list files and map data to the variables contained in the templates, also emerged as a significant efficiency and ease-of-use benefit.

Print volume generated from the site has increased, and uImage-based offerings have driven volumes as high as 27,000 pieces per order. The system is also modular and flexible enough to enable site changes in just days, which helps Lentz Design continually refine the types of postcard designs offered.

In the nearly two years since opening, the organization's digital print business has doubled, prompting an upgrade to a Xerox iGen4 Press, and it has grown its Web-to-print offering from one customer storefront to 13, which serve more than 28,000 users.

"It's a growth business and we're on track to make it a very successful one for us," said James Lenartz, manager of digital operations, Traxion.