San Jose, CA -- L2 today released marketing applications in response to a growing trend in retail towards social marketing applications that promote brand loyalty and customer retention. The applications, built on L2's fuse platform, are designed to help retail marketers turnaround low 2009 sales figures by enhancing customer relationships with their brand.

"Providing value that improves the customer experience is key to sales growth in the retail space", said Research and Market's '2009 Trends to Watch: Retail Technology' report.

L2's launch of the marketing applications coincides with some retail analysts' prediction of a third quarter increase in consumer spending, partly driven by back-to-school shopping. Launching interactive marketing applications in the third and fourth quarters allow retailers to retain and reconnect with their best customers and drive further sales growth through to the end of year holiday season.

The marketing applications launched by L2, allow retail marketers to customize campaigns for their brand and industry using ready-to-use multi-channel marketing technology. The applications feature social elements to promote word of mouth marketing (refer-a-friend and customized group invitations), variable printing for targeted messages (personalized coupon marketing, variable catalogs and web-to-print collateral) and integrated campaigns over email, web and direct mail.

"43.4 percent of back-to-school shoppers said coupons influenced them to buy from a particular store. Word of mouth (29.9%), websites (18.5%) and direct mail (16.2%) were also important factors, according to a consumer survey from the National Retail Federation's 'Back-To-School Update 2009' report.

Wrich Printz, President and CEO, says the application comes at the right time for the retail industry. "The industry as a whole has been hit hard in the first two quarters of 2009 and survived. Major players will now be looking to re-brand their businesses and find a way to boost sales revenue without having to resort to storewide discounts. Interactive marketing applications can help them raise sales at the store level by 10% or more by providing better customer experience and a connection with the brand".

The retail applications are available to retail marketers and marketing service providers as a demo under L2's Fuse Advanced Value Added Reseller (FAVAR) program. For more information email [email protected] or visit http://Favar.L2soft.com.