Abstract:
A system and method to disseminate information. The system ( 2 ) is typically used for advertising and, in general, for the distribution of information to several end-users. It uses a request-based model in that information ( 35 ) is only sent to parties requesting the information and is therefore useful in identifying real needs. It aggregates material from clients ( 1, 10, 11, 12 ), providing a conduit for potential customers ( 3, 30, 31, 32 ) who request ( 33 ) information relating to products and services offered by the client. The client is allowed to access, modify, view, and save ( 13, 14, 15, 16 ) product and service information. The system is also capable of analyzing data pertaining to customers, which it has aggregated, and converting it into meaningful information, which will have relevance to the client. It allows for secure and quick response to an incoming customer request for information.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    The present invention relates to a system and method for delivering information, specifically brochures, enhancing the effect of advertisements placed in digital and print media. 
       DISCUSSION OF PRIOR ART 
       [0002]    In order to market their goods and services, businesses use a variety of advertising means. These include print and digital media, besides several others. In the case of print media, advertisements are placed on banners, handouts, newspapers, magazines etc. with details about the product or service or details on how to obtain brochures for the product or service. In the case of digital media, the means of advertising include television commercials, internet commercials, sending potential customers emails etc. In the case of digital media, the challenges for the business placing the advertisement are different than in the case of print media. Advertisements placed in print media are more persistent, in that they can be carried and used by the customer at any time, and consequently remain in the customer&#39;s memory for a longer time-period. In the case of digital media, the advertisements on television might appear only for a short duration. A consumer&#39;s memory for advertisements has been studied in several arenas and remains one of the biggest challenges for companies. Second, in the case of internet commercials, besides appearing for a short duration, the advertising campaigns need to consider the rights to privacy of the end customers. Sending SPAM e-mails has not been considered a desirous practice when trying to build brand-names. Thus, services, which automatically send millions of advertisements to every potential customer based on lists created by data-mining companies are a less attractive alternative. 
         [0003]    WO2006/056775 discloses A Brochure System, which enables the electronic display of a brochure. This invention also allows control over the direction of browsing (forward vs. backward), the speed of browsing, enabling images and displaying text and images together. US2004164975 discloses a Method, system, apparatus, and computer program product for controlling and browsing a virtual book, which allows a user to browse a book, place the book on digital media etc. EP1222612 discloses a Method and System for delivery of a brochure wherein the users are allowed to request a brochure by means of a sensing device, whose use is monitored by a computer. This invention requires a marking nib on the sensing device. Further, this system uses a set of netpages, which are similar to regular webpages, whose components include hyperlinks, images etc. The user uses a sensing device, provided with a stylus, to indicate the features within a netpage which are of interest to him. A netpage printer is a component of this system which is used to print out the final information, and is present in places like the users kitchen etc. GB2420115 discloses a Brochure dispensing machine, which includes a selection device and a brochure printer. A user is allowed to select a brochure by means of a display and an input device and the brochure is extracted from a conveniently placed aperture. 
         [0004]    The present invention primarily engages two entities, clients and customers. Clients are allowed to maintain a repository of their advertising brochures in the system of the present invention. Further, they are allowed to update, edit and manipulate the information associated with the brochures, while having full access to the customer list, which is maintained in the system. The customer list is created by the system by aggregating customer details. The customers are allowed to ask for brochures by sending a request to the system of the present invention, by providing their details. The system receives these requests and sends the customers the relevant brochures. This is different from the systems proposed by prior art in the entities involved, the responsive fashion in which the system is able to take advantage of a customer&#39;s short-term memory for ads placed in digital media, the seamless integration of requests and customer information and the round-the-clock availability of the system to deliver brochures to customers. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0005]    The present invention discloses a responsive system and a method to deliver documents in general, using a request-based model. This implies that a potential end-customer, requests for information about a certain product or service, by sending a message to a pre-specified destination. The customers can place requests using different means, including means which enable the users to instantaneously contact the system. The system of the present invention receives these messages, validates them and proceeds to deliver the requisite documents to the customers. This ameliorates the problem of a customer potentially being irritated by receiving unnecessary solicitations from businesses and builds goodwill. The businesses employing the system and method of the present invention have a transparent method of aggregating their brochures and having the system respond to their customer&#39;s requests at all hours of the day, all days of the week. This extended uptime reduces the cost of setting up call-centers and other such public relations setups and provides a low-cost alternative for marketing. Further, since the users are able to react instantaneously in placing their requests with the system, full advantage can be taken of advertising media such as television or other digital media, including print media, as the user is not required to remember the details of where to place his or her requests for longer than the time taken to place the request. Added to this, businesses can now access lists of customers who have indicated an interest in their products or services, edit the material which they make available in their brochures, incorporate material existing in a variety of formats in their brochures and maintain all this at a single location in the data-store of the present invention. Further, analysis can also be performed on the customers data to collect information which is meaningful to the client. 
         [0006]    The present invention discloses a system and method to deliver brochures relating to products and services to various customers requesting these brochures. Typically, the system of the present invention includes brochures from various clients, each of whom sell the products or services detailed in the brochures. The content of the brochures is designed by the clients themselves and can incorporate material in a variety of formats. A brochure data-store is indexed by clients and sent electronically to customers requesting such brochures. Besides being able to populate the data-store with their brochures, the clients are also provided means to edit their brochures, store images relating to their brochures and view a list of requests in order to analyze and maintain a record of potential customers, offer new services to regular customers, understand the demographics of their existing customers etc. 
         [0007]    In the regular course of things, the customers respond to ads placed in various print and digital media for the product or service in question, send an request to a particular number, along with their e-mail address and a brochure is delivered to that address by the system after validation. The method to carry out these operations includes the steps of:
       Collecting and storing data (brochures) from the clients, pertaining to their various products and services.   Indexing the data, associating keywords with specific brochures and making these keywords available to the clients for use in their ads.   Processing incoming messages from customers, requesting certain brochures.   Validating the customer&#39;s contact details.   Upon validation, if the address is found to be valid, sending an acknowledgement to the customer and then a brochure to the customer at that address   Upon validation, if the address is found to be invalid, sending an error-message to the customer.   Aggregating and analyzing customer data to provide meaningful information to the client.       
 
         [0015]    In one embodiment of this invention, the customers can send their requests  33  by utilizing the Short Message Service (SMS), which is enabled in most mobile technologies world-wide. Typically, the request would be sent to a pre-specified number (4, 6 or 10-digits long), which ultimately leads to the system of the present invention. Further, the request could contain the e-mail address of the customer for rapid digital/electronic delivery of the sales brochures. Since the SMS is sent from a mobile platform, the customer&#39;s mobile phone number is immediately transmitted as part of the message. The messages could come in from mobile operators in a variety of domains (such as GSM, CDMA etc.). Further, the data about the customers can be analyzed to provide meaningful information to the clients. This would include such information as the originating location of the requests, the date-based statistics and information about the frequency of requests, the number of requests based on the keywords handed to the clients and the geographical breakdown of the requests etc. This information can further help clients analyze their customer&#39;s profiles, keep updated of the popularity of keywords etc. This technology can be utilized in a variety of domains including but not limited to, sending out brochures, application forms for various institutions, sending out prospectus information, sending out technical information and literature concerning products, sending out price-lists about components/services/products, current stock and inventory information, subscription forms, membership forms, company profiles used by marketing people in the field etc. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS 
         [0016]      FIG. 1  depicts an overview of the system of the present invention. 
           [0017]      FIG. 2  depicts an overview the method to enable a client&#39;s interaction with the present invention. 
           [0018]      FIG. 3  depicts an overview of the method to enable a customer&#39;s interaction with the present invention. 
           [0019]      FIG. 4  depicts the method of activating new clients in detail. 
           [0020]      FIG. 5  depicts an overview of the customer details available to the client. 
           [0021]      FIG. 6  depicts the customer details made available to the client in one embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0022]      FIG. 7  depicts an overview of the method to deliver the information to the customers. 
           [0023]      FIG. 8  depicts the population of the data-store in the system of the present invention. 
           [0024]      FIG. 9  depicts customer data being converted into meaningful information for the client. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
       [0025]      FIG. 1  shows an overview of the system of the present invention. There are three main entities interacting with each other. The clients  1 , the system  2 , and the customers  3 . The clients could represent a variety of businesses such as car manufacturers  10 , educational institutions  11  or personal care service providers  13 , to cite some representative examples. This is by no means a comprehensive list of clients but only an exemplary set. Further the customers could be any consumer who wishes to buy cars  30 , enroll for courses  31  or avail personal care services  32 . The system  2  is comprised of a data-store  20  and a set of sub-processes or methods to handle its interactions with the customers and clients. The data store could be any of a commercial data-base, a non-commercial database or any known storage means. The data store that is used needs to be populated initially and is accessible for the purposes of retrieval, performing updates and processing interactions with other entities of the system. Typically, clients go through an activation process  13  wherein they establish their requirements with the system. Once the clients have been activated, they are assigned keywords that they may disseminate in their digital ads, allowed to populate  14  the data-store  20  with their sales material, brochures and information. The means to populate, access, update and process various interactions with entities with the data-store could be any of the conventional methods of data-entry or any other known methods. All accesses to the system have a mandatory authentication process  15  which establishes the identity of the client with the system and allows the client to access  16  customer lists pertaining to requests for their products or services. Customers  3  interact with the system by sending a request  33  along with their contact address. Upon receiving this request, the system performs validation checks  34  which establish the correctness and authenticity of the customer&#39;s message. If the customer sends a valid message, an acknowledgement along with the data is sent back to the customer  35 . If the customer sends an invalid message, an error message  36  is communicated back to the customer. 
         [0026]      FIG. 2  depicts an overview the method to enable a client&#39;s interaction with the present invention. The client is allowed to input the details required by the system in an interactive fashion. Further, the client can enter the details via the world-wide-web, by using forms designed for this system, accepting the client&#39;s input in each field of the form. The start of the method  40  is followed by the step of client activation  41 . The clients are allowed to input details about their sales information or documents  42 , further having the capability to edit the same material  43  over time. This information is used to populate the data store  44 . Once the data store has been populated, the system waits for external requests  45 . A client can request customer details by providing an ID supplied to them  46 . This would enable the clients to assess their customer demographics and send promotional material in other formats etc. The means to analyze data pertaining to customers to provide information to clients includes a variety of data-mining techniques, analytical tools and other methods custom-built for this purpose. The system first authenticates the client  47 . If the client is authenticated, they are allowed to access their space or customer lists  48 , typically stored in the systems data store. Accessing to the data-store is only allowed for authenticated entities or clients. The clients are allowed to manipulate their portion of the data-store and perform a variety of actions including the creation of redundant copies of the current data-store for failure resolution. The system can also perform the act of creating redundant copies of the data-stores of clients, processing alerts, which are raised in the case of suspected abuse and further, suspending the rights of the entities interacting with the system, in case such abuse is detected and verified. If the client is not authenticated, the system raises an alert  49 . The clients interaction stops  50  with these set of steps. Several clients can access the system at once, or one client can access the system several times, simultaneously or sequentially. 
         [0027]      FIG. 3  depicts an overview of the method to enable a customer&#39;s interaction with the present invention. The process starts  51  by the system receiving a request for sales information, typically brochures, from the customer  52 . The system authenticates the delivery address and message provided by the customer  53 . If the customer message and address provided is authenticated, the system updates its data-store with the customers information  54 . The process of updating the system&#39;s data-store could further include the identification of customers who have been sent material, which is accomplished by keeping track of the recipients of the material and co-relating this list with the list of customers. The data-store could also be updated to include the client&#39;s comments on the interaction with one or many customers. The system could also update the data-store in order to keep track of a client-subscription&#39;s validity. Further, the client is allowed to update the data-store to add or include information, images and supplemental material, as they see fit. After this, it looks up the requested information in its data store  55  and delivers it to the customer  56 . The information that is delivered to the customer is primarily the promotional material, placed by the client, in the system&#39;s data-store. This information could be in the form of brochures, short presentations etc. If the customer&#39;s message and address are not authenticated, the system sends the customer an error message  57 , which could be in the form of an SMS, an e-mail or any other mode of direct communication and further updates its data store with the customers information  58  after which the process of the customers interaction with the system stops  59 . Several customers can access the system simultaneously and receive information concurrently. 
         [0028]      FIG. 4  depicts the method of activating new clients in detail. A set of steps has to be performed in the process of activating a new client. Typically an administrator of the system is granted the capability to perform these steps. While no particular order or periodicity is required while performing these steps, we list the steps for the sake of discussion. Initially, the system starts by assigning a password to the client  60 . The password is sent to the client  61 . The client could also receive other related information such as user manuals  61 . The system defines the number of keywords, which a client can have within the system  62 . These keywords are essentially indices to organize the sales brochures and information by. Typically they are short and descriptive of the particular product or service for which a customer can obtain sales information. Further, the keywords are typically placed in the digital advertisements placed by the client to engage new customers. A validity period is assigned to the client, based on the subscription that the client has with the system  63 . Although customer details are aggregated even when the client&#39;s subscription has expired, the client is not allowed access to customer lists past the date of subscription and is thereby forced to renew their subscription for continued access to the system&#39;s features. The system constantly checks for any abuse of it by the client  64 . If it detects any abuse by means of any illegal activities, it immediately deactivates or suspends the client&#39;s privileges  65 . If no such abuse is suspected, the client is allowed regular, authenticated access to their space and customer lists  66 . Further, the system backs up client data and performs maintenance all round  67 . 
         [0029]      FIG. 5  depicts an overview of the customer details available to the client. Customer requests are aggregated in the data-store and typically contain the data with respect to the date  70  of receipt of the request, the customer message  71  which typically contains the keyword assigned to a particular client, customer details  72  and  73  and remarks. Clients have lists that are unique to them, indexed by the number of keywords, which they are assigned. For example, client  75  who is an educational institution, Pantalunes, is assigned the keywords biotech and engineering based on the courses they wish to advertise for. The list created for the client  75  holds the customer information, indexed by the product the customer is curious about. The client  76  is a car manufacturer, Wowvo, who is assigned the keywords car and SUV for two categories of vehicles. The client  77  is a personal care service provider who is assigned three keywords haircut, manicure and pedicure for three different services. Users of the system can repeat for the same product or client, across different clients and across different keywords, for one client. There is a lot of versatility provided to both the client and the customer. Further, the client can sort the lists based on any of the entry headers (date, keyword/customer message, customer details), view parts of the list, for example all entries pertaining to a certain time-period, all entries pertaining to a certain keyword, all entries pertaining to a certain regular customer etc. Using the section for remarks  74  the client is allowed to make entries for customers based on the action taken with respect to that particular customer. For example, if a demo has been scheduled with that customer, the client can make note of it in the remarks column. Further, these lists can be saved, manipulated and formatted in a variety of formats based on the client&#39;s requirements. 
         [0030]    In one embodiment of this invention, the customers  3  (as shown in  FIG. 1 ) can send their requests  33  by utilizing the Short Message Service (SMS), which is enabled in most mobile technologies world-wide. Typically, the request  33  would be sent to a pre-specified number (4, 6 or 10-digits long), which ultimately leads to the system of the present invention. Further, the request  33  could contain the e-mail address of the customer for rapid digital/electronic delivery of the sales brochures. Since the SMS is sent from a mobile platform, the customer&#39;s mobile phone number is immediately transmitted as part of the message. In this embodiment, in the process of interacting with the customer (as shown in  FIG. 3 ), the request sent to the system  51  is typically an SMS, to the number placed in the ad (which leads to the system), with the keyword (supplied to the client by the system and placed by the client in the ad for his product/service) along with the email address of the client. The system authenticates the keyword and e-mail address  53  and updates the customers information  54  in its data-store. If the e-mail address or the keyword is invalid, an error message is communicated back to the customer. This error message could redirect the customer to the system&#39;s website or ask for a valid email address from the customer. Concurrency is built into the system for simultaneous access by several customers. 
         [0031]      FIG. 6  shows the customer details made available to the client in this embodiment of the invention. The client  80  has a list for the keyword newlook and the details about the customer with regard to the date of his request  81 , the keyword  82  which he is requesting the information for, the customer details such as his mobile phone number  83  and email address  84 . Further, the client can still upload remarks  85  based on their interaction with the customers, sort the list based on a certain set of dates  86  etc. 
         [0032]      FIG. 7  shows the method used by the system to process customer requests, in this embodiment of the invention. The method starts  90  by reading the system time  91 , after which it checks to see if a pre-specified time interval has been reached  92 . If not, the system goes back to reading the system time  91 . If the interval has been reached, the system triggers the method to send brochures  93 . There is a scanning of the data-store  94  for new incoming customer requests which have been received and stored. If the client has instructed that the customer request be answered with an e-mail containing the brochure and other material  95  the brochure is accessed along with the client message, pertaining to the keyword which the customer has sent in  96 . This email is sent to the customer at the address provided by the customer  97 . The data-store is further updated to indicate that the message has been sent  98 . The process terminates  99  after this step. 
         [0033]      FIG. 8  shows the method to populate the data-store of the present invention by the clients. The process starts  100  by accepting a description of goods/services/material from the client  101 . This is followed by accepting an acknowledgement message from the client, which is sent to the customers  102 , at the time requests are received from the customers. Further, the system accepts the client&#39;s choice with respect to the system sending customers emails  103 . Client input for brochures and associated images is taken  104  followed by the client&#39;s input for additional material to be sent to the customers  105 . The client&#39;s choice for sending brochures to international customers  106  is also accepted, which leads to the end of the process  107 . 
         [0034]      FIG. 9  shows the information that can be made available to the client based on data collected about customers. The analysis proceeds on the requests received from the system, pertaining to the customers who are associated with particular clients. One of the possible clients for this software could potentially be an educational institution, which offers brochures about its courses, to potential students. The kinds of information that the client might be interested include the monthly aggregation of the numbers of requests, as shown in  FIG. 9   a . The total responses, both internationally and nationally as shown in  FIG. 9   b . Further, the client may be interested in the geographical origin of the requests, as shown in  FIG. 9   c , which details the number of requests from different states within India. The number of requests based on keywords or in this particular case, the courses offered by the institution can also be collected and displayed to the client, as shown in  FIG. 9   d . The data is analyzed by accessing the data-store of the system, which logs the customer&#39;s details (as shown in  54  of  FIG. 3 ) and mining for the required information.