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Resembling an online desktop publishing package, the RedTie software offers a set of highly configurable marketing templates - including direct mail forms, postcards and stickers - which can be personalised with customer names, information and pictures. The software effectively eliminates the need for small business to outsource print marketing to designers.

Once created, the click of a button sends the campaign to RedTie's printing facility where it is produced and shipped in anywhere between six and 48 hours, depending on volume.

The software is currently being trialled by blue chip companies such as HP, Suzuki and Sage, but RedTie is now targeting smaller businesses.

"The entry barrier for these services was huge; cost, technology, facilities. Our public is not technical, so we knew we had to create an easy interface, we wanted the whole transaction to take place on the internet," says Marian Stefani, managing director of Red Tie.

Web-to-print is not a new idea but RedTie has the backing of industry giant HP, which supplies the Indigo printing presses used by the company, and will now begin actively recommending the software to its clients.