"We help companies create, share and manage email signatures for all employees, and to use email signatures for targeted marketing purposes and easy distribution to other platforms." Xink

“Xink is the industry’s longest established email signature cloud software solution.”

While businesses work hard at cleansing databases, validating email addresses and ensuring that data is as accurate as possible, a much forgotten about area is the humble email signature. When businesses calculate the amount of emails sent out per day, per week, per month the email signature is a classic, and very effective, opportunity to promote both the business and the individual. Email signatures should be viewed as a standard part of the marketing of any business.

Xink saw the light of day based on this idea. It is a comprehensive email signature management and campaign platform that is designed to enable company-wide control over email signatures and email-based marketing initiatives. Easy to implement and use, it is a powerful and intuitive tool that can reap dividends for your business, be it large or small.

Xink’s commencement

The idea was originally developed in 2003 as the first solution to the email signature management problems and branding issues that companies faced in emails after the switch from paper and fax to emails. It started out as an on-premises solution and when cloud started to appear as a serious business solution, the company developed its whole Xink platform in the cloud.

Inception of the first product

The first on-premises product supported the environments the companies were using at that time before cloud. It was integration with Active Directory and Exchange servers, and as well internal databases, integration to CRM systems, ORACLE and such solutions. Many customers are still using the on-premises solution if they have no plans to move to the cloud.

A cornerstone of Xink’s existence is to develop its solutions along with its customers. A strategy that is key to its success. The first version was developed along with a big council with 4,500 users. The firm has never tried to invent features because it should either sound “fancy” or because it wanted to invent a feature set that no one would truly use. “Everything we do is in cooperation with customers and then the product and platform has developed naturally from there. Our goal has always been to develop a great solution and a great company where we have our independence and we have succeeded with this strategy,” says Bjarne Mess, founder and CEO.

Keeping its independence

The firm is bootstrapped and has grown organically. There is no funding behind which is a deliberate decision to keep its independence.

“We have experienced natural interest over the years from companies all over the World and have taken the organic approach. It has worked greatly for us and we have kept our independence and we do not have to report to a talking spreadsheet that functions as surveillance of budgets and goals,” Bjarne Mess says.

Breaking through the bubble

Xink started the first product on the backside of the first bubble in 2003. This was of course a challenge as tight budgets made companies cut down on software products. Second, an email signature was often seen a something which “we can do ourselves”. So the initialchallenge was to tell people that yes, of course each individual could do their own signature, but they would all look different, could be conflicting with set brand standards and they would not be able to use for targeted marketing purposes. Thus, email signatures need to be automated and centrally managed and most companies acknowledge this today. It is a matter of ensuring consistent branding across the company and let people do their job instead of worrying about their email signatures.

Xink’s fortes

Employees: The company has an extremely small turnover of employees. Many have been with the company  since it rebranded back in 2009.

Customers: The customers have easy and direct access to the employees. There are no traditional account management functions or middle layers. Some customers are very technical and just want a direct line to a developer, and they will have that. Others want to talk marketing and not IT, and they can do that with the person they prefer.

Product: Its platform is very well tested and of course safe and secure to use for its customers. It is very rich on features but the ‘features’ is not the value in itself. A rich feature set can be worthless for some customers if they run the emails on another email platform. The focus is to keep the Xink software so flexible that it can handle almost any request, a unique asset that has contributed to making Xink one of the world’s leading email signature companies.

Meet the brainiac: Bjarne Mess, Founder and CEO

Bjarne is originally a mathematician with specialty in actuarial statistics. He got caught by the IT world in late 90s and switched to IT and has been there comfortably ever since. Since then Bjarne has founded several companies, written books, is inventor of granted patents and is the founder and CEO of Xink, a SaaS email signature platform in the cloud.

"Strong impressions through the email signature"

Keep in touch: www.xink.io