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Transpromo’s future is dependent on profits
Transpromo - the next big thing or another Home Information Pack-shaped white elephant?
The business of putting marketing messages on transactional mail, transpromo, has been talked about for a couple of years as the ‘next big thing’ in the DM sector and, while it has been relatively slow to catch on, some major corporate players are now either dipping their toes in or seriously investigating it.
Obviously, it has its plusses; namely saving clients money as they can multi-task statements and save on postage and print costs for marketing collateral. They can also, with the right data, target advertising to consumers’ spending patterns.
Both great upsides. The downside is, to put it bluntly, cost.
By its nature, a transpromo document is more expensive to produce than a standard piece of transactional mail and that is a major stumbling block. Rather than just trying to cut costs, in the finacial sector at least, the trend seems to be to get rid of transactional mail altogether.
For instance, HSBC introduced a ‘Green’ account, which gives customers £5 if they opt not to receive paper statements, or indeed paper-based marketing collateral. Instead, customer accounts are managed purely online, via email or by telephone.
I’m sure HSBC is not alone in this strategy. After all, online banks have been doing it for a while. But if I’m honest, I think it’s a bit cheeky: the scheme’s green credentials are dubious at best as it shifts the responsibility onto the customer, who will often print the statements out at home anyway.
However, it’s not all bad news for the advocates of transpromo; the goal must be that organisations can sell advertising space on their transactional mail, turning it from a cost into a source of revenue – but as far as I know that’s yet to really happen.
Until it does, if it’s a choice between clients either saving some money with transpromo or completely getting rid of a cost, ie printing, by steering their customers to the web or other forms of e-communication, then the chances are the latter will ultimately prevail. Bad news for the transpromo print brigade.
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Colin Thompson - 19 July 2008
TransPromo
Attracting Attention for Excellent Results
Transpromotional (or Transpromo) is a document that includes a promotional or cross-sell message, alongside essential transactional or financial information. The information is personalised to contain a communication applicable to the receiver of the document in a positive approval.
For many years, companies have included promotional inserts into financial or sensitive mailings (which also could be classed as transpromotional) but the effectiveness of those inserts diminishes every year as customers often bin them immediately and only read and keep the document with their information on it.
However, if you can replace that insert with a targeted colour message on the prime document, you can be sure that the consumer will look at that message for between 1-3 minutes. Due to the increased attention to your message, response rates can increase by anything up to 800%. This is why `true transpromo` mailings are so exciting to customers.
With investment in state of the art full colour digital printing lines, you can offer effective solutions to maximise the benefits of printing variable and targeted messages (or ‘onserts’) on to sensitive documents that the recipients will read and value.
TRANSPROMO EXPLAINED
A statement is a statement, right?
WRONG. Using a combination of bold design, colour print and variable data, you can turn your statement (or any transactional document) into valuable marketing tools that allow you to both retain and inform customers. By using, or allowing others to use, the white space on your transactional documents it is now possible to generate valuable extra revenue. This action will bring excellent results with customer acceptance.
TransPromo is the inevitable fusion of transactional printing and proactive marketing. Transpromo documents are intuitively based on knowledge of client demographics and consumer markets. It is a well know fact that statements, invoices, cheques and payslips are still the most frequently used communication between businesses and customers/consumers.
As the consumer will always expect the document and due to its relevance on their financial records, they are usually guaranteed to open and read it. With graphical representations of their transactions, dynamic input and personalised proactive marketing ads you can grab your customer's attention, enhance their perception of your corporate brand and potentially increase their spending.
Don't put off what can be done today. Excellent results are what you require.
Don't squash your dreams, because this is not a dress rehearsal for the rest of your life.
Colin Thompson
Cavendish
www.cavendish-mr.org.uk
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