By blending transaction data and customer-specific messages into sophisticated communications, you can turn transaction documents such as bills, statements and purchase orders into attention-grabbing marketing tools that reinforce branding and focus attention through combination with invoice data – customers demonstrably take more notice of bills than adverts.
TransPromo allows you to avoid the swamp effect of classical mass mailings because you have an all-in-one document instead of a separate promotional flyer. Finally yet importantly, in times of economic uncertainty, optimising your communications by increased usage of TransPromo can mean considerable savings in your operating expenditures and increased customer retention.
TransPromo – what is it?
A TransPromo document combines a transaction document such as an invoice with variable messages that target each customer’s unique purchasing patterns. The promotional messages are selected and tuned to customers’ preferences, then printed directly on the bills and statements and possibly enhanced by using b/w, highlight or full colour images in the document’s white space.
Use the white space
For marketers, TransPromo is a tremendous opportunity to use the white space on statements to generate new revenue streams. Moreover, commercial printers with TransPromo delivery capabilities can position themselves as added value partners, helping their customers communicate more effectively.
Grab their attention
TransPromo makes use of the increased attention that customers pay to transaction documents. The average recipient will spend some 15 seconds looking at direct mail – but nearly three times that with a TransPromo document. Moreover, while direct mail pieces are frequently discarded, most people save items such as statements.
Create a rich new variety of applications
TransPromo applications are as varied as the audiences they serve and open up completely new ways of addressing customers. Examples of prime opportunities include:
Credit card bills with targeted messages and promotions based on purchasing patterns
Telecom statements optimised to enhance readability and add unique offers based on customer profiles and geography
Utility bills that include seasonal messages or energy-saving tips specific to the household
Airline company loyalty statements with embedded partner coupons
Automobile statements encouraging the purchase of a new vehicle at the end of the loan
Bank statements that promote additional services such as insurances or mortgages
Reach out and engage
These are just a few of the numerous ways by which you can rise above the promotional “noise” to give your customers the personalised communication they prefer. Now is the time to move up from multiple levels of communication that businesses currently use and effectively reach out and engage with your customers.
Planning for TransPromo success
Despite the selling opportunities inherent in TransPromo, transactional communication must always be leveraged with care to keep from jeopardising the relationship or compromising the integrity of the document. This demands a well thought-out plan.
Developing and implementing a TransPromo infrastructure calls for a “best practice” approach to evaluating options and applications based on an analysis of your needs and including the following:
Strategising your marketing objectives (if you are a print provider, those of your customers) to drive the choice of content to be included. TransPromo documents are another channel to achieve those goals, whether these are CRM, driving sales, or customer retention.
Evaluating your existing infrastructure, taking stock of where you are and where you’d like to be, and then prioritising your requirements.
Choosing the right technology and the right partner to help you pull it all together. Océ offers a wide range of products and consulting services and, if you so desire, will design a system to integrate with your existing assets.
Implementing your strategy effectively in collaboration with your provider. This involves testing for benefits, measuring results, reviewing priorities and proceeding to the next phase of improvement.
By following these simple rules, your customers can be eased into the new style step by step, with changes being made gradually.
Making use of the technology
Océ leads the market with convergent innovations that help transactional and direct-mail organisations deliver cost-effective TransPromo communication: flexible continuous feed and cutsheet digital printing systems that produce variable data documents in black & white and with highlight and full colour at production speed, driven by powerful software for end-to-end management of complex workflows. Underlying these innovations is the unique Océ approach to colour known as Océ Job Appropriate Colour – a colour strategy that meets today’s needs and flexes to meet those of tomorrow.
The hardware
To help companies catch the TransPromo wave, Océ offers the digital infrastructure customers need – including the powerful Océ VarioStream 7000, and Océ VarioStream 8000 families of continuous feed versatile web-fed printers, the Océ ColorStream 10000 Flex, the colour press of choice for Graphic Arts, the Océ ColorStream 3500 and the Océ JetStream series, which brings new level to digital inkjet printing and handles the most gruelling full-colour TransPromo requirements. All of these printers strike the perfect balance of brilliant colour quality, stunning speed, and value-added features that busy corporate and commercial users need to power through challenging jobs and drive productivity.
The software
Océ powers these families of digital printing systems with an open, integrated Océ PRISMA® workflow and software tools that make it easy to design and compose variable data documents. Océ PRISMA is an integrated family of adaptive workflow management software that makes work flow faster and more efficiently in concert with the systems and processes you already have in place. Océ PRISMAdesigner allows you to personalise your mass communication and create transpromo applications. In addition, its powerful post-composition module enables to re-engineer and/or add transpromo to existing print applications.