January 2009

Think big. No mo’ transpromo, please.
Instead, let’s optimize communications streams and make the most out of customer touch points. By Cam Shapansky

Transpromo… Love the concept. I’m not so keen on the term. Without even having a catchy buzzword, we built a business in the 1990s around a “transpromo” service offering. At the time, most organizations were churning out paper mountains of barely formatted data and calling them
bills, statements, and policy documents (transactional documents). While we had a great sales team, it was pretty easy picking. Our story went like this:

You’re sending transactional documents out via first-class mail every month or quarter, people are reading them, and they are loaded with all the great data needed to trigger really meaningful and personal messages—so why not make the most of the opportunity?

We began telling our customers that these documents were monthly appointments with their customers and these appointments were being wasted.

The response was overwhelming. I remember our first presentations when we walked prospective customers through our production facility to show them the tape on the floor where all of our fancy printing and production equipment was going to go. Quickly our message resonated, however, and the tape became actual fancy equipment and there we were, busy redesigning transactional documents for many of the biggest companies in our land. Most of these documents included variable and personalized “onserts,” coupons and articles that replaced the inserts that used to be stuffed into the envelopes.

Over the past decade, most organizations have redesigned these documents and the standard is much higher than it was. Technology has evolved and full-colour variable printers have become faster, better, and cheaper. There is now a frenzied excitement in some circles, saying: “We can do more!! ‘Transpromo’ is the way of the future!!” Maybe, but from my perspective, this groundswell is missing the point.

The benefits
The benefits of integrating meaningful and personalized messages and offers with your regular transactional documents are clear. For the most part, the most commonly touted benefits haven’t
changed since the 1990s. Use transactional documents to provide coupons that line up with demonstrated interests, discounts that reflect a client’s individual priorities, and articles that use actual data to provide personal examples to each client, and when you do this, recipients will
pay attention. Transactional documents provide a relatively easy opportunity to get to a relational level that is simply not possible in other marketing channels. Not only is it possible, but the data file is
already being generated, and very little incremental IT work is required.

While this argument is compelling, in my mind this “Transpromo” sales pitch falls well short of the big opportunity. Large organizations send out an incredible amount of stuff to clients. This stuff includes regulatory and compliance information as well as marketing, educational, and relationship-building material. For most organizations, the volume of stuff has grown steadily over the years. It spews out from various silos within the organization. While each individual piece has a purpose, the overall communications stream is jumbled and no longer makes sense. Beyond the world of intelligent coupons and offers, organizations need to stop thinking about communications “pieces” and start
thinking about communications “events.” Your transactional documents go out on a predictable schedule. These are set times on the calendar when you have the attention of your clients. Use these events to deliver all of the meaningful content you have for each client in that specific window.
Announce local events that are happening in each client’s area, deliver regulatory information, provide offers of specific interest, educational articles, and notes of reassurance. Depending on the client, you may even want to have your statement positioned as being from a key relationship
person to help build that personal connection with your organization.

If you take this opportunity seriously, you will find that you are sending out fewer pieces of information, saving money on stamps, killing fewer trees and delivering a lot more measurable value to your clients. This opportunity extends well beyond laying promotional messages on transactional documents—there is an opportunity for many organizations to re-engineer their communications stream. And yes, the obvious place to start is with those valued pieces of correspondence that are not optional and are loaded with data.

A great example is a credit card statement we developed for one of Canada’s banks. During the concept development phase, as we worked closely with the production vendor, the idea was
that clients’ statements could be spooled on the fly to the piece of production equipment that most efficiently met the needs of that single statement—a no-frills statement would go to the black and
white continuous form printer, while the statement for the client who was receiving personalized balance transfer cheques that month would be sent to the cut sheet MICR machine. This confluence of
communications strategy, production floor possibilities, and technology led to a highly efficient and highly effective solution.

The problem
A while back I spoke at a communications conference that was all about Transpromo. On the first day, I was thrilled by the size of the crowd and the obvious enthusiasm about the theme. My excitement waned, however, as I talked to people at the event. As I worked the crowd, it quickly became obvious that there were no marketers present. There were plenty of IT and data people, some operations folks, some print and production people, and even some statement wonks, but no hard-core marketers. This makes sense because in large organizations, marketers look at statement concepts quickly to make sure the letterhead complies with corporate standards, but otherwise, they don’t tend to engage with these applications. They are focused on the Web, TV, print advertising, direct mail, etc.

There is enormous marketing potential for these documents. Yet marketers are largely absent from the discussion. The hardware and software tool kit for making really cool things possible is all in place, but at this point it is this tail that is furiously trying to wag the marketing dog.

This discussion must not be about transactional documents because if it is, it’ll be hard to get the right people to the table. Instead, let’s take a step back and shift it to being about maximizing every
single communication touch point with clients; about making sure that every $.50 spent on a stamp is money well spent; about measurably improving the client experience while reducing costs.

So rather than talking about “Transpromo,” I suggest we embrace the idea of optimizing communications streams and making the most out of customer touch points. Let’s start the process by turning transactional documents into communications events that show clients that we know who they are and what’s important to them.

The keys to getting it right
There a few key things to keep in mind when optimizing your transactional document stream:

Remember the function. These documents have a specific purpose; it may be to provide a statement of account, to request payment, or something else. This purpose cannot be lost in a sea of messaging and cross-selling. It is possible to prominently present the core purpose of the document while also delivering a lot of other valuable information, but care must be taken.

Make it personal. If you fill up these documents with generic meaningless messages and offers, clients will soon learn to tune out that information. Once they tune it out, it’s really hard to pull them back in. Make sure every image or bit of content has meaning and purpose. The days of “Hi
Cam” personalization are past.

Be sure that it’s valuable. Clients will get annoyed if the offers and messages don’t mean anything to them. Make sure the messages add value and are on target.

Support the brand. The messages, tone, offers, and announcements in your statement are some of the most visible messages your clients will see. Be certain they are consistent with the messages and tone that you want delivered and they properly reflect who you are as an organization.

The future
People don’t like change. Things keep going the way they always have until there is a need to change. I do see our current economic situation forcing companies to get more practical, efficient, and smart with their client communications. As this happens, it is inconceivable to me that the
bulky stream of transactional documents won’t have a big target on its back as representing a huge opportunity to save costs by integrating and combining with other material.

While the economy will push us in the right direction, getting there will require us to engage a new audience of marketers in discussions. The focus is going to have to shift away from document engineering, variable print and technology, and move towards communications strategy.

Strangely, I’d love to see more competition for Blue North out there—firms like ours that get the technology, know the production floor, understand document engineering, excel at information design, but are first and foremost marketing strategists. We are the canary in the coal mine. More competition will mean that the discussion is heading in the right direction.

Cam Shapansky is a partner and consultant at Blue North Strategies Inc., where he is a developer and proponent of White Page Marketing™. For more about White Page Marketing™and Blue North, go to www.bluenorth.ca.