January 2009

Trekking to TransPromo
How to use the data you have about customers
to create more compelling communications. By Pat McGrew

Have you heard of TransPromo? Maybe you are one of those folks who follows the trends and you’ve
already picked up the buzz around a new slant on integrated customer communication. Perhaps you have already had the conversations with the marketing and billing teams to determine how your company can strengthen your brand and even drive some new revenue by using bills and statements as part of the marketing engine.

Remember that everything you do to keep
your customer longer is reflected on the
bottom line, so using what you know about
your customer can help keep them longer
and make them more profitable

Or, perhaps you’ve heard the term but you aren’t sure what it means. TransPromo is a set of tools and techniques that involves using the data you have about customers to create more compelling
communications. It may involve putting more targeted marketing messages on a bill or statement, or it may use similar techniques to inform (TransInfo) or educate (TransEd). Those same tools
and techniques apply to solicitation and promotional direct mail since we know that the more we personalize those communications, the more effective they are. Regardless of which tools and
techniques you use, the goal is to bring the power of the information you have about your customers and the power of your current marketing presence together.

If you have missed the buzz, don’t worry! It’s not too late to start applying these methods to your customer communication strategy. In fact, this is a great time to learn from the experience of
the early adopters and trail blazers.

Auditing your world
Starting with the basics, customer communication comes in several forms, generally split between customer acquisition, customer care, and the business communication that involves bills, statements, and regulatory notices. In many organizations, the first two are owned by the marketing teams, while
the billing organizations usually own the billing statements. Often the bill and statement formatting are handled by the billing group since it knows the capabilities of the print devices, finishing requirements and mailing requirements. The result is that over the years, the essential mail
documents tend to diverge from the customer solicitation and customer care mailings in format, use of brand colours and logos, and overall messaging.

The first step is to bring it all together by creating a normalized approach to all customer communication, including the essential transaction mail, promotional mail, Web presence and mass media presence. As anyone who has been through the process can tell you, it is easier to talk about than to do. The starting point is to get the marketing teams and the billing owners together and look carefully at everything a customer sees. Customers are aware of mismatches in messaging and branding, so this one step can help solidify the view of the brand.

The next step we call TransInfo. TransInfo is the process of adding informational content to transaction communication. The information may be static content that provides market data,
product updates, or general education. The goal is to design the communication to take advantage of the best practices in design and make room for additional content. Note that this doesn’t have to be personalized or targeted, just informational. The goal is to open up the design and make room for enhancements down the road!

You may find that stopping here works for a while. Maybe you’ll do some preprinted forms replacement and move to blank paper, full colour printing as part of your new design, but the goal is to ensure that you have an easy-to-read, easy-to-navigate document that doesn’t make doing business with you any harder than necessary. If you get here and you’re comfortable, the next step may be to use what you know about your relationship with your customers to educate them on
the market and on how to become more informed. We’ll call this TransEd, and it involves adding educational content to the transaction document that is specific to the customer. Bar charts, graphs and other visual content that informs the customer about the status of their business relationship is a great way to add value, but the addition of other text-based content is also valuable. The important part is the personalization of the content so that it is relevant and timely for the recipient.

Have you noticed that we haven’t put a marketing message on the bill yet? We’re just changing the nature of the communication to make it more useful. We don’t really start marketing until we get to TransPromo, and for some industry verticals, we may never get there. Regulated industries may not permit marketing on the transaction document, and in some countries, it changes the postage required. TransInfo and TransEd can always be used, while TransPromo may have some limitations.

But, if you want to move into TransPromo, it is important to know that it is both the art and science of using what you know about the customer to create targeted, relevant marketing messages. This may sound like one-to-one marketing, and in some implementations it may be down to that level. In most cases, though, customers fall into a handful of well-defined buckets and if the offers are well targeted it may only look to the customer like it is one-to-one marketing, while the marketing department breathes a sigh of relief that it is creating under a dozen specific offers each month. In fact, this activity may simply be reflecting offers already developed for direct marketing and Web marketing campaigns, and simply reinforcing them via the transaction document.

Crawl, walk, run
We think of the TransInfo, TransEd, TransPromo progression as a crawl, walk, run proposition. It does, however, include all of the people involved in the billing cycle; from the line of business/product
owner, to the forms designer, the printing department or outsource provider, and the workflow owners. It also includes the marketing department and all of its support structure, which may include
brand agencies, marketing agencies, direct mail agencies, and a variety of advisors and consultants. Don’t forget the Web people and their supporting infrastructure. Did I mention the search marketing team and the e-mail marketing team? It should stretch to the CMO, CIO and CTO, all of who have a stake in making an integrated approach to the customer succeed.

If you are rolling on the floor laughing at the idea that all of these folks can come together, I do understand. Many companies locate these people in different physical locations and rarely encourage
them to get together. To be successful, however, this is what has to happen. Even to get to TransInfo, it is necessary to know what the corporate style is and apply it to the transaction documents. It is necessary to ensure that the typefaces, colour schemes, and basic look and feel of even the transaction documents participate in the scheme designed for the direct mail, the mass media communication, welcome kits, and other touch points. It is a big job!

To get started, take the temperature of where you are in terms of integrated communication. That means finding copies of the current transaction statements, inserts that go into the statements, solicitation letters, and direct mail pieces to current, lapsed and prospective customers, Web pages,
banners on non-corporate Web sites, mass media advertising, and anything else you use to communicate. Remember, you don’t have to get it all from internal sources. Go online and search on your company to see what comes up. Check newsstands, newspapers, billboards, and your own mail box. Find as much as you can and then set it all up so you can see it.

Are the logos correct? Are the typefaces the same? Is the colour scheme the same? Are the essages on the current transaction document the same as those in the current advertising and marketing?

The next question is how well do you know your customer? There is customer data that is used to generate the transaction documents. Is it mined and used to create better customer communication? Is that reflected in the direct mail, their visits to the Web, or in the transaction mail? Remember that
everything you do to keep your customer longer is reflected on the bottom line, so using what you know about your customer can help keep them longer and make them more profitable.

The end goal for any customer communication should be to inform thecustomer, provide a call to action, and to make it easy for the customer to heed that call. Along the way, we should be capturing data points and learning to use those data points to create the best experience for the customer.

Pat McGrew is a data-driven print segment Evangelist, Kodak Graphic Communications Group. She can be reached at Pat.McGrew@kodak.com.