 Do you TransPromo?
By Kurt Konow
Data Center Segment
Marketing Manager
Ricoh Americas' Production Printing Business Group (PPBG)
Imagine a world where you could achieve 95% readership of all your marketing messages, direct mail, and customer solicitations. Better yet – imagine each message receives one to three minutes of focused attention. Sound like a marketer’s dream?
Enter the world of TransPromo communications – where with the right ingredients the impossible is possible.
TransPromo blends must-read transactional information with marketing messages on mission critical statements, invoices, benefits explanations and other documents—turning the mundane into highly targeted, relevant communications. Up to 95% of transactional documents are opened and read, with readers spending between one and three minutes reviewing the contents. In contrast, less than 10% of marketing solicitations are opened with fewer than 10 seconds spent on content review.
A Win-Win Proposition
Smart companies are aligning forces across marketing, finance, IT, and operations to strategically utilize transactional documents as an effective, two-way communications device to increase customer spend and cement loyalty. Transactional documents already grant you permission to talk with your customers—so it makes perfect sense to use this opportunity to tell them more of what they want to hear. It’s a win-win proposition.
Companies Win:
- Capitalize on customers opening transactional documents 95% of the time and spending one to three minutes on content review by creating relevant marketing messages
- Derive additional revenue from current customers by delivering targeted offers based on consumer buying behavior
- Reduce operational and postal costs by eliminating costly inserts and separate solicitation mailings
Customers Win:
- Receive personalized coupons and marketing offers for future savings
- Learn about additional services and offers that correspond to the customer’s interests and buying history
- Reduce direct mail in a world where consumers are exposed to thousands of messages daily
Making It Happen
Transactional documents are becoming more strategic and revenue generating, rather than merely operational documents representing an accepted cost of doing business. TransPromo projects are topping the strategic initiatives of many organizations with the combined strength of marketing, finance, IT and operations, and powered by the knowledge of a TransPromo solution provider. Progressive organizations are now transitioning to TransPromo communications to infuse document workflows with revenue generating marketing principles.
A TransPromo Checklist
The following checklist provides topics and questions to help you begin TransPromo discussions in your company. When you’re talking with marketers, be sure to focus on the reasons why TransPromo works and the potential opportunity for your business and, because a picture is worth a thousand words, demonstrate the look of TransPromo versus a traditional transactional document. This checklist is an extract from the whitepaper prepared by Ricoh IBM InfoPrint Solutions titled “The Roadmap to TransPromo – Business and Technology Insights for IT and Production Managers that can Accelerate Time to Market.”
Budget
- Evaluation criteria for hardware, software and services
- Color, monochrome or both?
- What existing devices or software can be used?
- Decision to insource or outsource
- Current volume and anticipated growth to determine scalability requirements—the requirements for managing the output and data integrity of millions of documents each month are quite different than those for a lower volume solution.
Operations:
- Disaster recovery for color printing
- Color management and accuracy
- Management of reprints and data integrity
- Planned datastreams: PostScript, PDF files, AFP, others
- Experience and tools of the composition vendor
- Resources:
- How will images be tested to determine print quality and coverage?
- Are storage, network, and content management systems large enough and flexible enough?
- End to end testing:
- If the application has bleeds, do they work correctly?
- How will the document fold in the envelope?
- Will color crack?
- People skills:
- What is the color learning curve?
- What is my rate of turnover?
- How can workflow software reduce staffing requirements
Marketing:
- Data sources, internal and/or external
- Data-mining tools
- Privacy and security related to customer data, including how you demonstrate to customers that you’re using data in secure way while protecting privacy.
- AFP provides the highest level of data integrity with automated audit trail
- Postscript, PDF or PCL often require a camera system
- List management, including opt in/opt out functionality
- Consistency of messaging and brand look and feel across all marketing vehicles
- Chance to recover costs when partner messaging is an opportunity
- Metrics
- Campaign management, internal or external
Compliance/Regulations:
- Audit trails
- Integration of marketing messages on regulatory documents—it’s legal but some have concerns, especially related to multi-channel campaigns
Customer Service:
- Call center staffing and training
Stakeholder Buy-in:
- Support from IT management, Chief Marketing Officer, direct marketing executives and others who participate in the TransPromo initiative
Be a Part of the TransPromo Revolution
Consumers are pummeled with direct mail, marketing messages, and solicitations by the thousands every day. Imagine cutting through the marketing noise with a customized campaign tightly integrated with highly regarded transactional documents. Imagine consumers spending one to three minutes reviewing integrated transactional information complemented by highly targeted marketing programs. Sound impossible? Sounds like TransPromo. PPBG is here to make it happen for you.
Kurt Konow
Data Center Segment Marketing Manager
Ricoh Americas' Production Printing Business Group (PPBG)
A veteran to the high-volume transactional print market, Kurt Konow is responsible for Data Center marketing for Ricoh Americas' Production Printing Business Group. Kurt brings many years of hardware and software solution experience to his appointment as Data Center Segment Marketing Manager for PPBG. Kurt can be reached at kurt.konow@ricoh-usa.com or at 630-335-4453.
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