formerly transpromotional.com

Joe Mislinski, COO of St. Ive’s Financial, has a great 54 slide Powerpoint turned PDF on the web. Transitioning from Transactional to Marketing. There are many examples of end products, before and after comparisons and performance results. This is great piece to aim people towards transpromotional document strategies. It shows what is achievable, which is great.

There are many articles and presentations like this, but there is a lack of presentations on exactly how someone gets there. The software and hardware isn’t the real story in transpromotional documents. The marketing savvy and IT prowess of the implementation team, combined with a strong vision makes this happen.

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Jeff Hayzlett’s article “How to Turn a Stack of Mail into a Pile of Gold” at OnDemandJournal.com does a great job of summing up some of the important points of transpromotional documents, while showcasing the major thought and effort behind a successful program at Tesco grocery stores in the UK.

* Print Service Providers can use transpromotional documents to build closer relationships with their customers. In today’s commodity business, this is a great way to increase switching costs.

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In order to successfully undertake a transpromotional document strategy, all of the planets have to be in alignment. It’s tough work, because you generally have to do that aligning yourself. Here’s a quick list of the “planets” that need to be aligned.

Business case: You need an ROI story to make it pay off.

Product or Service: You have to have something to promote.

Design: You need a functional and appealing design to maximize response rates. It simply won’t work if you paste some ads onto your statement.

Willingness: You have to truly believe in the transpromotional strategy. From senior management through marketing, data processing, billing and the production floor.

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After a few early successes in smaller markets, many people have adopted a “this space for rent” approach to transpromotional documents. This approach involves filling white space with advertisements in much the same way web ads and google keywords are placed. In this implementation, your telephone bill could contain an advertisement for a dry cleaner.

In the best implementations, the data is properly mined to deliver relevant offers to the recipient. This has been done to great effect in Israel. As the market widens, and privacy laws differ; this strategy becomes less effective.

There are still major accounting issues, as the printer/ad-sales person has to prove that the ads were delivered to the proper targets. This data accountability is outside the competency area of the typical transactional printer. There are also serious data privacy considerations with this approach.

This may be the right way for utilities and other local monopoly players, but this may cause brand damage to competitive telecoms and financial institutions.