Curiously, in the 1980s, 1:1 marketing was presented as a revenue enhancer, giving a company the possibility to cross sell and up sell from its base product and relationship with the customer. However, in the 1990s, the transaction print process came to be seen as merely a cost center, which meant that funds and management focus were steadily withdrawn from the applications that did such marketing.

To my mind – and I have no doubt that this will be debated – Transpromo is a term that is meant to do two things: (1) acknowledge that the availability of high speed economical color may/will have a big impact on how transaction documents are produced (for example, as someone noted, inserts may largely disappear), and (2) try to “wake up” the C level executives who have largely abandoned any consideration of both centralized and decentralized print, despite their large investment in both.

However, until we recognize that the problem that we are trying to solve is NOT selling more products or better using hardware or trying to improve some portion of the “document” process, we won’t really be satisfied with our discussions. The problem is “how do we more tightly bind our customers to our enterprise?” When we answer this question, all of the things that we see in better technology, 1:1 marketing, increased revenue, better customer satisfaction, Transpromo, etc. will all follow.

And how do we more tightly bind our customers to us? By engaging in a true bi-directional communication with our customers – by marrying all inbound communications from customers with all outbound communications to customers. It’s as if you married AIIM to Xplor – something that should have happened years ago and sadly didn’t.

But when companies recognize what the real problem is and how all of these questions relate to that problem’s solution, then the focus of what we do will return to the highest levels of decision makers in the enterprise – which is where we want to be.

So, ask yourselves, what problem are you trying to solve? When you step back and look at the biggest picture, the answers will flow naturally.

Bill

You can say what you want about InfoTrends, but I believe we have acknowledged and detailed the complexity involved in executing these types of applications. We’ve done quite a bit of research and consulting around this subject for the last few years to back up the so-called “hype” of the opportunity that truly exists around the TransPromo concept, as well as how a program like that is executed. I’ve also written about some of that research, as well as concepts beyond what we traditionally think of as “TransPromo” here on The Digital Nirvana for the last year.

As the market starts to see more real-world case studies (as Duncan notes, a very hard thing to try and get out of a company that has successfully implemented one of these programs) it becomes more educated and aware about these opportunities and will seek them out. Color printing will become cheaper, speeds will increase, and software will become more agile and interconnected. All these technological factors, in addition to the existing opportunity, will make the move to implementing TransPromo concepts even more enticing.

She says the term is broadly misunderstood and misused. I agree, and in my opinion this is is largely due to the incredible amount of hype that was built up around it by firms like InfoTrends that made transpromo sound like fast, easy money with little acknowledgment of how large a commitment it required or how complex and difficult it can be. As Pat notes, there’s more to this concept than ads on bills.

TransPromo gets you 266000 hits in Google.. not bad for something that didn’t exist 5 years ago.. and is really nothing more than a buzzword applied to smoething we used to call statement-based marketing.

“Transpromo’ obfuscates instead of clarifies.

The best I’ve come with so far is TransInfo – Google Ad Words on Paper.

The idea that you are going to send out a deeply personalized, relevant marketing piece on your first try is flawed to begin with. Most people don’t have the data, know how to use the data, or have the will to use it to begin with.

Consumers of all stripes are very wary of fake, one shot, and attempts to “be their friend”. It takes a growing, learning campaign that uses 1to1 to drive more than just lead nurturing. Further, using personalized campaigns the wrong way will drive up your negatives, with very little chance of recovery.

My favorite example of this is a group of dentists who sent out about 2000 email, 1000 to existing customers, and 1000 to targeted “prospects” about a dental whiting program, each with very simple 1to1 content. From the first group, decent response, no push back. From the second group – 52 people sent email, or called the dental office to complain. Several of those 52 did both. Several threatened legal action, thinking their medical records had been compromised, and one person had to be referred to local authorities due to physical threats.

Using 1to1 campaigns without a plan, is more than just a waste of money, it is a danger to your company.

And John, Transpromo isn’t just hardcopy. Good Transpromo campaigns are seriously multi-channel. You can do very sophisticated interactive marketing on electronic transaction documents, for example. So I don’t see an increased online bill pay scenario as a negative hit on Transpromo; it just means tactical adjustments of what you do in your hardcopy versus electronic delivery channels.