Instead of producing their non-bestseller titles in lots of 5,000 to 10,000 publishers might be better served to use digital printing technology to produce 500, 1,000 or 2,000 copies of a given title. Get them into the marketplace and see how they do. If they sell, produce more. Use the computerized inventory systems installed in every retailer to monitor inventory and demand levels and develop models to predict demand. Next, use this newfound knowledge to automate reprint orders based on predetermined stock levels and actual demand. Over time, you’re able to build demand curves for books by title, category, by author, even location, enabling just-in-time production and delivery while maintaining minimal inventory levels in drastically downsized warehouses. Yes, it’s complicated to set up, but it’s hardly rocket science and the knowledge and technology from inventory through production is readily available.

The benefits of such a model will take a few years to see, and will result in a more robust publishing industry that runs leaner yet offers a wider selection of titles, brings forth more new authors —and is much more profitable. This is the way publishing can, should, and will be done. The Kindle and other “e-book” readers notwithstanding, printed books are not going away anytime soon, and there is plenty of money still on the table for publishers who see that digital book production is a way to reinvent a business that is in many ways a cornerstone of civilization.

Our customer and their customer are engaged in a long term project to integrate variable promotional elements in their transactional messaging. The variability is based on both the consumers’ buying habits and some very sophisticated demographic segmentation. Our customer’s customer is delighted with the results and has no intention of going back to the old way of doing things. In fact, they want to double the volume again in the next 6 months.

TransPromo involves a complete redesign of a company’s entire messaging structure. Corporations do not invest the kind of money it takes to stand up a serious TransPromo project lightly, e.g., $100K in software, $150K in professional services, $XXK in document redesign, etc… These projects are not for the faint of heart. They require a solid C-Level commitment These are marketeers that are convinced that they will generate the kinds of increased top-line revenue that these implementations have been proven to produce. Notice that I said top-line revenue not bottom line cost savings. TransPromo is a money maker. These implementations are developed by professional marketers and mathematicians who apply sophisticated strategies and arcane analytical measurement tools to guide them at every step.

Let’s touch just quickly on validation. The statistics that we all learned in undergrad Stat 301 (and quickly forgot) are woefully inadequate to conduct a proper inquiry into success metrics. TransPromo is first and foremost a data driven environment. Instincts, hunches and marketing experience are incapable of cutting through the noise, finding the actionable data, and linking the correct recipients with the relevant offers. The truly effective programs begin with clearly defined business objectives that typically come from the Marketing department, e.g., improving back-to-school sales, cross selling additional services, launching a new product, increasing the lease renewal rate, blowing out under performing inventory, etc.. [Hint: cost reduction is hardly ever a sufficient reason for TransPromo]

The final result is called Behavioral Targeting and gets much of its horsepower from integration with CRM systems to provide the necessary 360 degree view of the customer. Add the insights provided by CRM to a well conceived business objective and you have a potent revenue generating marketing program.

You will know you are ready for TransPromo when basic mathematical marketing concepts like net promoter scores, RFM, CART, CHAID, LTV and brand equity come like second nature to you. Just remember back to one of the basic tenet of Six Sigma: if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

Finally, our experience at Océ has shown us that companies that engage in TransPromo on a large scale basis do not want to talk about it and they don’t want us to talk about it. Non-disclosure agreements are always part of the deal when we help a customer implement one of these programs. We beg them to allow us to do case studies, but it never happens. They think of these projects as highly proprietary in nature. They think of them as the competitive advantage that gives them the edge in winning new customers and retaining their old ones. The word “system” doesn’t even begin to describe what really goes on. These implementations are environmental by their very nature and affect practically every aspect of a company’s structure.

After months of preparation the first trial run will a test that is limited in scope – one of many – and it will be run time and again. It will be constantly analyzed, revised, and refined. The willingness to keep going back to evaluate the process over and over again is implicit in the design and implementation process. To abandon something with that kind of scope after just one outing is ludicrous.

So, when I read that Heidi says 1:1 print jobs are seldom repeated I am really not too terribly surprised. Without the underlying C-Level commitment, professional design, data modeling, and the exhaustive analytics these 1:1 print jobs are destined to be one-offs. Variable data printing continues to evolve but when we compare 1:1 and TransPromo we see two different markets, two different kinds of print jobs and, two different marketing models driving them.

Océ has been an active promoter of digital newspaper production dating back to the creation of the Digital Newspaper Network in 2001. In April we made our first foray into world of the daily newspaper with our participation in the Newspapers of America’s NEXPO Conference in Washington, D.C.. At that conference we had an opportunity to introduce ourselves to a market that is almost completely new to us. In preparation for this event certain market forces became clear to us that convinced us that our message was one that they would embrace.

The last couple years the newspaper industry has been under considerable economic pressure. Revenues from national, retail and classified advertising have plummeted – classified being the hardest hit with a decline of over 16% last year. The newspaper industry has been exploring the opportunities of making their content more individualized. They have come up with notions like content tagged to individual carrier routes, neighborhoods and a new concept called “micro-zoning”. The result would be a press run with lots of variable elements and versions. This is not the kind of work that their presses are designed to do.

Enter Océ and our digital message. Our experience in the transactional world makes us exactly partner that they have been looking for without even knowing it. Variable data printing, dynamic composition and advanced data management are some of our strong points and exactly the areas where their industry has the least expertise. When combined with the power of our production management software and our continuous feed printers it is truly a match that shows the way to the future of the newspaper.

In late June we will again be bringing our message to the newspaper industry at a gathering of industry thought leaders in Denver at an event called the second global Conference on the Individuated Newspaper. We have been selected to be a sponsor of this conference that it being hosted by the MediaNews Group. MediaNews Group is one of the largest newspaper companies in the United States situated throughout California, the Rocky Mountain region and the Northeast.