As a utility consumer, I have needs. I need to be asked how I’m doing. I need to feel needed. I need to be understood. I desire warmth from more than just my HVAC unit.

I want to know where my money is going and why I owe as much as I do. Once I come to terms with the hard fact that I indeed do need to part with my hard-earned money, I want it to be as convenient and easy to decipher as possible. I want to be able to check my bill from my phone or computer and have the option to pay from my mobile phone.

I don’t want to call a customer service line, and I don’t want to navigate through a series of voice prompts. Parting with my hard earned money isn’t an intrinsically fun thing to do, so when I have an experience with my utility company, I’m already on the defensive. I need my utility company to open a communication with me, not just a one-way message. I don’t at all mind the utility company sharing a third-party deal with me, as long as it applies to me, and isn’t a hassle to read through.

What I can’t deal with is poor design that lacks graphics to clarify my statement. I’m a visual learner, so I need to see where my money is going. I want to see the crucial information front and center. If I have to call customer service, I want to easily find my account number and all other pertinent information in one place. I want an e-statement that looks like my bill. I find it helpful to see why I’m using so much energy, and I like to see if I was demonstrated better or worse habits in the prior year (or better than my neighbors!). I want to see actual meter readings and I want to know how to lower my consumption. I also don’t like getting a water bill, a sewer bill and a waste collection bill separately, when all three are paid with the same invoice!

Also, I need reminders. A printed bill in the mail is a great reminder, but for some bills, I prefer e-presentment and mobile solutions. When I use e-statements, it really helps to get a reminder in my email or a text to my phone. If there’s one thing I hate more than having to pay bills, is paying late fees. A simple reminder and an easy to use payment portal help me make late fees a thing of the past. I have some bills on autopay from my bank, some I pay monthly with my credit card and some I send a check for- so I count on my utility provider to make it easy on me with a reminder. The worst is getting hassled by customer service or risking a service interruption from a late payment when literally, “The check is in the mail!” Please track your remittance efforts as well, and save us all some time!

I understand that some providers have an outdated legacy system in place, but that is no excuse to not get with the times. Work with a provider to transform your legacy system into a more modern system, and begin a statement archival system for easy access in the future. Offer me online and offline options for my statement. Offer an electronic bill pay system.

Is that too much to ask?

About this time last year I posted a release about the new retail sales branch opened by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. Horizon was one of the first health insurance companies to take a “retail” approach to selling individual insurance policies under the then newly approved Affordable Care Act.

In May of 212, Forbes reported on the partnership between Aetna and Costco to offer the Costco Personal Health Insurance medical and dental program.  Consumers who buy the Aetna coverage through Costco will get extra discounts when they buy prescriptions through Costco pharmacies. Costo had already developed banking partnerships to allow them to sell mortgages.

This year we are starting to see the life insurance industry, particularly products geared to lower and middle income consumers, pursue retail sales opportunities. MetLife, for example, has set up kiosks in hundreds of Walmart stores. Unlike the Horizon branch which has specially trained staff to answer questions, visitors to a MetLife kiosk pick up their “box of insurance” in the form of a prepaid card and take it to the checkout. They then have to call MetLife’s toll-free number to answer health questions posed by a life agent. If the customer qualifies for coverage, the policy is activated, otherwise the card can be returned for a full refund.

Two key things we can learn from this trend:

1. As more insurance companies start courting retail partners as distribution channels, or opening up direct branches, they will need a new “retail approach” to their communications as well. This opens up new opportunities for graphic arts services like signage, sell sheets, and packaging for direct branches. It should also increase potential for transaction printers to offer statement marketing to highlight approved retail partners. Design services are a potential “foot in the door” as so much new material will need to be developed for the retail audience.

2. Partnerships, particularly distribution partnerships, can be wonderful things. Printers and other business communications professionals may also find value in new distribution channels and regional partnerships. Insurers are able to reach a broader audience that will pay a premium for convenience through retail relationships. Perhaps there are similar opportunities out there for your business.

If retail and insurance are getting married, let’s crash the wedding or at least get some good dating advice.

Elizabeth Gooding is the President of Gooding Communications Group and editor of the Insight Forums blog. She writes and speaks and provides training on trends and opportunities for business communications professionals within regulated vertical industries.

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to print

The statements and bills of outrageous usage,

Or to take online against a sea of logins,

And by accepting digital mailboxes? To print: to email;

Much more!

Ah, Shakespeare and his affinity for transactional documents. Well documented in his masterpieces, such as “A Midsummer Night’s Data” and “Much Ado about Printing,” Shakespeare is not the only one that noticed a shifting landscape from print-only transactional documents to online documents. Well, which one is better? To print or not to print?

As you might have guessed, the answer is not a simple one. I recently read an article in the Digital Nirvana blog describing the online shift for statements. To quote the article: “According to a massive 2011 InfoTrends study, the shift is taking place slower than anticipated. In fact, only 11% of American consumers receive their bills electronically.” Whereas, the perceived shift to electronic communications seemed prevalent (at least to me), consumers still crave printed materials, for reference purposes and for security.

Why print?

First and foremost, consumer preference leans towards the printed piece. In Epsilon’s consumer preference survey, direct mail was the channel of choice for health information, insurance information, and financial services statements. 62% of Americans enjoyed checking the mailbox daily. Print technology is simply making the printed piece even more engaging, and consumers also expressed that printed mail is easier to reference at a later date. Digital Print technology has evolved in such a way to take statements and personalize them to levels never before thought possible. Utility statements can show individualized usage charts and suggestions based on energy consumption. 401k mailing and insurance statements can pair with information databases to show full color representations of distribution and growth, as well as market trends. These personalization options will continue to shift consumer preference towards print, and any business can outsource the data storage, printing and mailing responsibilities to a qualified provider.

Why online?

According to the same Channel Preference study, Mobile device users were 40-50% more likely to prefer email and online communications, respectively, than non-users. This fact is important to note in an increasingly connected and mobile world. Not only are statements shifting to online options, but mobile apps for statements and utilities are surfacing, as well. Younger generations are being raised in an online world, and when they become billpayers and recipients of medical statements and 401k breakouts, they will expect them to be digital communications. The social media component very well might eventually pair with transactional documents in the future, and digital mailboxes will provide a level of security to appease those concerned about online threats.

So to print or not?

Both. The answer lies in determining and exercising your client preferences. Finding out whether your customer prefers electronic presentment is the first step in statement redesign and billing preference. Whereas mobile is convenient, the printed piece offers great levels of personalization, color, and is tactile. For a long time to come, the solution lies in combining the printed world and the online world into an overarching multichannel strategy. Preparing your statements for both online and printed communications will allow the customer to choose how and when they transition between mediums and will help you answer the question “To print or not to print?”

Property and Casualty (P&C) Insurance carriers are in the business of assessing risk; risk of theft, damage, injury, professional malpractice and catastrophe as well as investment risk. They make their money by laying odds on the likelihood that things will go sideways for their customers and that they will earn enough money by investing the pool of premium dollars to pay out on the bet if things do. Lately it seems that climate change is blowing up all the models for setting the odds of a natural disaster and insurers are dealing with defining and delineating coverage for new threats like cyber-terrorism that have completely changed the game.

The core systems most insurers have in place are woefully inadequate to handle the scope and pace of this new insurance game. In order to keep up, companies have built add-on modules and work-arounds to their core systems, often relying on Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access “Band-Aids” to keep business moving. Many carriers that have upgraded their core systems did it on a “go-forward” basis leaving existing business on the old policy administration or claims system and writing new business on the new platform. At some companies this has happened more than once and there are now several “core” systems in production for different lines of business. All of the Band-Aids, work-arounds and go-forward solutions have left data scattered in multiple repositories just when carriers need data in one place more than ever.

In order to adequately assess risk, insurance carriers need large amounts of policy, claims, fraud and customer demographic data all in one place so that they can use risk modeling and data analytics to determine which types of risk are profitable to insure.  According to Accenture’s  2012 North American Claims Investment Survey, 54% of P&C insurers have core systems that are more than five years old, 66% say their claims systems are not optimized to collect and analyze data and 78% regard their capabilities inadequate to manage new forms and levels of risk, such as those presented by cybercrime, terrorism and increasingly frequent and severe natural catastrophes. So, after years of avoiding the disruption, expense and well – risk of a major core systems upgrade many companies have realized that they just can’t avoid taking the leap. A small study of 37 insurance carriers by Novarica indicated that 25 percent of large P&C insurers and more than 40 percent of midsize carriers were in the middle of converting their policy administration systems or planning to start a conversion at the end of 2011.

Keep in mind that the typical core systems upgrade will take from an incredibly fast eighteen months to a more typical three years plus to complete, depending on the number of undocumented work-arounds that need to be incorporated into the system and the level of data conversion to be completed. This means that a large percentage of the industry is either planning a core system upgrade or in the midst of completing one. And what comes out of these systems you ask? Documents, lots and lots of documents: quotes, policies, premium invoices, notices, claims reports, payments and more.

Opportunities abound for reducing the costs of producing documents in parallel with core systems conversion. Bringing systems together increases the opportunity for postal optimization, targeting analytics and improvements to the design of the documents themselves. The core systems upgrades have a larger implication as well; they enable insurers to develop more segmented and personalized products to appeal to different age, risk, ethnic and geographic groups of consumers. Direct marketing and agency marketing support is becoming more tailored and personalized as well with multi-touch, multi-channel and multi-language campaigns hitting the paper, airwaves and cyberspace simultaneously.

P&C Insurers are expected to spend an average of 17.5 million on Claims System upgrades alone. This seems like a pretty substantial number until you consider that the top 16 P&C insurers spend an average of $315 million on advertising each. GEICO alone spent over $993 million on advertising in 2011. This is not counting direct marketing spend – P&C Affinity Mail alone exceeded 500 million mailings in 2011 according to Mintel Comperemedia.

Savvy service providers are positioning themselves to help insures take advantage of newly upgraded systems and a wealth of new data to improve their customer experience throughout the insurance lifecycle. With their plates full to overflowing with core systems conversion initiatives, insurers need help to ensure that the tangible representation of their value to consumers – namely insurance documents – are not put at risk by the very projects intended to reduce risk. Now is the time to show insurers how to redirect some of those advertising dollars toward investments in customer experience and cross-sell using low-risk, high-reward solutions like direct mail, statement marketing and personalized collateral in tandem with QR codes and other calls to action that drive social media engagement and leverage consumers interest in mobile insurance applications. If your company isn’t positioned to help them, maybe you should be looking at some core systems upgrades too.

Elizabeth Gooding is the President of Gooding Communications Group and the Editor of InsightForums.com. She covers business communications trends in highly regulated industries such as insurance, financial services, healthcare and telecommunications.

Since the advent of high speed color inkjet presses that approach the quality of offset, printers and data centers have begun struggling with the decision of integrating this new technology into their operation.

The decision to move print volume to high speed inkjet is complex and one that does not always have a clear ROI.  Since inkjet brings new and different ways of thinking about everything, you have to implement the system and related changes into your existing operation.

In small-to-midsize printers, this decision will impact nearly every facet of the organization’s processes, including the markets you pursue, how you estimate and price your product, production flow, quality, materials and warehousing, and personnel skills. In many cases, precise navigation these decisions can determine the very survival of the establishment.

But before you get to any of that, first you have to decide if the move to color or monochrome inkjet printing is right for you.  In some cases, modification of your current printing environment is all that is necessary to keep you competitive.  For instance, if you print offset now and have only long runs and little or no variable printing, switching to inkjet most likely will not provided any benefits.  Your efforts should probably be focused on tuning your current production processes.

If you have some of the factors that often make going to inkjet a decent return on investment, that is, you have short runs, need to print variable data, or are overprinting on preprinted material, actually calculating that ROI can be elusive.  Every business case that I have built has been has been completely unique.  Little of any previous analysis was usable. This is mostly because every shop I worked with has accounted for their usage and cost so differently, and each have their own business processes.  Because of that, a single model to capture all of the possible permutations would be so complex that it would lose its value as a template.

And each shop has a different starting point:  Some are all digital already, leveraging the best of the toner technologies, some are all offset, some print variable information on preprinted shells, some carry finished product and some don’t, and some need to meet incredibly tight SLAs.  Some are sheetfed and some are web shops.

Yes, there are common components that remain the same. This includes all the things you may normally think about:  Skilled prepress, press, and finishing labor; Press maintenance and cost of downtime; Plates chemicals and other consumables costs; Toner and click charges; Paper waste and energy costs.  You need to look at ink, paper cost differences, throughput and uptimes, waste, time to produce, cost of shells, and inventory obsolescence. I like to look at some things that you may not consider, like the efficiency gained by consolidating your longer runs to an offset press (if you use offset) and being able to capture business you could not reach in your current state. And if your customers are somewhat flexible, you can add to the business case by demonstrating the efficiencies that minor changes in format or color might give them a marketing advantage or you a cost advantage.

Although you probably have a great handle on your current costs, capturing which of those costs could be eliminated by inkjet, and most importantly, understanding what your new costs REALLY will be, is even more of a challenge. Often, the use of an outside expert could be a very valuable investment. They can help you understand exactly what your new costs will be as you transition to inkjet, model your production with real world data that will give you uptimes for both the printing and finishing environments, help you select and value the new kind of operator labor, and more.

It should come as no surprise that more and more people are shifting their once offline activities to online activities. This is true for things like shopping, reading newspapers, keeping in touch with friends and family. In fact, you are even reading you are even checking on your industry virtually by reading this online blog. This trend has numerous meanings for the printing industry which affects book printing, magazine printing, creating marketing communications, and… printed bills and statements. Scary stuff for the printing industry! But, is this shift actually as prevalent as we think it is?

According to a massive 2011 InfoTrends study, the shift is taking place slower than anticipated. In fact, only 11% of American consumers receive their bills electronically. While there is a push on the part of billers to move billing and payments online, the vast majority of customers still prefer a printed statement. That is the good news for printers. However, younger generations between the ages of 18-24 seem to have adapted most to online billing and payments, which may suggest that future generations will do the same.

What does this mean for printers? It means that they don’t need to panic yet. But they do need to keep an eye on the future and whether or not this trend of online activity continues to shift. In all likeliness, it will. Unless printers can come up with creative reasons why the printed piece is more powerful. With the increases in variable data printing capabilities, printed statements can act as a personal and impactful touch point with customers that the online experience may not fully provide.  A printed statement can be an opportunity to inform, educate, and promote. This is especially important when considering that, according to InfoTrends, printed statements are still the best way to cut through the clutter of communications.

So don’t give up on the printed statement! Think of it as a challenge to capture emerging generations. Could this be a new resolution for 2013??

This post provided by Evan Childs, SourceLink blog contributor. 

When it comes to electronics (the newest gadgets on the market), I definitely put myself in the laggard category for adoption. I’m usually never the first guy on my block to have the newest electronic gadgets. I’m the slow and steady guy who likes to think that I can do without many of these gadgets, as I’ve done for my entire life prior to owning one. So suffice it to say that I was a bit shocked to learn that I’m apparently one of the early adopters for a technology that helps me to understand my energy consumption and make smarter energy choices. I am the proud owner of a Nest®.

I first learned of Nest while attending a utility conference in Dallas, TX. It sounded pretty cool, but why would I need that “thing”? I’ve lived without it all these years, so my programmable thermostat is just fine (I thought to myself). Shortly after returning from that conference, my wife had mentioned that our utility bill seemed to be unnecessarily higher than the past. So we did a little investigation…

Our utility bill provides some useful charts and consumption history detail, so identifying the spike in usage was relatively easy. It was clear that the oppressive and seemingly never-ending heat wave of the summer of 2012 had taken its toll on our wallets, via our utility bill. I swear my AC ran non-stop for a week.

A quick review of our spiking electric usage confirmed that we were using more electricity than any prior month this year, and significantly more than the same period last year. So I bit the proverbial bullet and bought a Nest. If you’re not familiar with this little trinket, it’s a very intelligent thermostat to control your AC and heat. What makes this device simply amazing is the fact that it learns your behaviors. It’s a plug-and-go thermostat that literally helps you to make better energy choices. Nest (somehow) knows when you’re not home.

Nest somehow knows when I walk in the door, as it immediately kicks on my AC unit the split second I enter the house. (Still can’t figure out how it knows when I get home… a little creepy, but very awesome). Not to mention that I can control Nest from my iPad (Screenshot above) and have it prepare for my arrivals or vacations!

Utility companies are under increasing pressure from regulators to reduce grid demand for electricity, particularly in peak season (summer in the North East) when demand is at its highest. This becomes critical to many utility companies when excessive heat strikes a region. Demand must be regulated (or in some cases reduced) to avoid stressing the system and causing a blackout. Reducing the demand can happen by force (the utility has to temporarily shut down select customers for short period of time) or by a more preferred method all around – by the utility’s customers voluntarily reducing their demand by making slight adjustments to their usage behaviors.

Technology has made smarter energy consumption choices much easier than in the past. But beyond the technology that is now available, better billing statements are equally critical to this end result of smarter energy consumption and usage.

Had it not been for the usage history charts on my utility’s billing statements, I would have assumed that the rate increase for peak usage periods was the primary cause of the spike in my bill. Thus, from this consumer’s perspective, smarter bills lead to smarter consumers, which leads to smarter energy choices, which leads to a decrease on the demand for energy during peak energy consumption periods.

My wife and I now enjoy receiving our utility bill and watching as the usage charts decrease from month to month as compared to the same period last year. We especially enjoy watching our bill shrink. It has become somewhat of a game in our household. But for the record, it all started with an easy to read utility statement.

As utility companies evaluate the benefits of statement redesign, and making bills easier to read, I propose that they include reduction in demand as a likely outcome to a bill redesign. Had my bill been an old legacy-system generated bill with no usage charts or valuable consumption visuals, I never would have purchased my Nest and my usage behavior probably never would have changed either.

The technology is amazing. But just as amazing to me how important, effective and easy to understand a utility bill can be in driving customers to make smarter choices.

In today’s business environment, marketing budgets are constantly under scrutiny while being challenged to demonstrate a clear ROI. Luckily, new technology and developments in the world of high-speed inkjet printing are helping to make this challenging task a bit easier through TransPromo communications. In its 2010 Household Diary Study, the U.S. Postal Service reported that U.S. households received more than 34 billion bills, statements, confirmations, requests for donations, and bills/confirmations for charitable organizations – in other words, transaction documents. That’s a lot of opportunities for companies to share their messages with the right crowd.

According to recent research from market research and consulting firm InfoTrends, as published in this newsletter article, TransPromo communications offer companies the opportunity to improve their customer communications by:

• Being personal and relevant – TransPromo software and printing technologies allows companies to individually target consumers which is proven to increase response rates.
• Channeling customer data into lifecycle marketing – TransPromo combined data with personalized message to target specific consumers based on past purchases or responses to previous offers.
• Allowing for multi-channel engagement – TransPromo direct mail campaigns can be easily incorporated into a cross-media strategy that weaves together customer communications on print, Web, e-mail, and mobile platforms.
• Providing a new revenue stream – Companies can now use TransPromo to sell the white space on statements and documents.

So when you think about your next marketing campaign… think about TransPromo.

It’s hard to believe that I’m finally at the age when I can say, “I remember when. . .” Just like those “old codgers” who used to remember technologies and processes so foreign to me back in the early 90s as a young twenty-four-year-old, wet-behind-the-ears editor of Printing News for whom digital printing technology was no big deal because, well, didn’t we always have computers?

On the cover of one of my first issues of Printing News was my first disaster. It was back when (then) Indigo E-Prints were only sold in packs — I mean pairs — and the first pair was being installed at a facility in Manhattan. There in the headline, in 36-point type or whatever we were using at the time, I called them MAN Rolands.

Anyway, let’s not talk about that. I began covering digital production technologies that day and spent a lot of time interviewing printers and listening to accolades and complaints and walking trade shows in shoes that were comfortable but didn’t match my clothes.

It’s funny how certain things stand out to you, and after covering digital production for however many years, there was one product — a simple product — that stood out to me and still does today.

It was at a time when the quality of toner-based production was still rapidly evolving and graphic designers were still suspicious and critical, and rightfully so. It was a scoring machine designed specifically for toner-based presses. By scoring the folds first, it vastly minimized the classic issue at the time, cracking across the fold. I don’t know why it sticks out to me as being so important, but for some reason, of all the technologies I covered in those Printing News years, it does.

So here’s my Friday question, and I’d really like some input on this from Digital Nirvana readers. Is there a technology like that for 1:1 printing? Something that, to you, stands out as being a “critical turning point” in the area of workflow, productivity, inspection, data management, cross-channel integration, or anything else?

Tell me a story, give me a memory. If you had to pick one critical, turning point technology that you feel fundamentally changed (or is changing) this market, I want to know what stands out to you.

After all, I told you about the “MAN Rolands.” You owe it to me.

Is the concept of combining a transaction-based document with a promotional document realistic?  In theory AND in reality! When I first entered this industry in 1985 as a programmer and attended Xerox’s training programs, Xerox was lauding transpromo THEN, as the wave of the future. Here we are 27 years later and transpromo is still being promoted.  What does it take to make transpromo work? The answer is simple – DATA and INTEGRATION!

Let’s tackle the first aspect, DATA.  For the longest time, the print industry has struggled to track, capture and manage consumers or investors tendencies.  In the 80’s, databases were in their infancies and to build one, manage the intricacies, intra or inter-record relationships and extract the data practically took a mainframe computer or at least a mini-computer. Not to mention understanding the complexities of and INTEGRATING all that data into the print stream.

There’s the second aspect – INTEGRATION.  Frankly, integrating, not to mention building and extracting the data, was beyond the scope of printing an invoice or statement.  Third party outsourcers or even the largest processors were having trouble developing and launching the transpromotional document.  Instead, variable messaging was launched as a step in a forward direction.  Simply stated, variable messaging involved keying on data elements within the print stream and changing the message content to the targeted audience – the end recipient.  It didn’t go far enough and transpromo lingered.

Fast track to the present.  The PC or personal computer has been in existence for over 20 years, software integrators have become more sophisticated making databases prevalent in every aspect of our life and third party processors are beginning to understand the power of data.  Data is at everyone’s fingertips and solution providers are working with their clients in building analytic models of their consumers, their buying trends and overall demographics. But transpromo still lingers, why?  In the biller space, the solution could be as simple as getting the marketing department to work with the accounts receivable department.  The complex answer is most likely, determining what message to integrate into the transactional document.  While data is prevalent in everyday life, billers are still struggling with what message fits best within their image and specifically which message targets the end user.

Transpromo is a real achievable target and integrators are working behind the scenes to implement sound solutions.  But in looking at the third party landscape, I think it’s important (at least from an old programmer’s point of view) to identify those firms that understand both sides of the equation – the marketer and the biller.  Integrating a sound solution will most likely drive revenue, increase your consumer’s product awareness and promote social awareness, but a failed solution will end up being just a fancy way of launching variable messaging.  Is it worth it? I think so.  In today’s competitive landscape, I think it’s important for firms to build consumers or customers for life and with transpromo and variable message you have a chance to effectively achieve that goal.

This post was generously provided by SourceLink and written by Tim Furr. If you are looking for another marketing services provider blog… check out SourceLink! 

The other day, as I was renting the latest blockbuster hit from the bright red video kiosk beside my pharmacy, my wife called from her vehicle to me about how she wished there was a candy machine beside the video rental device. I related to her that this is the basis of transpromotional marketing! She was unimpressed. This instance got me thinking, “why don’t more businesses take advantage of the captive audience at their hands?”

For example, with data and research, a snack and soda machine attached to this video rental station could use my selection to provide pertinent recommendations based on my film choice. If I rented “The Fast and the Furious,” the machine may suggest an energy drink and some pork rinds; for “The Artist” it might recommend truffles and Perrier; “Toy Story 3″ would come packaged with a case of juice boxes and some Skittles. You get the idea.

The point I am getting to is with the consumer data that companies already have at their fingertips, very sophisticated cross-promotional opportunities exist. Utility companies can analyze usage and print energy saving tips or a coupon for fluorescent light bulbs directly on the side-panel of a monthly statement. A bank might be able to advertise upcoming offerings for overdraft protection based on customers that have bounced a check, or a referral program routed through social media (and gather more data in the meantime). Every industry that sends printed statements or business mailings has the opportunity to maximize every inch of their mailing with modern print technology and a provider than can handle the data.

Perhaps we are not too far away from days where my copy of “Animal House” comes complete with a six-pack and a bag of marshmallows (if you’ve seen the movie, you get the reference), but until then, businesses take note! The technology is available, the data is there, the audience is already identified, so take advantage of it!

This post was provided by Matt Haskell who writes for the SourceLink blog. Check it out!

The Document Strategy Forum just celebrated its fourth birthday last week. This event is unique for its focus and its size. The focus on transactional documents brings together an audience with a common need: how to keep up with all the changes in regulation, technology, and customer demands surrounding transactional communication, which is at the center of every business’ interaction with its customers. The organizers stay tuned in to what is of interest to their audience, with an example being this year’s addition of both a track and an exhibit floor pavilion for SharePoint. The narrower scope and smaller venue, as compared to the mega-events such as Graph Expo or On Demand, leads to superior interaction opportunities for both attendees and the solution providers.

The focus and size in no way limit the value and learning opportunity provided. There are six tracks and over forty-five sessions dedicated to providing information and insight. The best part of the sessions provided is that they often lead to very interactive discussions amongst the speaker and the attendees, leading to a sharing of perspectives across different functions and industries. I attended a session on Managed Print Services where I was reminded that when speaking about anything with documents, it is a good idea to set the stage by explaining whether you are referring to internal business documents, business-to-business documents, or business-to-customer documents.

The opening keynote presentation by Forrester Research, “The State of the Document Processing Services Industry 2011”, provided great background and thought provoking information for the rest of the conference. The presentation states it is time to change our process approach. We think we’ve got it all under control and we do to a certain point, but firms still struggle to manage untamed business processes: customer onboarding, claims processing and invoicing process. “1998 – 2009 marks a lost decade consumed with packaged apps and leaving enterprises stuck in cement, unable to rapidly change, compete and innovate. 48% will invest in collaborative technology to improve app performance.

Another part of the Forrester presentation described Customer Communication categories and primary applications. They defined the categories as: structured, interactive and on-demand. Key industry concerns include: enterprises trying to get rid of a big headache – aging structured output systems, the ability to quickly comply with new regulations; rapid movement to on-demand and interactive transactions and archaic fulfillment process.

Another unique take away I got from this year’s event was to remember that when talking about “multi-channel”, (and who isn’t?), we need to not only think about the broad variety of output channels with print, email, web-hosted, social media, mobile, etc., but we also need to focus on the breadth of the input information channels from multiple administrative, transactional, marketing, and yes, even customer response sources. As a process-focused individual, this suddenly seemed obvious; you need to look at the inputs, tasks, and outputs in any process to be effective, I do not think I have experienced any other time which highlighted the input side.

I believe that the focus provides superior interaction and networking opportunities. The attendees are mostly high level individuals with 45% of them holding C-level or Director/Department Head Positions. 28% of the companies represented generate 3+ million outbound transactional documents per month (and 13% of those are generating 10+ million per month). I personally have met and established ongoing relationships with many key contacts through participating over the past four years.

This event may be one of the best kept secrets in the industry, and I am looking forward to what the show organizers will do to keep improving for their 5th anniversary event in 2012.

For more information on transactional document solutions, visit Océ Production Printing – Transactional Resources.

Putting the Wow in any offer requires understanding and delivering value. If you want to understand the value of TransPromo, you need to look at it from a few different perspectives:

• What does marketing (your customer) value?
• What creates value for the organization producing the document?
• What does the end-recipient of the document (your customer’s customer) value?
• If you can understand and deliver value for all three of those groups, Wow! What an offer!

TransPromo, which involves leveraging transaction data to deliver relevant, personalized customer communications, provides this opportunity. The capability to add relevant marketing content to transaction documents, such as statements, invoices, and electronic payment notifications, is tremendously valuable to marketing because it allows the marketing budget to be used more efficiently and, in many cases, more effectively. For example, TransPromo can:

• Replace direct mailings to customers by leveraging campaign content on the transaction document
• Reinforce and promote campaigns delivered via other channels (see our new ad on MTV! Visit our website for the latest discounts!
• Generate improved response rates and develop stronger customer relationships by making offers that are relevant to each reader and delivering “point-of-need” content triggered by customer data

Relevant offers have been shown to increase response rates by 300% over those that are simply personalized, according to research conducted by PODi. Similar studies conducted by the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) indicated that personalization alone can boost response rates by 44% over static communications, while personalization plus color can take response rates up 135%. When campaigns are personal and relevant (defined as one-to-one content) and produced in color, response rates increased by 500% over static — meaning that relevance provides a bump of 365% over personalization and color alone. Transaction documents provide the customer data that enables relevant campaigns — and relevance delivers stronger response rates.

While TransPromo is usually positioned as a solution for the marketing folks because of its proven ability to increase response rates, decrease campaign costs and shorten campaign cycle times, it has tremendous value for print production operations as well. Print service providers and in-plant printers maximize profits by streamlining document processing to the nth degree (or to the sixth sigma if you prefer.) This means maximizing the “up time” of all equipment and simplifying warehouse operations. TransPromo enables many of these benefits in a black and white environment — and offers even more Wow when you add color. With TransPromo:

• Inserts can be turned into “onserts.” This avoids batching mail to fit selective inserter limits and can allow mail to be manifested, potentially reducing postal spend and bypassing physical presorting machines
• Inventory management of physical inserts and setup of inserts on intelligent inserting equipment can be eliminated, increasing up-time for inserters and reducing storage and handling costs
• The relevant messages will also be delivered online for your e-presentment clients (which is not usually the case with inserts)

Printers are also happy to add another profitable service area to their bag of tricks with the ability to manage and report on campaign messages. While marketing departments have many tools for managing campaigns on other channels, few have extended their technology to support TransPromo. Providing the ability for your customers to leverage their existing campaigns and digital assets on the transaction documents you produce for them has the added value of deepening ties with marketing and making your services more “sticky.”

The final bonus in the TransPromo value chain goes to the end-customer, who receives a document tailored to their requirements with valuable offers based on an understanding of their buying habits. They will also be less likely to receive additional annoying and irrelevant offers from the sender, perhaps slightly diminishing the clutter in their mailbox (or inbox). Well-executed TransPromo initiatives have been proven to improve customer loyalty and reduce customer attrition.

A solution that saves money and generates better response rates while making operations more efficient and keeping customers more satisfied? It sounds like TransPromo is a winning proposition.

Visit OceWowFactor to download the InfoTrends white paper entitled Electronic Use of Transaction Data, a Catalyst for TransPromo Across ALL Chanels.

While there’s been a lot of bad news surrounding the United States Postal Service lately, a heightened level of innovation exists  both within the postal service and externally in an attempt to transform the organization, as well as the concept of mail delivery itself. This past June, the PostalVision 2020 conference in Washington, D.C. brought together senior USPS personnel, technologists, analysts, and journalists to openly discuss the future strategic direction of the postal service under the premise of what it should look like in the year 2020. Many companies are engaged in laying down the building blocks of what could potentially be the future of mail distribution and delivery for the United States and even abroad: digital mailboxes.

The concept of a digital mailbox or digital mail delivery is certainly not new. In the enterprise, vendors like Esker, Océ, and Pitney Bowes offer digital mail delivery solutions whereby each piece of mail that comes into the company is scanned and delivered electronically to employee recipients. EarthClassMail is an early service for smaller businesses and consumers that also scans and manages mail. With a mix of new entrants and existing players, there is aggressive development of digital mailbox services for consumers, designed to reach every household in the United States, just like the USPS. There are a number of key players to watch in this space:

• Accenture, the worldwide consulting and outsourcing firm, is taking the approach of partnering directly with national postal services to help them develop digital mailbox services. It has clearly stated it is aiming to help global posts design their own services to compete directly against some of the independent digital mailbox services listed below.
• doxo is a technology start-up that takes a broad approach to the digital mailbox, enabling users to not only import electronic bills and statements, but also many other types of documents that can either be uploaded or scanned in via its mobile phone application.
• Manilla, started by Hearst Corporation, provides access to over 1,000 companies to enable users to consolidate and manage bills and loyalty programs, including major wireless carriers, cable & satellite TV providers, utilities, financial companies, airlines, and more. Certified Manilla partners can also present targeted advertisements to Manilla users alongside the sender’s content, which offers an intriguing TransPromo play.
• Pitney Bowes announced its Volly digital mailbox offering at the beginning of 2011, although the offering is still in beta. According to my colleague Matt Swain’s blog post on the service after its announcement, “Think of Volly as an extension of a conventional consumer bill consolidation model, incorporating other types of mail into the same platform.” There is no doubt that PB will be highlighting Volly at Graph Expo this year.
• Zumbox, another technology start-up, has made waves recently with its million-dollar giveaway contest to get people signed up for its service. The company has a unique twist on its service in that it uses your physical mail address as your digital mailbox address, as well. Like others, its concept is to digitally centralize the management of all mail being sent to a household.

There is a great deal of innovation occurring in this space right now, and considering the rapid pace of technology proliferation and adoption these days, it would not be surprising if these companies and their services make a big splash in the near future. InfoTrends is investigating this market right now, currently conducting a research study entitled The Emergence of Digital Mailbox Services: Moving Beyond Online Bill Consolidation in the U.S. This research initiative will identify the opportunity for secure digital mailbox services in the U.S. and will include a growth projection through 2015. I’m excited to see how this space shapes up, as these services could have a major influence on how we delivery, accept, and manage our mail.

Putting the Wow in any offer requires understanding and delivering value. If you want to understand the value of TransPromo, you need to look at it from a few different perspectives:

• What does marketing (your customer) value?
• What creates value for the organization producing the document?
• What does the end-recipient of the document (your customer’s customer) value?

If you can understand and deliver value for all three of those groups, Wow! What an offer!

TransPromo, which involves leveraging transaction data to deliver relevant, personalized customer communications, provides this opportunity. The capability to add relevant marketing content to transaction documents, such as statements, invoices, and electronic payment notifications, is tremendously valuable to marketing because it allows the marketing budget to be used more efficiently and, in many cases, more effectively. For example, TransPromo can:

• Replace direct mailings to customers by leveraging campaign content on the transaction document
• Reinforce and promote campaigns delivered via other channels (see our new ad on MTV! Visit our website for the latest discounts!)
• Generate improved response rates and develop stronger customer relationships by making offers that are relevant to each reader and delivering “point-of-need” content triggered by customer data

If want to read the rest of this article and for more like it, visit www.OceWow.com to download the July Newsletter!