Are You Making the Most of Your Transactional Documents?




In the current tough economic climate the need to manage budgets effectively, whilst improving your relationship with your customers, are critical success factors. If you could ensure that your marketing messages were seen by 95% of intended recipients would you be interested?

The answer is likely to be yes and that’s why an increasing number of organisations are paying much more attention to the rapidly growing area of Transpromo.

Transpromo describes the blending of transactional documents, such as a statement or a bill, with marketing messages. In effect Transpromo turns the delivery of every transactional document into a marketing opportunity.

Transpromo is not a new concept, however the convergence of key factors such as market conditions, a change in marketing priorities and advances in technology, is now leading to a significant increase in the adoption of Transpromo strategies.

Personalising transactional documents – adding marketing value

There has been a significant shift in the way transactional documents are perceived. Transactional documents have historically been seen as a necessary part of business, but not a particularly value generating one. Messaging would have adopted a “Dear Customer” approach, but rarely spoke to users other than on an aggregated level.

Did you know? Transactional documents are opened by 95% of recipients, compared to under 10% for direct marketing mailings.

Traditionally marketing departments spent their budgets on direct marketing campaigns, which were delivered to target audiences completely separately to the statements and bills.

Whilst the idea of placing promotional messages within a transactional document is not new, a more intelligent approach to Transpromo and the advance of technologies have made it possible to create marketing that is more personal and relevant. With current economic factors, including postage rates increasing, it makes commercial sense to merge multiple communications.

Transpromo communications target the customer, through a delivery channel that is trusted – the transactional document. Statements and bills are reviewed in detail and are often handled several times with every item on the document being viewed.

Your customers are constantly inundated with thousands of marketing messages every month yet they only receive a handful of transactional mailings in the same period. This makes each transactional mailing an extremely valuable tool in increasing the return on investment from marketing by increasing revenue through cross-selling, up-selling and enhanced customer relationships.

Getting started with Transpromo

In evaluating the potential benefits of Transpromo seeking to increase production efficiencies is often a good starting point. Organisations should re-evaluate their current production process and the elements that are included in a mailing package. Is the mailing eliciting the response needed, or is a redesign an option? Do new marketing or corporate objectives exist that should be integrated into the transactional documents?

Did you know? Two-thirds of organisations expect to add marketing messages to their transactional documents by 2010.

When looking to optimise the power of Transpromo the design of the document is very important. This is the perfect opportunity to revisit the data contained on the document and how it is presented. It is important to determine how the various elements, transactional and promotional, can best be combined to make the document as powerful as possible.

Organisations need to create a holistic customer communications strategy first and then ensure that their transactional document design complements this. Whilst some organisations may opt for a complete re-design straight away many others start to reap the benefits of Transpromo by maximising the use of available white space using their existing designs. Either option will deliver benefits so the decision as to which approach to adopt will depend on factors such as cost, time to market and risk mitigation.

In all cases, defining a customer communications strategy, verifying that the Transpromo strategy and subsequent document designs supports this, and measuring the progress of the evolution of the transactional document is critical. The challenge is to accurately assess communication goals and define the steps, small or large, required to reach the goal.

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Transpromo is the incorporation of proactive marketing in transactional documents.
Transpromo communications target the customer, through a delivery channel that is trusted – the transactional document.