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Transactional-Promotional or 'TransPromo' has taken centre stage as the latest and greatest print application. It seems everyone in the industry is talking about this new must-have application. The benefits of TransPromo are obvious; statements have a very long life span in comparison to direct mail (typically statements are retained for years, not seconds) and they can leverage CRM data to incorporate highly targeted and relevant customised messages. For example, a credit card statement could incorporate one message up-selling the card user to a higher card level or credit limit, while targeted advertising messages can appear within the printed statement based on purchasing history. But if TransPromo is the next big-thing, then who's actually doing it?
Well, you may be surprised to learn that there isn't an abundance of service providers churning out millions of TransPromo statements every day. Yes, TransPromo applications are being produced, but largely in isolation and at a basic level. I'm not saying no one is doing it, there are a few impressive TransPromo applications out there, such as the VISA statement in Japan printed by JAIS printed on 24 iGen printers each month (a total capacity of 2,640 ipm) within a 96 hour window, but these applications are few in number—JAIS for example, don't run any other TransPromo work for the other 26 days in the month. There are also a handful of US-based organisations publishing TransPromo applications on statements, including Chase Bank, Citibank, Comcast, American Airlines and Amazon.com, but these organisations are only using TransPromo at a fairly basic level, with simple messages inserted on customer statements.
A recent survey by DsiCMM claims that more than £500m of potential advertising space on TransPromo documents is going unused every year. Advertisers just aren't switching on to the opportunities to leverage essential mail.
So if TransPromo is the next greatest application and worth millions in advertising each year, then why isn't everyone doing it? Why aren't we seeing effective use of white-space management on all our bills and statements, crammed with full-colour customised promotions and cross-sell messages? Well, in my opinion, there are a couple of key reasons.
The first reason is that bills and statements fall into the category of essential mail. By its nature, essential mail is typically produced in very large quantities and within a very short time frame. Historically, the main limitation in adding full-colour to essential mail this has been limited by available printers. Until recently, the Kodak Versamark has been only been viable high-speed colour printer capable of meeting these tight turnaround requirements, at a speed of 1,400 ipm. The alternative was to invest in a room of cut-sheet printers, like JAIS with their 24 iGens, which amounts to a significant investment. However, Kodak, Screen, Océ, Ricoh and Xerox have all recently made announcements on new continuous-feed high-speed colour printers to be showcased at drupa in May.
The second reason for the lack of adoption in TransPromo is "the data". TransPromo applications require effective use of data, which in turn requires integration into CRM systems, data mining processes and application design, all wrapped together with a privacy-compliant ribbon. The reality is that it's no small task to get a TransPromo application off the ground—you first need to pull all the relevant stakeholders together and get them to buy-in.
But if TransPromo is only just emerging, then where's all the noise coming from? Well you don't have to look too closely to see that the print vendors are pushing the TransPromo message. They're running adverting campaigns, sponsoring webinars and even supporting TransPromo conferences. Why? The answer is simple. While this emerging abundance of new printers can now make full-colour TransPromo applications commercially viable, their use outside of TransPromo applications is somewhat limited. The resolution and colour gamut of these fast continuous-feed printers really limits them to 'business quality' applications, and outside of essential mail, such applications are few and far between.
I'm confident that there's a big TransPromo opportunity out there. However, the secret to the success of these new continuous-feed printers isn't going to be driven by feeds and speeds, it's going to be controlled by market demand. Let's hope the market starts asking for TransPromo. Soon. For the vendors' sake.
Posted on Monday, 24 March 2008 at 1:23 PM | TrackBack: http://www.veedeepee.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/106