This page contains an archive of all entries with the category transpromo. Oldest entries appear first.
There's a lot of buzz surrounding transpromotional applications, or "transpromo" at the moment, no doubt fuelled by the fleet of new high-speed digital colour printers entering the market. Transpromo appears to be the industry buzzword of the year; mailing service bureaus and vendors are raving about it, but it appears almost no one is actually "doing it". Or are they?
WhatTheyThink are hosting a free webinar on Wednesday 12th March from 2-3pm US Eastern Time (-5 GMT). The webinar will be moderated by Barb Pellow from InfoTrends and is designed to discuss the transpromo marketing opportunity, the importance of statement design and share a case study from a direct mail firm.
Sign up for the WhatTheyThink Transpromo Webinar »
Posted on Tuesday, 11 March 2008 at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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?
Continue reading "Show Me The TransPromo" »
Posted on Monday, 24 March 2008 at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
VDP software vendor, GMC Software, made an interesting announcement yesterday with news that they plan to support Adobe PDF Print Engine 2 and the "emerging PDF standard for personalized content; PDF/VT". This announcement comes as a surprise, as neither the PDF Print Engine 2 or PDF/VT are available yet. Adobe has been keeping it's next version of PDF Print Engine under wraps and has not disclosed any news of a new version. Also, PDF/VT is not yet a published standard.
Continue reading "GMC Announcement" »
Posted on Thursday, 1 May 2008 at 4:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Following GMC's recent announcement of an "Integrated Marketing System", I decided to stop by their drupa stand to find out more on their latest offering and get up to speed with their PrintNet solution.
Continue reading "GMC at drupa" »
Posted on Tuesday, 3 June 2008 at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
I attended the ADMA Forum in Sydney last week and was interested to see that one conference track included a session on TransPromo. In light of the current TransPromo hype, I decided to go along for the ride and see if I could pick up anything new. Grant Stewart from Vectis presented the session. Alongside some local case studies, Grant answered some "interesting questions" on transactional-promotional mail which are worth noting. While these questions may seem obvious to many, they're helpful for those who are considering TransPromo applications and want to understand what value they can provide.
Continue reading "TransPromo Questions" »
Posted on Tuesday, 1 July 2008 at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
By their nature, TransPromo applications have several unique requirements. One key requirement is in managing the placement of form content. White space management, also known as white space marketing, is a term used to refer to application design techniques that maximise the placement and effectiveness of content on a form.
While many VDP software vendors are riding on the TransPromo wave and claim their software can create TransPromo applications, few can actually deliver on this promise. Generally speaking, VDP products that use page layout software (e.g. QuarkXPress or InDesign), or PDF form-based templates for composition can't offer the tight level of control required to manage white space on the form. Whereas solutions that use their own composition engine, including GMC PrintNet, Exstream Dialog, EMC xPression and Group 1 DOC1 can offer white space management features, as they are aware of the exact location of content on the form.
Continue reading "White Space Management" »
Posted on Friday, 4 July 2008 at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Skip Henk just posted an entry on Océ's Digital Nirvana blog which identifies obstacles in TransPromo communications. It's refreshing to see someone acknowledge that TransPromo comes with obstacles. Many suppliers are often quick evangelise TransPromo applications, but usually don't point out the accompanying challenges.
I had a chance to catch up with Grant Stewart from Vectis last week. Vectis are a marketing strategy firm, specialising in direct marketing and TransPromo with many success stories under their belt. Grant explained TransPromo can only really work through alliances between organisations in specialising in marketing, database analytics and execution (print/cross-media). Each of these areas demand highly specialist and unique disciplines that cannot effectively be fulfilled by any single organisation. The demands of TransPromo applications are complex and require a collaborative mix of marketing, data and production skills.
Continue reading "TransPromo Alliances" »
Posted on Thursday, 17 July 2008 at 5:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I just received a new-looking Telstra phone bill in the mail last week. For those of you who aren't from down-under, Telstra is Australia's leading telecommunications company with 9.6 million fixed line and over 9.3 million mobile subscribers. The bill used to be printed on offset shells, but has recently migrated to a full-colour digital form, printed by Salmat BusinessForce on a fleet of Fuji Xerox 980 digital colour presses.
This new bill is much easier to review than the previous format as it contains a breakdown of charges and billing details without call itemisation. Customers requiring a detailed list of calls can use online billing or opt to receive a detailed paper bill. By removing call itemisation shortens each bill to around two pages in length, which in turn will save Telstra 260 million sheets of A4 paper a year.
Continue reading "Telstra Bill" »
Posted on Sunday, 20 July 2008 at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
As I wasn't able to convince my boss to send me off on a 20 hour flight to NYC for the annual InfoTrends TransPromo Summit, I've been following the running commentary on Print CEO Blog with interest. Cary Sherburne's last entry on the summit sparked a wave of discussion, including one from the Pat McGrew, Director of Industry Marketing at Kodak and respected TransPromo evangelist. It's interesting to note that Pat observed that the delegate mix was way off-balance, with a strong mix of vendors and not enough users. As a result, there was quite a bit of "preaching to the converted". As I work for a vendor, I guess it's a good job that I didn't turn up and add to the apple cart. If you attended the summit, I'd be keen to feed on takeaways and left-overs. Please feel free to comment and share.
Posted on Monday, 25 August 2008 at 5:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
A new blog dedicated to TransPromo has recently surfaced. Authored by Lee Gallagher, Transpromo-Live provides an open discussion on TransPromo and its potential applications. It's great to see a blogger and knowledge expert who's committed to sharing and educating the market on these emerging applications.
Lee's refreshing commentary moves past the hype and discusses real applications and challenges in transactional promotional printing. Check it out at www.transpromo-live.com.
Posted on Friday, 5 September 2008 at 4:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)