Mar 11, 2008
No Document Left Behind! Personalized Communications as a Corporate Directive
The industry buzz around transpromo has really shined the spotlight on the value that documents (printed and otherwise) provide. This combination of transactional data with a relevant message all packaged up in an envelope or on the customer’s secure web page is ideal.
Why?
Customers are expecting the information. In fact, they know down to which week of the month the document will be mailed or available.
With transpromo, the customer’s expectations are being refined. Not only do they know when and what, they also know the document could include relevant information outside the scope of the traditional statement. In essence, their expectations are getting higher.
We’ve congratulated ourselves until we’re blue in the face about the ROI that transpromo can provide, but what about the other 98 percent of the documents customers see? Do they in contrast look impersonal and well …. form-letter- esque?
If so, you may actually be doing a bit of damage to your corporate image.
What!
Documents say so very much about an organization. Much more than the data presented within the print margins. Everything about them is representative of the entire company. Consistency is key --- in branding, quality, even the tone of the message itself.
Until recently the business of customized documents was in the hands of the development team and they will continue to be involved for transpromo and other high-volume documents. However, several vendors have expanded their programmer-level document creation tools to include applications that allow others to participate in the workflow. The very best of the bunch are systems built on top of existing production solutions. These complementary applications are extensions of the vendor’s original document development software. As such, they can utilize the same document designs (now as templates), document content (sharing text, graphics, resources), and business rules (providing the custom formatting). It is the business rules that ensure the appropriate personalized content and can also guarantee corporate branding stays intact.
There may be hundreds of different documents across your organization that sit ready to be sent to customers and prospects in specific situations. Depending on their purpose, some may only be used occasionally while others are used more often. In any case, each one serves an important purpose and all are candidates for moving to a correspondence application.
How to start?
Taking formal stock of all the documents your organization uses no matter their purpose or volume. Analyze their content, identify documents with similar roles and create a library of templates that can be formatted dynamically for each specific scenario.
This provides the best of both worlds: documents that carry the consistent corporate brand but are each unique to the recipient.