By Barb Pellow, InfoTrends

There is certainly a lot of buzz surrounding the concept of TransPromo in today’s market, and this was made apparent during last week’s TransPromo Summit in Boston. Marketers, vendors and consumers alike are now getting into the TransPromo game. InfoTrends has uncovered ten compelling reasons to explore TransPromo now. This column recaps the first five reasons, and the remainder will be discussed in my next column.

1.)   Transaction Documents Get Opened and Read

InfoTrends has been pushing this statistic for quite some time, but bills and statements still cut through the clutter in this age of information overload. In its 2008 multi-client study entitled Trans Meets Promo… Is It More than Market Hype?, InfoTrends surveyed a total of 1,067 consumers. When these consumers were asked which types of mail pieces they typically discarded without opening, statements and bills were at the very bottom of the list. The fact is that the vast majority of consumers open their transaction documents, but more importantly, they spend time looking at them.

Figure 1: Mail Discarded without Reading


InfoTrends’ research shows that consumers are spending valuable minutes reading and reviewing transaction documents today. The 1,067 consumers that we surveyed reported spending an average of two to three minutes reading each statement they receive in the mail. Additionally, 20% of these consumers spend five minutes or more. Since transaction documents actually capture a customer’s attention, they represent an idea way to cut through the clutter.

2.) The Transactional Mail Touchpoint Enables Marketers to do More with Less
Particularly in today’s economy, marketers are striving to find ways to do more with less. Transaction documents provide an opportunity to optimize a very important touchpoint. Each statement, invoice, bill, or notification is a customer touchpoint. Anything that provides customers with an opportunity to interact with your company is a touchpoint, and these can directly affect how your customers perceive your business.

Marketers are quickly learning that, depending on the complexity of the product or service, the number of relevant touchpoints can range from one to hundreds. The key is not the number of touchpoints, but how each of these touchpoints is used to build a closer relationship with your customer.

Transaction documents are delivered on a regular basis and directed at your customers. This means that you can use knowledge about your customer base to perform what marketers refer to as “managing the customer relationship lifecycle.” You can instill loyalty with value-added information, special offers, gifts, and events, and then grow revenues by extending the relationship with solid customer communications.

3.) TransPromo Saves Money
In a challenging economy, business owners are concerned about how to manage costs. In this environment, TransPromo is a solution that can save money. The reasons are clear:

·         It reduces postage costs. According to a number of different studies, more than 75% of the cost of mail is attributed to postage. Transpromo can significantly reduce mail costs because companies can aggregate direct marketing messages or notifications with documents that are already going into the mailstream.

·         TransPromo can also reduce overall print spend. Companies are building out messaging matrices to see which documents can be combined to decrease the volume of customer communications while maximizing overall effectiveness. This translates to overall savings in print expenditures through the aggregation of direct mail and transaction documents.

·         Effective TransPromo communications can reduce the number of calls into a call center as well as call duration.

·         As consumers and operations executives become more technology-savvy, printed TransPromo communications can be used to promote the acceleration of e-statement delivery. This has further cost and environmental benefits.

4.) TransPromo Supports a Migration to Electronic Presentment and Payment

An increasing number of companies are promoting their electronic presentment and payment services. The marketing strategies behind these initiatives include:

·         Increased efficiencies for businesses and consumers: Customer service efficiencies can educate customers on how to reach a Web site for assistance.

·         Financial incentives such as payment (i.e., receive $5 for moving to e-billing), interest rate reduction, and sweepstakes (which can help engage clients in a dialogue)

·         Environmental friendliness: Electronic statements are kind to the environment.

Figure 2: Chase’s Online Payment Enrollment Advertisement

5.) TransPromo Enables Measurable Campaigns with Demonstrable ROI

A May 2009 Lenskold Group Marketsphere report indicated that current economic conditions are making it even more critical to measure effectively. About 8 out of 10 marketing executives surveyed indicated that the need to measure, analyze, and report on marketing effectiveness had never been greater. TransPromo can affordably and quickly provide tangible ROI linked directly to business goals and objectives.

Watch for an upcoming edition of the OutputLinks eNews as Barb Pellow continues this article and explores “TransPromo NOW!

By Barb Pellow, InfoTrends

Service providers need to position TransPromo as a way for marketers to test campaigns, concepts, and ideas leveraging trusted and loyal existing customers. In last week’s article, I shared the first five of my top ten reasons for moving forward with TransPromo NOW! This article is a continuation and provides the remaining five reasons.

6.) TransPromo Can be Used to Inform, Educate, and Instill Loyalty

Despite the buzz that continues to surround this concept, TransPromo is much more than putting a marketing message on a statement. One of its key values is the ability to use a transaction document as an educational and informational tool. Marketers will tell you that customer loyalty is directly linked to good communication and enhanced customer service…TransPromo does both.

For example, obesity is one of the leading health issues in the United States today. Humana uses its statements to educate targeted subscribers about the body mass index, which can help estimate a healthy body weight based upon the person’s height.

Figure 1: Humana Educational Statement on Body Mass Index