The European TransPromo Summit: Opportunities Abound!

By Barb Pellow, InfoTrends

On October 6^th and 7^th, InfoTrends and 4IT Group held the first European TransPromo Summit at the Square Brussels Meeting Centre in Brussels, Belgium. There is no question about the interest in the TransPromo Market in Europe. The conference was over-subscribed and participants were not disappointed. It was a session jam-packed with tremendous case histories and technology updates. It provided an opportunity to network with peers in the industry and with a number of different leading suppliers. Platinum sponsors included the Belgian Post, GMC, DST Output, HP, InfoPrint Solutions, Kodak, Océ, and Xeikon.

InfoTrends opened the conference with highlights of its soon-to-be-published study entitled Trans Meets Promo: A European Perspective. In a survey of more than 2,400 consumers, it is clear that the TransPromo document is the right vehicle to deliver informational and marketing messages. More than 98% of bills, statements, and notifications get opened by European consumers.


Figure 1: Which of the following types of correspondence do you discard without opening or reading?


The first-ever European TransPromo Summit was a rousing success.

More importantly, consumers today are bombarded with thousands of promotional messages on a daily basis—from television, radio ads, and out-of-home advertising to e-mails and Web ads. Marketers face the challenge of getting their messages out in a way that breaks through the clutter and encourages desired behaviors in recipients. These behaviors can range from simply recognizing the brand to changing investment strategies, or purchasing the latest product or service that the marketer represents. European consumers indicated that the transaction document not only gets opened, but it captures their attention. European consumers look at transaction documents for an average of 3.5 minutes!


Figure 2: On average, how much time do you spend reviewing each of the monthly statements you receive in the mail?

Today’s organizations face increased budgetary constraints, staffing issues, and both boardroom and investor demands for favorable quarterly returns. Business is focused on cost more than ever before, in terms of containment as well as measurement.  Leveraging a document that gets opened and read can yield success in this budget-constrained, ROI-dominated marketing world. Throughout the European TransPromo Summit, we heard from companies that were leveraging the transactional document to:

1.     Increase customer retention and loyalty

2.     Improve message relevancy and customer intimacy to enhance and develop a more a personal relationship

3.     Apply data analytics for greater results in cross-selling, up-selling, and retention

4.     Effectively manage every customer touchpoint

5.     Focus on tangible measurement

TransPromo communications are proving to be an opportunity for cementing customer relationships as well as driving incremental revenue opportunities through cross-selling, up-selling, and reselling clients.

Allen Thrasher, the EMEA Marketing Principal for InfoPrint, shared a case history about transforming the Best Western Loyalty statement into a full color transpromotional document. Not only did the response rate go up, there was an increase in the number of stays, the number of nights stayed, and revenue.


Figure 3: Best Western Statistics – Traditional Statements vs. TransPromo

Each statement, invoice, bill, or notification is a customer touchpoint that directly affects how you are perceived by your customer. InfoTrends’ research has emphasized the importance of leveraging transactional document touchpoints. Each month, European consumers receive an average of 5.3 printed transaction documents and 2.8 via the Internet. That equates to about eight opportunities to influence consumer behavior.


Figure 4: On average, how many transaction documents do you receive each month?

InfoTrends also surveyed 290 European marketing executives. These executives said that more than half of the direct mail they send is directed to existing customers. TransPromo offers a tremendous opportunity to consolidate direct mail with must-read transaction documents.

Effective aggregation of direct mail and transactional mail with existing customers should yield substantial cost savings. First, it will reduce postage costs. According to a number of different studies, more than 75% of the cost of mail is attributed to postage. According to European TransPromo Summit speakers, the combination of direct marketing messages or notifications with transaction documents already going into the mailstream reduced the number of mailings by 15%-20% while accomplishing the same business objectives.

In addition to reducing postage costs, TransPromo can 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.


Figure 5: What percentage of your direct mail spending falls into each of the following categories?

In the European and U.S. markets, TransPromo is an application whose time has come. Transaction documents are the ultimate platform for marketing effectiveness because they actually get opened and read by consumers. Marketers, as well as their graphic communication service provider partners, are already beginning to reap the benefits of leveraging white space on these “must read” documents.