By Denise Davert, Elixir

Transpromo has gone beyond being an industry buzzword and has become an integral part of many corporations’ strategic marketing plans. This directive impacts the company’s profitability in two ways. There are significant cost savings afforded by utilizing existing mailings for marketing promotions and increasing the effectiveness of the promotion itself with targeted promotions means better campaign results.

For these companies especially, the visibility of transpromo’s effectiveness is under a magnifying glass, and we as industry professionals who know the potential of transpromo should not be afraid. In fact, we should welcome the opportunity to finally show the rest of the organization the true potential of variable data printing.

So how best to get the highest ROI from this exciting opportunity?

Get the involvement and participation of all the stake holders. These people will be influential in securing the resources, equipment, and software and will be critical in the overall success of the program.

Here are some key areas that should be represented when gearing up for transpromo: 

-          IT
Critical to the success of this project, IT holds the keys to the company’s data and the most effective transpromo document will be one that can utilize a wide range of data sources.

Assignment for IT: Create a list of all the databases available in the company without regard for the data’s format. List the purpose of the database, where it derives its data, and summarize the key fields.

-          Marketing
Responsible for creating, delivering and then measuring the company’s marketing and sales campaigns. Their involvement at the inception of the project will ensure the new marketing promotions (under transpromo) will have the highest success possible.

Assignment for Marketing: Draft up your idea of the ideal personalized marketing message with no concern as to where the data to formulate the message comes from. Have fun!

-          Printing Systems/Forms Design & Creative
The former knows the lay of the land when it comes to high-volume production requirements including the most efficient way to utilize images, fonts, etc.  Creative will be responsible for providing graphics and artwork for use on this new type of marketing vehicle.

Assignment for Both: Get to know one another! Each group holds an amazing amount of design knowledge and a well designed transpromo project will need the combined expertise of both groups. Understanding the document layout and the critical mailing dates for statements and similar documents will help Creative hit the ground running and the more the printing side knows about the creative workflow, file formats, etc. the better. Study the company’s current monthly statements for style and format and start thinking about how best to integrate marketing messages and imagery and also how the overall statement can be improved. The group that provides forms design for print production can point out which statement elements cannot be moved (i.e. the address block) but remember that variable formatting means that much of the content can be formatted dynamically around the marketing images.

-          Legal
Their review of which documents can be used for transpromo is critical. There may be a few that are off limits legally.

Assignment for Legal: Create list of documents that cannot be used for promotional purposes. Explain why so the team can be watchful in the future. Make sure you’re a member of the approval workflow as new documents make their way onto the transpromo list. Your early review with a go or no go decision can save time and educate your team.

-          Customer Support
Who? Do include this important representative of the customer experience. They have a unique view of the customer relationship and can provide insight on how to make the transactional document more useful/helpful to the recipient. What’s in it for the company? Customer loyalty. If the document is easier to understand and results in fewer questions or calls to support then everybody wins.

Assignment for Customer Support:  Create a list of questions and issues that require direct contact with the customer. Summarize the process of how each is resolved.

Once you all get in the same room and compare your homework it will be time to start looking for a software solution that can enable quick and coordinated delivery of transpromo documents.

A well designed solution allows distribution of the day-to-day activities required to create the document. Web-based solutions with robust roles-based access and online proof and approvals enable everyone in the workflow to participate efficiently and appropriately.

Properly implemented, transpromo can provide high ROI across a wide range of existing customer correspondence.

Attend an Elixir Webinar on transpromo to learn more. www.elixir.com/web_events.htm