From the Editor: TransPromo Is Here

I HEADED up to New York a few weeks ago to take part in the very first TransPromo Summit, a two-day series of seminars dedicated to the practice of printing promotional messages on transaction documents. More than 300 people packed the Hilton New York, in-plants among them, to learn about this up-and-coming marketing opportunity.

As word combinations go, “transpromo” has always sounded a little clunky to me. (I think it’s the “trans” part; makes me think of “trans fat.”) The word seems to have stuck, though, so now I guess we’re stuck with it.

Linguistics aside, the summit was rather a big success, according to its organizers at InfoTrends. By its end, any who weren’t convinced of transpromo’s potential were either excessively pessimistic or asleep.

Keynote speaker Barb Pellow, in her enthusiastic opening address, pointed out the four key drivers of transpromo:

• Marketers need better ways to reach ad-wary consumers. Consumers open and read transactional documents, so they are sure to see these marketing messages. In fact, 63 percent of those polled preferred statements with personalized marketing messages to traditional statements with inserts, she said.

• Advances in technology, from color ink-jet and toner to composition software, make transpromo possible. Cost per impression is no longer an inhibitor.

• Changing postal regulations favor high-volume, first class mail.

• Market conditions have changed, and chief marketing officers are looking for new ways to get their messages out.

This last point is important to understand, because it is the marketing people in your organization who will latch onto transpromo. Though the summit drew attendees from the in-plant and IT areas, it was the marketing folks at whom the event was focused; almost every session excitedly stressed the many benefits of transpromo as a marketing tool (i.e. more likely to be read, can be personalized, etc.) So it stands to reason that if your marketing people are keen on transpromo, but your in-plant is completely in the dark, you’ll be in no position to help. What’s more, commercial printers like RR Donnelley (a large presence at the summit) are eager to step up and provide a solution.

True, an in-plant may have a hard time spearheading a transpromo initiative (especially without marketing’s clout and cash). But having a plan in place to produce it would put your in-plant in an excellent position when at last marketing starts moving ahead.

There are challenges: Data on transpromo’s effectiveness is scarce. Also, as Pellow pointed out, transpromo makes for strange bedfellows: creative people, data processors, marketing executives and digital printers. Getting them to work together will be transpromo’s biggest hurdle. Those who have helped bring variable data printing to their organizations know what I mean.

One final note: I’d like to announce the birth of my daughter, Kayleigh Lauren, who arrived on September 18.