The Time Is Now

Sparked by rising economic and competitive pressures, many enterprises are taking a close look at how they can transform their transactional documents, e.g. statements, invoices, etc., into marketing tools with highly personalized, promotional data. This convergence of transactional and print-on-demand production has come to be known as TransPromo print, and it has finally reached its tipping point.

TransPromo production, however, is no easy feat. Organizations currently undertaking initiatives have a lot to consider. For example, what is required in an end-to-end TransPromo solution? Does your in-house production facility already have many of the key assets required to drive the required applications? Should you build a TransPromo solution? Buy? Outsource? How do current economic conductions affect your TransPromo strategies?

With these questions in mind, Madison Advisors recently released TransPromo Workflow Solutions: An Evolving Market Defined. The study sheds lights on the market hype around adoption of TransPromo applications and discusses the current state of TransPromo technologies and workflow solutions that enable TransPromo document production.

Among the key findings from the study are:

• Technology convergence has ripened the emergence of TransPromo — Advances in collaborative document design, composition tools, integrated campaign management systems, access to enterprise databases, data analytics and high-speed, high-quality color print have brought TransPromo technology to the forefront of document production.
• Data analytics must be mastered — TransPromo documents utilize customer intelligence data to drive promotional messaging, but data analytics within the production workflow ensures a single, relevant view of a customer across multiple data sources. Data analytics must be mastered to accelerate adoption of TransPromo document production.
• Collaborative efforts are required to support TransPromo production — TransPromo production requires collaborative supporting efforts from Marketing, IT, Legal and Operations to achieve an enterprise ROI.
• The ADF is evolving — New technology integrations are enabling the expansion of production workflow to support the production of TransPromo documents.

TransPromo: Why Now? The placement of marketing messaging in transactional documents, a basic TransPromo application, is not new. Organizations have employed marketing messages in documents in one form or another for more than 20 years. However, advances by technology providers associated with collaborative document design, document composition and personalization, integrated data analytics and high-speed, low-cost color print options enable user organizations to support widespread expansion of high-quality TransPromo workflow production capabilities.

In conjunction with these technology advances, increased competitive pressures in the marketplace and economic pressures in the production arena force CMOs and document production organizations to search for new marketing initiatives, including the production of TransPromo documents that provide cross-organizational ROI. Enterprises that look beyond present siloed approaches to determining project ROI will find that large-scale TransPromo document production makes good economic sense.

Technology advances support both end-user production organizations and enterprise business needs by placing integrated marketing communications in the most important enterprise customer documents (e.g., monthly statement, invoices, letters, etc.). TransPromo documents garner more customer attention than direct mail and, most importantly, provide enterprise marketing with higher response rates to marketing campaigns and/or special promotional offers.

Madison Advisors observes a growing number of developing strategies around the conversion of monthly transactional documents to TransPromo documents. This shift opens the door to multi-channel TransPromo, mail and electronic campaigns that drive stronger ROI over current separate direct mail campaigns.

The relevancy of highly personalized, timely, promotional data combined with well-designed, attention-catching color graphics enable enterprises to achieve the response rates they require to justify the addition of TransPromo functionality, including data analytics and high-speed color printing.

In response to the growing demand for TransPromo functionality, the vendor community continues to aggressively address the requirements of TransPromo document production on several levels, such as enhanced document composition messaging functionality, demographic customer data analytics and expanded workflow controls. More vendors now offer digital color print technology for high-speed transactional document production than ever before.

What Does It Take to TransPromo? There are many technologies in and around the TransPromo workflow market, beginning early in the document life cycle and extending through customer feedback processes. Madison Advisors defines the end-to-end TransPromo workflow life cycle as including:

• Data Receipt — Connectivity, Data Reception, Data Normalization, Indexing, Centralized Storage
• Data Analytics — Data Analysis, MDM, Database Interface, Integration to Enterprise and External Resources, External Campaign Management
• Document Design & Composition — Collaborative Design, Digital Asset Management, Integrated Campaign Management
• Post-Composition Transformation — Document Re-engineering, Postal Preparation, PDL Transforms, Color Management, Merge-Sort, e-Distribution, Archive
• Print Management — Enterprise Output Management Systems (EOMS), Device Logging, Assignment, Monitoring, Alerts
• Printing — High-speed Monochrome, HLC, Full-color Printers
• Inserting Management — Automated Inserter Management System: Assignment, Monitoring, Alerts, Logging, Integration with Workflow
• Insert, Finish, and Mail — Automated Inserters, Finishing Operations, Postal Hand-off
• Response Management — Response Metrics, Campaign Management Interface, Database Updates
• Workflow Control and Reporting Layer (ADF) — Job, Device, SLA Control and Monitoring, Alert Systems, Historical Production Database, Results Reporting

Clearly there is a lot to consider when assessing TransPromo technologies. In addition, it's good to remember that your organization's specific needs will depend on your unique application requirements.

Of course, technology is just the beginning. As with any strategic initiative, the overall production practices are critical to the success of TransPromo production. In our study, Madison Advisors also takes a look at best practices for TransPromo workflow to help organizations understand how TransPromo production will affect their entire organization.

Enterprises have a lot to consider as they embark on TransPromo initiatives. The good news is that today's TransPromo workflow solutions are the beginning of a wave of opportunity. In the next few years, Madison Advisors forecasts continued enhancements that will help organizations acquire, manage and use customer data to drive successful multi-channel TransPromo communications. Additional response management options will provide response metrics and close the feedback loop, creating a closed-loop TransPromo workflow solution.

Further, we observe that the market demand for automated production workflow solutions that enable TransPromo document production is growing not only in the US but in other global document production markets as well. Several markets, including Italy, Israel and Australia, have surged forward with TransPromo and are taking a global lead in the implementation of large-scale TransPromo workflow solutions. Clearly, this is just the beginning of the new generation of TransPromo.

Kemal Carr [kemalcarr@madison-advisors.com] is the president of Madison Advisors, an advisory firm that specializes in print and electronic communications. He provides project-based services designed to assist clients with business strategy and technology selection.