Despite the ever-growing popularity of electronic communications, Damian Traynor, RR Donnelley Global Document Solutions marketing director, argues that retailers should making more of their paper-based customer contact

Despite the ever-growing popularity of electronic communications, Damian Traynor, RR Donnelley Global Document Solutions marketing director, argues that retailers should making more of their paper-based customer contact

“Consumers now receive lots of unsolicited and irrelevant marketing literature every day, and endless amounts of spam does little to create a relationship of trust between businesses and their customers. Companies need to invest in new and innovative ways of communicating to market their offerings more effectively,” according to Traynor.

“A combination of new technology and pressure on marketing budgets has created an environment where transactional documents, such as statements and bills, can be used as effective marketing tools. Companies are starting to use these communications to create richer customer relationships using ‘trans-promotional’ strategies.

Taking on a multichannel approach

“While adding promotional messages to statements is not a new idea, businesses are now adopting a more intelligent and personalised approach when targeting their audiences. By selectively placing personalised messages onto a customer’s statement or bill, businesses have successfully transformed these transactional documents into powerful marketing tools.”

Traynor said the so-called ‘transpromo’ processes that are currently being deployed have been in the making for some time. “Statement inserts, for example, have been used for decades,” he said. “Now, advances in digital colour printing technologies and the application of data analytic solutions, means that today’s transpromo strategies have a much higher return on investment. Today businesses have the ability to create marketing messages that are just as personal and relevant as the enclosed statement.”

There are several main reasons why Traynor said RR Donnelley believes transpromo works:

1. Greater chance of being opened: Statements and bills are expected on a regular basis by the customers receiving them as they contain important personal and financial information. This means that up to 95% of transactional documents are opened each month.

2. Personal process: Bills and statements receive more attention than any other type of communication due to the fact that they are personal to each individual recipient. The average customer spends between one and three minutes reading and checking a statement.

3. Trusted form of communication: The information contained on a statement or bill is trusted by the recipient and therefore carefully placed and relevant additional messages, such as a promotional offer, can often be perceived in a similar way.

4. Greater return on investment: While consumers can be inundated with as many as 3,000 advertising messages a day, the average person will receive around 12 transactional mailings a month. This makes each statement or bill more valuable to those businesses interested in building stronger customer relationships.

“Transpromo represents a significant opportunity to increase customer loyalty, satisfaction and retention by leveraging communications that are already being used. It offers the chance to cross-sell and up-sell new services and products, and more businesses are recognising the potential of turning transactional documents into powerful marketing tools. The next challenge will be to integrate transpromo strategies alongside a wide range of other communication channels to ensure a joined-up approach to customer communications,” he concluded.