Posted by Ajay Kelkar on Sun, Dec 27, 2009
It is amazing how much direct mail gets produced every
year. A lot of it is junk mail and goes straight to the dustbin, sometimes even
before opening! U.S. households received 3.8 billion credit card offers in 2008.
And at the same time, every bank ,utility & in some cases
even telecom companies are sending out billing statements? These statements are
“always read” and always have the customer's attention.
Why then should Marketers not send something more valuable?
Banks, utilities, retailers and credit card providers are among the companies
discovering the communications value that previously had gone untouched in
their statements. This is being commonly referred to as trans-promo
communications. The trend is towards merging transaction and promotional content
into one document, and delivering it via print or electronic channels. Marketers
who have successfully used variable messaging in direct mail are waking up to the
value of adding personalized communication to high-value transaction
statements.
Infotrends Inc has an interesting take on this : Transaction
documents are vital links between critical business processes and desired
outcomes. They fuel the transfer of funds and ensure cash flow. Invoices and
statements are the ultimate “mission-critical” documents. As such, they are
among the few types of mail that are almost always read. Organizations are
investigating new and more efficient means of producing and distributing these
documents, and this has resulted in the so-called “transpromotional” category,
which combines direct mail and transactional documents. The adoption of
“transpromotional” documents could transform the existing document landscape.
It would be interesting to see how marketers are able to
combine Direct marketing ,Analytics & technology to provide solutions in
this space.