This article is a part of a three part series that runs today and in the next two issues of E-Document News. If for some reason you miss an issue you can view it in the archives at http://www.E-DocumentNews.org   

Part 1: What’s the buzz?

OK, so you’ve heard all the industry buzz about “Transpromo” applications. And after thinking it through you’ve come to the conclusion that all it is is a repackaging of things progressive users have been doing since the mainframe-bound days of the 1980s.

That, plus your keen observation that “Transpromo” seems an awful lot like other industry buzz words like “Print On Demand” and “Variable Data Printing” has made it difficult for you to not believe (in your cynical way) that “transpromo” is just another bit of hype being espoused by the marketing departments of certain industry-leading vendors who are interested mostly in selling more hardware.

You’re right on both points and all I can say is, “So?”

While it’s true that transpromotional print has been with us in one form or another for many years (I first became aware of it in 1997), it is also true that, in its current incarnation it delivers truly meaningful benefits to all involved – or at least to those who chose to implement it in ways that deliver those benefits to their employers, clients, and customers.

And while it may also be true that all the current buzz being generated about “transpromo” is just the latest in a string of “buzzes” that goes back to POD and VDP, can anyone argue that the industry hasn’t benefited from the marketing and acceptance of those concepts? Digital print technologies have spread into new niches, print volumes have increased and vendors and users have become more sophisticated in their understanding of how and where we all fit into the grand scheme of things.

A few years ago I attended a conference on digital print that was sponsored by an industry publication. It’s interesting to note that the publication in question has historically been focused on offset print and is a relative new comer to the digital world. Not surprising, most of the attendees were owners and senior managers of various regional printing companies. There was a panel discussion on the hows, whys and whats of digital printing – with a main focus on direct mail applications.

When the question and answer period came most of the questions were basically the same: “What will we do if states move ahead with “do not mail” lists?

Since I wasn’t on the panel I held my tongue. But when the same subject came up at an after hours social event I couldn’t help myself. I pointed out that the answer to the “do not mail” problem is something most of the folks there wouldn’t want to hear. I told them that it’s easy to see the answer by thinking about an activity people in all developed countries do at the end of a long work day. After kissing their spouse or significant other, checking in on the kids (if any) and petting the dog, cat, potbellied pig or what have you, they check the mail!

They take it to a convenient place – the kitchen table, hall desk – and begin sorting it into two stacks (what the marketing people at the Belgian Postal Service call “the mail moment”). One stack (mine is usually on the left) is the direct mail. The other is the “I have to open this” stack. The direct mail stack frequently winds up in the recycle bin without being opened – the other stack is almost always opened.

So which stack represents the greatest value to the authoring company? Which stack represents the greatest value to the recipient? Doing “the sort” shows us the potential value of transpromotional documents.

Going back to all the folks at that conference who were so concerned about “do not mail” lists being implemented by the states, it’s pretty easy to see that transactional mail is much less likely to be affected by this than direct marketing pieces. In spite of the near-hysteria our industry saw during the dot com era about how all transactional applications would bleed off to the internet, transactional print volumes remain quite healthy.

Yes it’s true that a lot of people receive their bills and statements on line but there are still enough of us (think World War II generation and baby-boomers) who prefer to get them in envelopes delivered by a postal carrier. So until we’re all gone – and that’s a long, long time from now – someone, somewhere will be printing them, inserting them and mailing them. The challenge, of course, is in doing it in a way that communicates most effectively for the authoring company and most conveniently for the recipients. This means delivering it via post, email, web – whatever makes most sense to the recipient.

More on this in part 2 of this series.