Ask the Experts answers the question, “What is transpromotional mail?” with commentary from Chris Kropac, Jr., President and Co-Owner of PCI Group. Transpromotional mail is using space on an invoice to sell or communicate with customers.
Chris explained, “Before an invoice was just an invoice, a way to get paid. The advantage of full-color inkjet changes that.”
With dynamic printing, marketing’s desire to upsell customers wasn’t possible on invoices in a convenient manner. There was too much pre-printing, and it was hard to segment.
For example, cable companies often want to promote pay-per-view events, but not every customer will have the same preferences. Companies have the data on customer preferences and can use it to customize messaging.
Chris also spoke about transpromotional mail to cross-sell. If companies offer cable, internet, phone, wireless, or other products, they can use data to promote the right offers for those services they don’t have. This personalization aspect can pique the interest of customers and could cause them to inquire or buy.
“It’s fully customizable for the customer. You can add messaging around signing up for the new service or a banner for pay-per-view events. This takes invoicing from just an expense to a possible revenues generator,” Chris said.
When we work with new clients, we recommend that their marketing department get involved in turning the invoice into an ROI vehicle by advertising specific things at the customer level. With our white paper factory approach, every invoice can include variable data that makes sense for that particular customer. That’s the advantage of using transpromotional mail.
