Transpromo Needs a Superhero - Part One

Transpromo is a concept that has been around for quite awhile, but like Superheroes, the concept has seen a surge in popularity and profit potential in 2008/2009. While gaining ground, there are still many hurdles to be overcome in the market at large and for individual solution implementers. Perhaps we need our own Superhero to rally around:

Who turns mundane business documents into personalized communications that have the lure of a siren’s song? Who cleanses data with a single laser beam stare?
Who knows exactly the right message to send and just how and when to send it?
Who leaps Transpromo hurdles in single bound?

The Transpromonater does. Yes, the Transpromonater– a superhero dedicated to stamping out junk-mail and delivering customer enlightenment one mailbox at a time.

If you’re not a superhero, or secretly are, but find yourself stuck in an office with some corporate kryptonite, you’re going to have to leap the Transpromo hurdles the old fashioned way – by focusing on people, processes and technology. Believe me; you won’t do it in a single bound. A successful Transpromo initiative will require a series of carefully orchestrated steps. A secret Transpromo decoder ring would be nice too, but you will most certainly need that tool of heroes and villains alike: the Master Plan.

To create a Transpromo Master Plan your organization needs to really understand what makes your customers tick and what drives behaviors like buying more products and services, recommending products to others, using self-service tools, or going over to your competition. This is just some of the information you will want to have in order to drive relevant messaging on your communications in a way that customers will respond positively to.

You also need to be an internal evangelist to help your organization understand what Transpromo is and how it can help your business. With all the hype on the topic, it would be easy to jump too soon and trip on your cape. For example, if your only mandate is to use Transpromo to sell something on your statements or invoices – you’re missing the big picture. Your transaction documents are just one of many channels for serving, and communicating with, your customers. Transpromo campaigns must work in concert with other customer communication vehicles.

Research from Forrester, TAWPI, Corporate Insight, Bancography and others suggests that starting your messaging in a way designed to serve rather than sell will give you better long term results. Several of these firms also note that consumers react differently to messages on their retail credit card or phone bill than they do on their investment or insurance communications. There are very few case studies available that provide measurable results for Transpromo initiatives. That means that you will most likely need to conduct your own research and refine your strategy based on ongoing measurement and feedback. There’s no better way to learn customer preferences than to ask them what they want and then observe their behavior when you give it to them.

Ultimately, your master plan should consider relevant messaging, on-statement advertising, coupons and personalized URLs (PURLs or CURLs). While relevant messaging is always, well – relevant, not all of the other components may be suitable to your situation. Analysis of your customer segments, customer behaviors at different points in the relationship life-cycle and the key behaviors you need to influence is critical. Further, what are the results that you hope to achieve from the behaviors you intend to influence? Are you expecting to increase sales, reduce customer churn, decrease servicing costs, gather more customer referrals or all of the above? What will it cost to achieve these results? What will your return on investment be? Do you have the internal benchmarks necessary to make your case? Do you have the resources to follow up if customers respond to your offer?

Wow - that's a lot of questions. But they need to be asked. That's all for today. Stay tuned for some thoughts on "selling the concept" and more on the Transpromo Master Plan.

PURLs, GURLs or CURLS – Personalization versus Relevance

Personalized URLs in combination with direct mail or email campaigns have emerged as a valuable marketing tool. A Personalized URL (PURL) is a web page or microsite that is tailored to an individual visitor. A common example of a PURL is a web page with a URL such as www.retailstore.com/johnsmith, where “John Smith” is a target prospect or customer who receives a direct-mail or email communications that encourages him to visit the web page. For each recipient within the campaign, the web address is unique and personalized to the recipient. The content of the web page (PURL) should also be tailored to each recipient through the use of variable fields allowing pages to be linked to a database that contains information about each potential visitor.

PURLs are a stark contrast to a GURL, or generic URL, which is more common in direct mail and email campaigns. For example www.phonecompany.com/SummerSavings where PhoneCompany is offering the same call to action to everyone who receives a campaign offering discounts to new customers during a certain time period (I think I’ve received 3 this week!) If the offer is compelling and the design is effective, a GURL can work pretty well. But a variety of research (PODi.org, Aberdeen, Jupiter) tells us that personalization offers a significant lift over generic campaigns, but personalization comes at a price.

While software can be purchased to allow marketers to generate PURLs at lower cost per URL, more commonly, marketers are using 3rd party services to generate the PURLs and track response. For third party services, costs range from .05 to .50 per PURL per campaign depending on volume.

Before spending the money, consider that the degree of personalization that can be created on PURLs is highly dependent on the amount of data your organization has gathered about its target audience. When good data is available, keep in mind that an overly detailed and personal level of information in a PURL may lead a visitor to feel his or her privacy is being invaded.

Here are the biggest drawbacks I see with PURL implementations -beyond the "Creep Effect" above:

1. Many marketers are so enamored with the idea of putting John Smith’s name on a web page that they don’t spend the time making sure that the page meets John Smith’s needs;
2. Often, John Smith’s needs aren’t radically different than, say, Karen Jones’ needs. In fact, there may be only a handful of drivers that make the campaign relevant to the individual.
3. Relevant messages are more effective than those that are only personalized – so a PURL without a relevant message is a poor use of resources.

The real driver of response rates is relevance rather than personalization. PODI.org cites research indicating that relevant campaigns generate, on average, 300% better response than those that are simply personalized. The level of customization to make something relevant to the recipient is usually not 1-to1 or even 1-to100. It may be more like 1-to-10,000.

Here is where Customized URLs or what I call “CURLs” come in. You can tailor a particular web page to the level necessary to make it highly relevant to each group of recipients. Perhaps tailored by length of relationship, level of purchase power, industry or region. You can still personalize the direct mail or email campaign that directs the recipient to the website. For example,

“Dear John,

Pharmaceutical executives like you spend an average of $4,000 per year on rental car expenses. Visit www.rentalcarco.com/pharmaexecs, for discount programs and other tips that can help you cut your costs by up to 20%.”

Assuming that the message was being sent to a list of 100,000 prospects and tailored for 10 different industries, this campaign could be launched with out any specialized PURL generating software or services. In contrast, the same campaign with PURLs would generate 100,000 individual microsites at a cost of $10,000 to $20,000 before the cost of the direct mail or email blast.

So save some money and still get results:

• CURLs are at least as effective as the typicall PURL implementation at a fraction of the cost
• Spend your time and budget coming up with great, relevant offers and supporting creative to increase response
• If you generate the CURLs internally, make sure you have a method for measuring response

Whether you use PURLs, CURLs or GURLs using combining direct mail with online media to get your message across and measure response is a big step in the right direction.

Elizabeth