Above: Pat McGrew.

Web to print has grown rapidly from a buzzword to a vital piece of a print company’s arsenal. Nessan Cleary says that it’s now adapting to a market of cloud services and cross media.

Fast, high quality colour inkjet web presses have been widely recognised in the industry as a development that could transform book and periodical publishing, bringing the sector firmly into the realm of digital production.

At the same time, it was recognised that these presses could provide a powerful platform for full colour transpromotional (transpromo) document printing, already being carried out in smaller volumes on existing HP Indigo web presses and other inkjet and dry toner devices.

For years it was said that transpromo would revolutionise marketing, revitalise what were becoming commodity printing companies and drive sales of digital print technology as well as consumer goods and services. Well, has it?

‘The short answer is “Yes, it has,” but not quite in the way that was generally expected,’ according to Pat McGrew, production mail evangelist for Inkjet High-speed Production Solutions at HP. IHPS is the operation that makes the T-series inkjet web presses and related products.

She says that ‘there were also some bumps along the way, but they weren’t the technical ones that might have been expected, but ones from outside the graphic arts industry.’

Back to basics

The integration of marketing messages into transactional documents has been around for quite a while. ‘In the 1980s, single targeted lines were being added to transactional statements. They were basic, not particularly well formatted, and always in black. The messages were limited, a bit like Tweets,’ says Ms McGrew.

While technically primitive by today’s standards, there was a recognition that statement-based marketing, as it was then called, had a number of advantages for those using it. First was the very high ‘open rate’ for bills and statements. This is reckoned to be about 95% (1 – see the box on page 54), far higher than the open rate for purely promotional direct mail and email marketing messages.

Secondly, the time spent reading a printed statement averages about five minutes.(2) Again, this is a lot more attention than promotional direct mail and emails usually get.
Thirdly, sending out bills and statements is a cost. If those documents can be turned into even modest revenue streams, then the issuing companies benefit.

In fact, the response rates to transpromo initiatives are comparatively very good (3); or at least they can be. Those who were around at the early stages of the computer revolution will recall the term GIGO. It stood for, ‘Garbage in; Garbage out,’ that is, if the input was bad the output would be just as bad too.

‘Data’s the same way,’ says Ms McGrew. ‘In-your-face transpromo ads that essentially say, “You bought a television from us, how about a new sound system?” are far less effective than the more subtle message that a store has a special on leather goods early next month because the data shows you recently bought a handbag.’ She goes on to note that more general purchasing data can be unreliable when it comes to making inferences about customers.

For instance, many people have more than one credit card, she points out. One might be used for general shopping and household purchases. Another might be used for large purchases because it has low interest rates or some other incentive. The third card could be used for business, with lots of flight, hotel and restaurant charges.

‘If those cards were mine, the first company would infer I was a typical housewife, Ms McGrew explains. ‘To the second company, I only buy big-ticket items, and to the third, I’m an A-list celebrity. The truth is, I’m none of those things, so the messaging inferred from that data is missing the target every time.’

Mining productive seams

So, what is the best data; where is it, and how can it be optimally used?
This is where the effects of the bumps in the road can be felt. The first bump was the economic crisis in 2008 which caused institutions, retailers and print service providers to stop investment and development of programmes beyond their core businesses, and that included transpromo initiatives.

‘I know a number of large companies that shelved or closed down transpromo-related projects,’ Ms McGrew says. ‘We can see the effects clearly now. In 2006-7, transpromo was a hot topic. Today, people who don’t recognise its subtler forms think it’s dead. It’s been slowed down, but the opportunities are still there and virtually every major financial institution is involved in it in some way. Also, a considerable amount of thought and learning has taken place in the intervening time.’

The second bump was the introduction of a large amount of data protection legislation all around the world. Its complexity has put many people off using transpromo. In the USA, the ‘Card Act,’ among other measures for consumer protection, specifies information to be included on the first page of a credit card statement. Companies have been focused on compliance with the terms of the act, stalling transpromo development.

The source of the best data is a person’s address, Ms McGrew states. ‘Properly investigated, the inferences possible are quite accurate – and, addresses and postcodes are public information. Profiling streets and neighbourhoods can be made more accurate by looking at the age of properties, for example. Newer properties in certain types of neighbourhoods will tend to have younger people living in them; they will tend to have more debt and less disposable incomes than people in older properties in more established neighbourhoods.’
Data protection restrictions, then, need not be a barrier to transpromo development and success.

Print v electronic statements

The growth of electronic statements and billing raise other questions about the viability of transpromo print. The perception is that electronic statements and bills represent an inexorable trend, but the data show otherwise. About 80% of statements and invoices are on paper, but 70% of them are paid electronically.(4)

‘The balance is slightly different in Europe where billing cycles and historical payment methods are different – not to mention internet availability,’ says Ms McGrew. ‘In spite of that, it looks like the proportions will break into thirds: one third will want paper statements; another third electronic ones, and the final third, both. This means that 66% of bills and statements will be available for paper-based, data-driven communications. (5)

Whither the PSP?

For print service providers (PSPs), the bottom line for transpromo (data-driven marketing) is that the opportunity is still there. In many ways, with new presses and substrates it’s a better opportunity.

The wider range of substrates and web widths available on inkjet web presses opens further opportunities for the dynamic combination of transactional and promotional print using customer data held by retailers and institutions.

With powerful software PSPs will need to take into consideration the handling of their workflows and finishing lines, and decide at what level they want their transpromo involvement. Naturally Ms McGrew points to HP’s own solutions here: HP SmartStream Production Pro Print Server and HP Exstream software, plus its high speed inkjet colour presses.

‘Basically, there are three options in the transpromo market,’ Ms McGrew says. ‘The PSPs can simply provide the platform: servers, presses, finishing and fulfilment, and work with companies that have their own data refining and marketing resources.

‘Or, a PSP can forge partnerships with designers, data specialists and marketing experts, and offer financial institutions, communications companies and other businesses a comprehensive, end-to-end service and establish a reputation that encourages other companies into the market.

‘The third option? Remain a traditional, high volume commodity printer that competes on price and jeopardises its future,’ she concludes.

In marketing terms, successful transpromo programmes make the most of each customer ‘touch point,’ providing such incentives that catch the customer’s interest. It’s subtle and devoid of any suggestion of the ‘creep factor’ where recipients feel that their privacy has been violated.

Keeping the conversation with the customer going, encouraging loyalty and offering differentiated services are the hallmarks of good data-driven marketing, and HP offers a range of servers and presses to facilitate implementation. 

Research sources

(1) The Transpromo Revolution: The Time is Now, InfoTrends, 2008, p.4
(2) ‘Are we paying attention?’ Pitney Bowes/Group 1 Software, 2007; this report shows great regional variations in the time given to printed tax, bank/credit card, mobile phone and utility bills, with the average of the UK and US being 5+ minutes in these categories.
 (3 ) The Transpromo Revolution: The Time is Now, InfoTrends, 2008, p. 36 et seq. cites increases from 0.4 per cent to 5.5 per cent.
(4) ‘90% of consumers in the US and more than 70% in Europe use both paper and electronic media for presentment and still overwhelmingly prefer paper’ Bills, Statements and Payments – Paper and Electronic Delivery by Alex Fu (Pitney Bowes), 2007, p. 4
(5) ‘In the US the share of consumers receiving both paper and electronic bills and statements is rapidly growing to roughly a third of the market.’ Bills, Statements and Payments – Paper and Electronic Delivery by Alex Fu (Pitney Bowes), 2007, p.3