Transpromo: stretch your marketing budget using what you already own

With the New Year beginning and people becoming more positive about the future, we still want most of what we already have. Even if this is the recovery we’re told is imminent (a statement I remain skeptical about), we still want to operate our businesses efficiently and get the most bang for our buck. To that end, a few very simple things you can do today have the potential to save you money and even increase your income. These things can be (relatively) simple to execute and are capable of creating huge benefits for your company and your customers.

Your first step is to take the data you have and use it to create more personalized communications for your current and past customers. I know, there are a million excuses why you can’t do this. You can claim to have no data (that’s next to impossible these days and I defy anyone to show me an undated business… go ahead… I dare you, leave a comment or email me). I could say that your data is in a very bad state (I think that without any problem). You may be concerned about the age of your systems and the ability to integrate legacy systems (old data) into a current communication program. There may be concern about whether your systems can “talk to each other”. For example, can you combine the data from your accounting software with the data from your CRM software with the data from your web analytics software? These are all important topics, but start anyway.

Put all excuses aside. Just stop using them because if you have a problem with your data, it won’t get better on its own. When will be a better time to start making improvements? 2015? 2020? No, we all know that we have to get our data in order today, right now. We live in the information age and those without data will be the ones left behind. I’m not suggesting you go and spend a few million on a full Oracle implementation. Rather, start slowly. Use what you have while making upgrades. Personalize your communications with your clients (you have the names of your clients, right?). Use their past shopping experience as a clue to what’s important to them and speak to those interests. It won’t be perfect the first time you take it out of the box, but it will get better as you see what works and what doesn’t. EDITOR’S NOTE: Measuring the results of your communications is a topic that will be covered in detail in many future posts. It is a critical point and is omitted here because it is so important that it needs some posts of its own.

Now here is the best part. To get started, you may not have to spend a dime. In fact, you could even save money while increasing your customer retention and satisfaction. If you’re sending transactional documents (bills, statements, notices, etc.) you can put some of these personalized messages on those documents and you won’t spend another dime on paper, printing, folding, filling and mailing. This is what we call TransPromo Communication and it should be a key aspect of your overall communication strategy. Why? Well, your transactional documents are sent to your clients anyway, so make better use of the white space you already own and are already paying to put in front of your clients. For example, next month add a red heart and a personalized Valentine’s Day message for your customer directly to the transaction document you send in February. It helps your customer relationship, could potentially increase your sales, and since the same document was being sent anyway, it costs almost nothing to do. It’s a no-brainer.

Now to summarize. 1) You have data. use it 2) You have outgoing documents with wasted space. use it Need help? Give us a call and we’ll be happy to review any issues you may have regarding your data and your integrated customer communication programs.

Once again, Happy New Year and remember: DON’T WASTE SPACE!