Kodak launches "Transpromo"

       Kodak is going to change the market perception of its "yellow box with camera" to the world of graphic communication by helping businesses to create effective customer communications.
       Called "Transpromo", the strategy is all about creating higher value, more effective customer communications to strengthen customer relations and drive higher response rates, said Pat McGrew,Eastman Kodak Data-Driven Communication Segment Evangelist, during an interview with Database .Kodak does this by offering technology that aligns transactional documents and promotional offers, and increases customer loyalty with one-to-one engagement.
       McGrew noted that companies around the world use billing statements to have contacts with their customers on a regular basis. Bills, statements,direct mail and other documents are delivered to someone to communicate.The bank and cell phone providers send monthly statements out to their customers.
       "The bill is a monthly appointment with customers because customers ex-pect it. If it is postcard or another piece of promotional material, they might throw it away because it something they don't want to take time reading, so why not put more marketing messages on the bill," she said.
       McGrew suggested the brand owners,the service providers, and those who deal with the billing should turn that monthly appointment into a regular conversation with their customers.
       "The first thing you want is to make sure that it must be easy for them to understand, and add good information content helping the customer to be a better customer."
       Credit card companies, banks, insurance companies and telephone companies around the world all have the same number one problem - losing customers.
       "Customers leave because they don't think they are getting value for the relationship and because they find it hard to do business with you. That's where the whole story comes together. Teaching them how to make them easy to read, teaching them to design the document so that when someone receives it they know exactly what they are supposed to do. Giving more information so that customers feel you value their time then you can educate them," she said.
       Kodak has partnered and worked with the post around the world McGrew said,adding that the post knows their customers. They can adopt the transpromotional strategy to create a personal relationship with customers. For instance, a cell phone provider used bills to tell customers about a special offer allowing them to call a country at a lower rate on a specific day and reminding them that the discount will be coming up.
       The bill cost per print is not the right conversation, she said. It is a matter of "cost per response"."If I charge you four times more for your prints, but you get a 500 percent higher response rate, most marketers said yes because most marketing offers made by any brand owners typically only get a 1 or 2 percent response rate. If I can take them 10,12 or 20 percent, which usually use data to create personal relations,then that's a lot more revenue coming back to the company."
       Asked how long the business can take to respond, McGrew said that it depends on various factors. Usually for customers, like mobile phone operators in Australia who issue the cell phone bills, from the time they have the idea to the time to implement, takes about 6 to 7 months.
       McGrew, whose job is to educate the market globally, said that it is market development, Kodak has to find the printers who are interested in changing the way they print for their customers,find the customers that are interested in working with the printer and educate them, and get to brand agencies, advertising agencies who advise their customers.
       "Most brand owners and advertising agencies know all this very well - SMS,web, email, billboard, direct mail but this one they've never heard of, so we have to find those people and tell them this service is available to them and it's an effective market. They can get a higher response rate because this is a personal communication market,this is one-to-one and this can be complimentary to web marketing, to mass marketing."
       McGrew, who was recently in Thailand, said she saw tremendous opportunity here."This is an interesting country because you have a rich understanding of colour, you like to communicate in colour. Look at the billboards, every building is colourful so the opportunity to communicate in colour, and also to bring the idea of data-driven personal in market is amazing.
       "Kodak has talked to customers here and there is a great deal of interest.Over the next year, you will see your mail box changed, the providers who create bills and statements learn the technique, the access to the technology.
       "The most normal thing to do is to work with brand owners, someone has to do data collecting, someone has to do market message development, sometimes the printers provide all of the services for free, so there are a number of different ways that you can handle the cost.
       "Way to be successful is get one thing to do first, start with a small project,and learn with the data track the data the use the method. Then once you have experience, you then grow. Then get more sophisticated with the data and with the messaging."