Saturday, September 6, 2008

"Give a little, get a lot - Start to understand the lifetime value of your customer"

For a while (column at WhatThey Think.com written in 2005) I've been on a soapbox for focusing on education, health and government as the real opportunities for printers in a shrinking print market. Advertising is in too much turmoil. Google, et al. continue to undermine the advertising and privileged content model in industry after industry.

So if very highly paid and talented CMO's are having a hard time figuring it out, it just doesn't make sense that printers should waste alot of time and money trying to. They would be much better off doing what they do, and keep doing it better, faster, cheaper. Then they should invest their limited time and resources in finding the customers who need what they can do.

At any rate, I found some good stuff about building the business case for education, health and government. My obligatory acronym is the EHG market.

The following comes from TransPromo Live. It is maintained by Lee Gallagher who is 'an industry researcher and consultant. He has extensive experience in the hospitality, retail, and distribution industries. Starting his career in 1992 with IBM, he continues to take on new challenges. He has held many positions at IBM over the past 16 years from project management, executive, and sales.. . ." - from the "about" at the site.

Selections from what he has to say:

From Transpromo Live:
How Transpromo Can Solve Social Issues
Some businesses might want to know why they should use valuable advertising space for public service messages. Some answers for the bottom-liners:

When the customer starts noticing their bills now include promotions and upgrades, (bold face not in original) they will expect each statement to try to sell them something. the whole point of transpromo is delivering targeted and timely promotions to the customer (bold face not in original) to show an understanding of their needs. How better to deliver that message than by offering useful and educational information? As we say, give a little get a lot – start to understand that lifetime value of your customers." more at the Click:

From another post at the same site.
Transpromo Assisting the Health Care Industry

How can Transpromo help?

The heart of TransPromo technology and services combine personalized marketing or (bold face not in original) education messages with must-read statements. For the purposes of this article, I am going to assume the must read communications are insurance coverage and benefits, medical conditions and treatments, and prescription drug documentation. The selection of messages placed on these statements could be based on past medical conditions, unused insurance benefits, and prescriptions. Remember, the ill elderly patient has an average of 20 different doctors. Now that’s a lot for the patient or care taker to coordinate. more at the click

2 comments:

  1. Dr. Druck,
    I apologize for not reaching back to you sooner - I have been on the road meeting with marketing and legal teams to understand the landscape for transpromo in 2009.

    Thank you for your comments on the health care articles. Very important to me.

    lee

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just curious, do you have any thoughts on how this can play out for smaller commercial printers?

    My take is that transpromo is most appropriate for firms already in the database publishing business.

    I'm focused on the opportunities implicit in well designed digital printing for audiences of 30 and 150.

    For example, a contextually accurate newsletter to create a common frame among hospital staff and thus improve the "culture" of the workplace.

    Or perhaps various kinds of printed checklists for patients based on the particular presentation of an illness. or . . .

    I don't have direct experience in the health industry, so these examples might be wide of the mark. I have personally seen the payoff in the education industry - both in K-12 and college level.

    The inherent limitation of the web is that although it can deliver rich, appropriate information, it doesn't enable the introduction of that information into the daily life of either patients or staff.

    ReplyDelete