Many organizations are implementing Transpromo campaigns to leverage those must-read documents like invoices and statements placed into the hands of their customers. Traditionally, when designing such a solution, an organization considered many factors and combined these factors with base customer data to determine a set messages to be sent to their customers within these documents. Success can be judged on many factors, of course increased revenue being the most compelling. In many instances, it's a desire is to get those customers back to the web site for more touch time.
Recent advances in document viewers and PDF technology affords a new opportunity. Simply put, one can bring the compelling portion from the web into the targeted message inside the document itself. With version 1.7 of the PDF Specification, Adobe introduced the concept of a RichMedia object that can exist inside of a PDF document. This RichMedia object, like the interactive Flash applications we see all over the web, can actually exist within an area inside the PDF itself. The information to be displayed in this area can be driven by data that exists statically within the document or it can actually be dynamically served by information from an internet connection.
Imagine having a corporate transpromotional server delivering content to your customers live, as they are looking at these must read documents. Leveraging such technology, one can deliver so much more than a simple advertisement injected into the white space a monthly statement.
It's Dynamic - Think of an invoice delivered to your customer with the offer of the day. It now is the "offer of the day". And it could be daily, or it could be on request, in fact it can be at any time you wish.
It's Targeted - It can also be specific to the actual user. After all, all the PDF is doing when opened is going to a particular web address and being fed some simple data to drive the application within to display it. This application can be a window into your CRM and the request to the server carries some customer identification number. The PDF invoice itself was generated from data and as such, it could contain any information that exists in that document - like account balances, purchases, whatever information you desire to make the resulting advertising as targeted as necessary.
It's Relevent - This is because it is the best of both worlds. It combines dynamic (for you) and relevant (for your customer) into a single, focused touch point. And this is what they are most likely to respond to.
It's Compelling - Because it is modern technology, it can carry with it all of the advanced features of what users expect when say visiting a web site. You could deliver anything you can think of. This includes audio, video, images, charts and data -- presented exactly like one may be on the web. Except it exists in a document that is that all-so familiar "container of information" for customers.
It's Measureable - If the PDF is coming to you asking for something, you know it. You can record it. You can see what the results are. And because its dynamic as it is, it can be adjusted on the fly.
This is Transpromo taken to a new level. Most anything imaginable can be delivered right inside a PDF and it can seamlessly fit within the context of the printed, viewable document. And it doesn't have to be some stagnant, static campaign. It can be as rich and dynamic and as personally targeted as you desire. It the future of your document and it's here and now.
KEVIN BROWN [kevin@renderx.com] is executive vice president of sales and marketing for RenderX Inc., which provides one of the industry's leading software applications for dynamic and print document generation. He has over 25 years experience in document generation products, technologies and standards.
