Every day millions of pages of business transaction documents are printed and sent to clients around the world. These statements, invoices, confirmations, bills and notifications, to name but a few, are “variables” by definition in the sense that they are intended for a particular person or family. Normally these documents are sent to clients in envelopes that contain other material printed separately. The transaction documents are extracted immediately from the rest with the purpose of using them - often the eventual use depends on the form’s ability to convey a clear and concise message. The rest of the documents are checked in the envelope and usually thrown in the bin.

This represents an opportunity

With the advances in digital printing, business forms that previously would have included graphics and diagrams in black and white can now include eye-catching colours to attract the attention of the reader and draw attention to the importance of the message. The first companies to adopt this system were the utility companies (water, gas, electricity) but many other companies could benefit from its use.

Equally, some profitable marketing messages like cross selling and other “promotional” offers can be integrated into the body of the business form using multi-coloured images, graphics and variable text – this has given rise to the term “transaction document promotion messages”.