With social media and unlimited screen time, where scrolling yields instant gratification, it’s easy to presume print marketing has become obsolete. Yet, print marketing continues to carve out a distinct niche within the marketing realm, providing a tangible, lasting connection with audiences that digital channels simply cannot replicate.
These days, print marketing is more than just an ad in the local newspaper. It can be brochures, food and beverage labels, banners and signage, invitations, stickers, or booklets — the options are endless.
Why Should Your Organization Have a Print Marketing Strategy?
While print marketing may seem outdated or unnecessary in today’s digital-first focus, when used strategically, print can reinforce a brand’s message and elevate how audiences interact with it.
Incorporating print marketing into your existing and forthcoming marketing strategies bridges the gap between the online and offline worlds. This multidimensional approach can lead to increased brand loyalty, higher engagement rates and a stronger return on investment for marketing campaigns.
Whether it is a printed invitation teasing the theme to a favorite nonprofit’s gala, a direct mail piece with a QR code for a special offer on fiber internet because you’ve wanted to make a switch, or a flashy pamphlet about a new product distributed at a conference, print marketing is all around us and can leave an ongoing impact.
Print Is Memorable.
In a mid-sized city like St. Louis, an individual can be exposed to roughly 10,000 messages daily. With this many advertisements, it would be nearly impossible for audiences to absorb information and remember a brand simply by scrolling quickly through their social feeds or skimming their inbox. In fact, a recent study conducted by Marketing Dive found only 4% of digital ads hold viewers’ attention for more than two seconds. While we certainly know digital marketing is valuable and necessary, printed media channels the marketing principles of “Repetition” and “Reach” in ways digital media cannot. It takes up physical space, making the message difficult to ignore by showcasing the brand in sometimes unexpected places.
Printed media also carries a brand’s personality from the screen to real life with designs that add novelty to a world run by a screen by engaging your customers’ sense of sight, touch and even smell. Think of a unique package decorated with branded elements and filled with the aroma of coffee beans, a brochure printed on a smooth satin stock with elevated typography or an out-of-the-box shaped custom-printed direct mail piece.
Print Extends Your Brand’s Story.
Both digital marketing and print marketing are essential pieces in a successful campaign that guide customers through the marketing funnel to discover more about a brand. Digital marketing is great for showing snippets of your brand through targeted social ads or paid search, while many print marketing pieces provide ample real estate for longer narratives and expand your brand’s story in innovative ways. For example, signage at an event can guide the attendee through an exhibit, with each piece revealing new information about the history of the organization.
Print Connects with Your Digital Efforts.
Print marketing is not just about one message. It’s also important to align it with your digital marketing efforts, including your website, social media and so on. Each piece plays a critical part in the promotion of your business.
Marrying physical print marketing materials with your digital content exposes your audience to your message in more ways than one, providing more opportunities for conversion. For example, a QR code on a direct mail piece sends your customer to a web page that is visually “married” to the print piece. Those design elements are also carried over to social media posts and email marketing, creating a robust marketing campaign that leaves an impression on the viewer.
Remember to add trackable URLs to your QR codes or vanity links and use trackable phone numbers on your print marketing materials! These are critical tools for proving the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and measuring actual conversions.
Elevate Your Brand with Top-Tier Print Marketing
Print marketing is a powerful tool when used alongside digital marketing, enhancing your brand visibility and engagement in unique ways with cross-channel integration, tangibility (back to those three senses we mentioned earlier) and longevity.
Combining the two equals a solid marketing strategy with many moving pieces — which can take experience and vision to execute! Our team at 1905 New Media is ready to help your organization stand out from the crowd by blending our expertise in brand development, graphic design and digital marketing with our 120+ year history of commercial printing on state-of-the-art equipment.
Are you ready to engage your audience online and in person? Let us build a print marketing strategy that integrates seamlessly into your digital marketing campaigns. Contact us today to talk about your goals.