It’s 2019 and everyone is officially online. For many businesses and nonprofits, this means making your marketing efforts digital top priority. We know how important it is to stay visible online, and we agree plenty of effort should be expended to ensure your online marketing efforts are in line with your bigger goals. But you know what else you need to succeed? Print.
We’ve heard it all before: ”Print is dead; focus on all things digital.” The fact is, not only is print alive and well, it actually outperforms most digital marketing efforts. That’s why this week, we’re giving you the rundown on five of the top reasons print still matters in your marketing mix.
Print is a Sensory Experience
One of the reasons printing still works is because it appeals to the senses. The ability to hold a physical piece of mail helps cement your message into readers’ memories in a way digital tactics can’t.
Try sending a nice, soft-touch print piece after a few digital touchpoints to up the sensory factor and help drive home your message. This way, your readers will have seen your brand a time or two before—and paired with a direct mail piece that goes with it, you can permanently entrench that message in your readers’ minds.
Print Still Performs
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but maybe you can’t teach a new dog old tricks either. Compared with online banners, radio ads, newspapers, magazines and TV, print materials increased ROI at the highest rates according to the International News Media Association.
Even though sending printed materials like direct mailers and brochures can be more expensive to produce than digital media, companies who use these tactics tend to see more engagement, more inquiries and more customers coming from print than digital, TV or other advertising.
Print Appeals to Almost Everyone
From high-end luxury clients to millennials, print outpaces all forms of marketing, regardless of age, gender, race or any other factor. One strategy that improves print’s performance even more is personalization and variable data. Receiving an email with your name on it isn’t that impressive—most people even include part of their name in their email address, so seeing “You’ll love this toothpaste, Brian” in the subject line doesn’t seem as important or interesting as it once did.
However, getting a physical piece of mail that speaks to you and your interests—now that’ll turn some heads. And it’s more than just a name. You can update everything from the copy to the images to the offer based on the segment of your audience you intend to target to increase your response rate.
Print Pieces Get Read
Adding print marketing to your mix is a great way to ensure your message actually gets read by your audience. Emails can be deleted before your recipient even looks inside. In fact, many people create specific emails they use as a “spam email address” to ensure they don’t have to read the messages they’re getting.
By sending physical mail, you’re ensuring your audience gets some face time with your message—even if it’s short lived—because they’ll actually have to look at what you’re saying on the postcards, brochures, reports or invitations you’ve sent.
Print Pieces Fit into a Larger Puzzle
The trick with print, as with all marketing, is not to set it and forget it. By laying some groundwork for a campaign and setting a strategic plan, you can ensure print, emails, online banner ads, radio spots and more are working together to give your audience a more complete picture of your company, products or services. By creating a cohesive plan instead of using each of your platforms separately, you relay uniformity and professionalism through your messages that audiences will respond to.
If you’re ready to integrate print into your next multi-channel marketing campaign, give us a call. We’d love to help you get your next project up and running!
Contact us, see our print capabilities or meet our print production team.
