Why Digital Marketing Strategies Needs Print Media
Why Your Digital Marketing Strategy Needs Print
Many firms have transitioned to digital marketing in recent years, while others remain committed to print. This raises an important question: Which kind of marketing is superior and ideal for your business?
The answer is not as straightforward as you may have imagined. The truth is that both print and digital marketing are crucial and often go hand-in-hand. Read on to learn why your digital marketing strategy still needs print for effective marketing in today's digital era.
WHY YOU NEED PRINT
Despite the recent boost and success of digital marketing channels, the best approach is to strike a balance between print and digital marketing strategies to get optimal results. Why? Because print marketing has been tried and tested over the years. It's genuine and reliable, and we know what to anticipate. However, it has been accused of being out of date and costly.
Digital marketing, on the other hand, is quick, targeted, and cost-effective. Unfortunately, it can also be impersonal, less memorable and intangible, meaning, purely digital campaigns are always at risk of getting lost in today's transitory, digital chaos.
In short, both print and digital marketing come with a distinct set of pros and cons. Therefore, the best approach is to develop a marketing strategy that integrates print into your digital marketing strategy to offer the best of both worlds. Here are some reasons why you may want to add print to your marketing strategy.
1. Print Marketing Is Not Outdated
The idea that print marketing is extinct is far from the truth. In fact, print media has evolved over the years as a result of new technologies. Various developments have occurred, converting print into a strong medium for marketing.
Furthermore, advances in printing techniques, such as variable data printing, have significantly reduced printing costs. Moreover, it is an excellent way to reach a group of consumers who are not readily accessible through digital channels. If you are not using print to connect with your audience, you may be missing out on a large portion of the market.
The bottom line is that print media is not obsolete. Instead, it has evolved with time to produce greater and more cost-effective results. So, if your company rules out print marketing because it doesn't grasp the nature of, or have the graphic capability skills for contemporary printing, then you're passing up chances for brand activation development and engaging direct with your customers.
2. Print Media Promotes Digital Marketing On-Ground
Print marketing is an essential component of any successful on-the-ground or guerrilla marketing strategy. It is extremely successful for a small business with a local reach since it builds local brand awareness and directs people to your location. You simply can't beat print if you want to reach people on the street or target certain demographics.
Using print media, such as large-format posters or gloss flyers, may make it much easier to reach your target audience in real life. Plus, it supports your digital marketing efforts on multiple levels. For example, you can add your website’s URL or social media handles to direct and engage the on-ground audience to your business website, which will ultimate lead to more digital clicks, traffic and future sales conversions down through your Marketing Funnel.
The goal is to get people into your sales funnel, so print is a wonderful way to break the ice and get them there at the beginning, when they’re initially interested in your product or service. After that initial contact – if you can capture their details – they’ll naturally move further down through that funnel where you can engage further having capture their attention by developing the relationship with a phone call, personal E-mail, free quotes or face-to-face consultation etc.
Another currently trending tactic involves printing QR codes on flyers, brochures, and other printed media. Your audience can scan the code using their smartphones to view your website, learn more about your business, interact with your representatives, purchase online, and take other similar actions to support your digital marketing strategy.
3. Print Fosters Meaningful Relationships
Want to develop long-lasting and meaningful relationships with clients and partners? Consider using print in addition to your online marketing efforts.
The nature of printed media appeals to consumers' "touch memory," which has shown to be one of the most durable types of emotional connection. Printed media's aesthetics allows it to be personalised too, lending it unrivalled credibility.
According to recent studies by Forbes, potential consumers are considerably more inclined to trust your company when you utilise high-quality print in your marketing. From handing over luxury business cards to stakeholders and future partners, or providing printed flyers and mini-brochures to clients, it can leave a lasting impression on your audience whilst helping gain trust and credibility — an essential component of every business.
Furthermore, non-digital items can be preserved more easily. If you create an eye-catching flyer for a campaign, your target audience may save the physical paper copy (on their desk or shelf, in a drawer, in a filing cabinet, or if a consumer, behind the clock or in the “man-drawer”), which will keep you in the forefront of your audience's mind, with a greater likelihood of resulting in repeat business. Print marketing consequently provides firms with a far higher influence than digital marketing and help them make more meaningful and long-term ties with customers.
4. Scientific Research Proves High Influence of Print Marketing
According to recent studies in neuroscience, print marketing has a distinct edge when it comes to interacting with our brains. According to the Forbes article above, research funded by Canada Post compares the impacts of print marketing – direct mail in this research – and digital media.
Traditional questionnaires were coupled with eye-tracking and high-resolution EEG brain wave monitoring to determine how well each type of media captivated and engaged consumers. Results showed that sensory direct mail using paper was considerably easier to understand and performed better in terms of brand memory.
It found that physical printed material is more real to the brain, having a meaning and a place and better connected to memory recall. It also found that physical material helps the emotional processing, important for both memory and brand associations.
Another example was from a ScienceDirect study with Norweigan students that concluded that students who read physical printed text scored significantly better on their reading comprehension tests than students who’d read the same content digitally, showing that scientists have proven that paper has a more memorable impact than digital does.
According to the report, "Direct mail requires 21% less cognitive effort to process than digital media (5.15 vs 6.37), suggesting that it is both easier to understand and more memorable. Post-exposure memory tests validated what the cognitive load test revealed about direct mail's memory encoding capabilities. When asked to cite the brand (or company name) of an advertisement they had just seen, recall was 70% higher among participants who were exposed to a direct mail piece (75%) than a digital ad (44%)."
5. Consumers Prefer Printed Media
Did you know that most consumers (over 30) actually prefer printed media and direct mail for marketing communications compared to e-mails and online ads? Despite the digital revolution, it remains their favourite method of receiving marketing communications from businesses.
People enjoy receiving post at home. Receiving a physical discount voucher or even a postcard can significantly improve moods, especially post-pandemic. Consequently, it is overwhelmingly preferred over e-mails for receiving product information, special offers, and discounts across all important sectors, with the main reasons behind this being:
- preferential treatment
- convenience
- ease of reference
- portability
Have a physical thing in your hand simply makes it easier to retain the information and allows your consumers to refer back to it whenever required without trying to find it again on a digital device. In a nutshell, you can boost your new customers’ experience and client satisfaction by integrating print into your overall marketing strategy.
Get the Best of Both Worlds
In summary, the perfect marketing strategy for your business is entirely dependent on its circumstances and goals of course but in most cases, different omni-channel campaigns require different and diverse media types – including BOTH print and digital — to reach different audiences successfully.
Therefore, Trade Printing UK can bring your business comprehensive services to meet all your printing needs to add to your marketing mix. They can help you create high-quality, eye-catching work to attract potential consumers and drive them to your website or sales channels. Contact them today to create custom-designed work using their online design templates on their new print portal.