Print Marketing Isn’t Dead, But the Game Has Changed
As local newspapers fold around the country and traditional monthly print magazines move to all digital formats, you may be starting to believe the voices proclaiming “print marketing is dead.” However, while there are fewer publications offering print advertising now, there are still plenty of print marketing opportunities producing excellent results, especially direct mail.
Indeed, print marketing is alive and well as we move into a new decade. In fact, we covered some significant up-and-coming print marketing trends in our last blog post that can boost your company’s marketing efforts. Don’t miss that article, which covers how the expansion of digital printing makes print marketing an amazingly affordable and low-risk addition to your marketing strategy, and so much more!
Biggest Benefits of Print Marketing Today
If it’s been a while since you’ve explored print marketing for your business, we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how it’s evolved and changed. In the past, you probably balked at the high cost of print advertising in traditional newspapers and magazines. It’s true that placing ads in these media sources was often totally out of reach for smaller businesses.
Like so many others, then, you probably made digital marketing the centerpiece of your marketing strategy due to its low cost. However, as this marketing area is becoming oversaturated, it’s now time to look back to print’s capabilities in comparison.
And, spoiler alert: print marketing can integrate with your digital marketing campaigns to give you a complete “high-tech/low-tech” approach to your marketing efforts!
Print Has Become Novel Against So Much Digital Advertising
In our multi-screen world, thousands of brands compete for customers’ attention in a crowded digital marketing landscape. And this often amounts to “shouting into the void.”
Marketing experts tend to agree that the money brands spend adding to the digital noise may be better utilized for print marketing campaigns now. Salesforce.org’s Brandon Ortiz said in a recent Forbes article, “the ubiquity of digital media has given print media a strange new power. Think of how special it is to get a written letter as opposed to an email.”
The sheer novelty of receiving a print ad—especially one that’s personalized and directly mailed to a customer—now has a better chance of making a lasting impression than yet another email or Facebook ad. The moral of the story is, dare to be different!
Print Collateral is Tangible
Especially for small businesses that need to drive customers to physical locations, print marketing pieces—called print collateral—are especially impactful. Those businesses that do a lot of tradeshow and event marketing will similarly benefit from the fact that print collateral gives prospective customers and clients a physical reminder about your company.
Additionally, print collateral’s tangibility is appreciated by specific audiences according to market research. That same Forbes article we linked in the last section notes that luxury consumers and seniors—who may not be as technologically inclined—are two groups that especially value print advertising. If your business needs to attract either of those groups, your marketing team will want to carefully consider how to balance digital marketing efforts with print marketing.
Print Marketing is Easily Personalized
Thanks to digital variable data printing (VDP), which allows a variety of elements to be changed from piece to piece, personalization is easy to achieve in modern print collateral. This is particularly excellent for direct mail applications.
However, you must be sure you have quality data. There are a variety of bad data “gotchas” that can undermine the effectiveness of your direct mail campaigns and other VDP projects.
Print Marketing Integrates with Your Digital Marketing Efforts
Perhaps one of the most surprising things about how print marketing has evolved in recent years is the fact that it can work in tandem with your digital marketing campaigns. We’ll illustrate this with an example.
Kiwi shoe polish—a national brand many of us are familiar with—created a print advertising campaign in 2018 that showcased stories about six famous pairs of shoes owned by notable historical figures like Amelia Earhart and Abraham Lincoln. Because print marketing can be a little “once and done,” they complemented the campaign with a unique website, as well. This way, the impact of the print ads can continue to live on as somewhat “evergreen” internet content.
The H&H Group Can Help You Achieve Your Business Goals Through Print Marketing
Clearly, there are many excellent reasons to embrace print marketing despite the doomsday predictions that print is dead. You simply have to be willing to try some new things with your overall marketing efforts. Because print marketing is perhaps more affordable now than ever before, experimenting is easy—and we can show you the way! Here at The H&H Group, our goal is to help businesses in Central PA and beyond get exceptional results from their print marketing campaigns. Whether you’re experimenting with print for the first time in a long time, or you’ve been relying on print collateral as a significant part of your marketing strategy for years, we have the printing technology and marketing know-how to get you better brand recognition, more customers, and more profitable marketing campaigns. Get in touch to start a conversation about your upcoming print projects.
