What Print Marketing Can Offer Your Business in 2021

Print marketing has been a key part of marketing strategy for over a century and still plays an integral part in brand awareness, advertisement, and customer engagement even in an increasingly digital world. At C4B Media, we are big believers in the power of print, and our creative design studio works with large global clients daily to produce everything from brochures to belly bands.

While print offers an undeniably more personal approach to marketing, you might be surprised to know that, in some cases, it can be more effective too. Print media is known for receiving a better rate of engagement and even a higher return on investment, compared with email newsletters or online advertisements for a number of industries. Read on to discover how print can benefit your business in 2021.

A more personalised approach

In a world saturated with screens, print products such as flyers or brochures that you can physically touch are starting to seem like a breath of fresh air. There’s a distinct emotional difference between holding a brochure, printed on silk magazine paper, compared to reading the exact same content on your laptop or smartphone. This might be the reason why 56% of people surveyed in the US find print marketing to be the most trustworthy type of marketing and why 70% say that mailers are much more personal than online advertisements.

The tangible quality of printed media appeals to people’s ‘haptic memory’ (touch memory), which is proven to be the most lasting form of emotional connection. This means your printed marketing collateral is more likely to gain trust from clients and potential clients. Gaining trust is a crucial part of any good business strategy and recent studies have shown that potential customers are far more likely to trust your company when your marketing is presented via high-quality print, such as luxury brochures or premium flyers. Advertisements like these are especially important for those in the charity sector, where direct-mail postcards and newsletters can boost donations by up to fifty percent.

Print is tangible

A key aspect of printed marketing products is that they’re something your consumers or clients can keep. If you create a beautiful flyer, menu, or loyalty card on high-quality material, your audience may well hold on to it. Print marketing, therefore, can offer a much higher level of impact than digital marketing can achieve (have you ever heard of someone keeping an online advertisement?) This allows you to build more meaningful and long-lasting connections with your end-consumers.

A recent neuroscientific study suggested that print marketing affects our brains differently compared to digital marketing tactics. The findings showed that direct mailers, when compared to email and digital advertisements, were far easier to process cognitively, and tested better when it came to brand recall. According to the report: “Direct mail requires 21% less cognitive effort to process than digital media, suggesting that it is both easier to understand and more memorable.”

Print provides higher engagement

Engagement is key for building a community and connecting with your audience. Getting people excited and interested in your product is the most important way to do this. Many companies are opting for online social media campaigns to advertise their products and services, which works for some industries, but did you know that print may offer a higher rate of engagement?

• 44% of customers visit a brand website after receiving direct-mail marketing, which is 10% more than those who receive an email.
• 80% of households read or browse their print advertising mail.
• At least 47% of customers report using ad-blocking technology when browsing online.
• 80-90% of direct mail gets opened, while only 20-30% of email gets opened.
• The response rate of printed direct mail marketing is 37% higher than email direct marketing. (stats from printisbig.com)

Using printed media, such as posters or leaflets, can help you reach your target audience much more easily. For a small business with a local reach, print marketing is super effective, as it creates local brand recognition, can guide customers directly to your premises, and be accurately location-specific (which can be difficult to achieve online).

A better return on investment

With many articles only focusing on targeting an online audience, you might be surprised to know that print marketing often gives a better return on investment.

Print marketing also improves brand awareness. Studies have shown that brand recall for companies that use direct mail is 70% higher than those who just use digital marketing strategies. In addition to this, 62% of consumers who responded to a direct mail campaign in the past three months have made a purchase – showing that the leads you pick up from direct mailers are more likely to be strong ones.

Thinking outside the box

Print has been in use as a marketing tool for over one hundred years, though this isn’t to say that it hasn’t grown, developed, and changed over time. Now, with the integration of digital marketing, the combination of online and print is endless.

Not that long ago, print and digital were two completely separate entities. Of course, a printed flyer or display could advertise a web address, though they were never directly connected. Now, QR codes can be scanned by smartphones to take you directly to a website or be used to capture information. A good example of this was using QR codes printed outside restaurants or shops during the pandemic to gather information for Track and Trace.

Going forward from QR Codes, we can now integrate Augmented Reality (AR) to print media. AR layers computer-generated images in real-time onto the user’s real-world view, usually through a smartphone. Bringing print and digital together into the ultimate marketing experience combination.

Conclusion

Print marketing is tried and tested. It’s authentic and trustworthy, memorable and tangible, and when it comes to these factors it just can’t be beaten by digital marketing. However, the fact that most companies rely on a combination of both online and print marketing shows that the most effective campaigns don’t have to be either-or. The notion that print and digital are in competition is, quite frankly, untrue, and when used in partnership with one another, print and digital are a match made in marketing heaven.

If you have a print project in mind that you would like some help with, why not outsource your marketing to C4B? Please get in touch today for a chat about what we can offer by calling 01763 877110. Don’t forget for every print job worth over £100 we plant a tree. Another good reason to contact us for your print management projects!