Print & Design: The Role of Print Marketing in 2018

In 2018 many people now believe that print based marketing had become a redundant form of business promotion however despite popular belief print based marketing continues to produce and impressive return on investment.

Amongst many marketing circles there has been a belief that digital would completely overtake print based marketing however whilst technology has created the digital marketing industry it has enhanced the print marketing industry. This is because new technologies have made print more efficient and effective, whilst at the same time being highly underestimated.

The Print Marketing Revolution

Print marketing as an industry is experiencing a technological revolution, one of the main reasons behind this is that printing companies can now create small, targeted on-demand products.  Businesses engaging in print marketing in the past required vast quantities of promotional material a large chunk of which was simply wasted and not used for marketing purposes, now nearly every piece of print marketing material can be utilised.  One of the reasons for this is that producing and receiving print marketing materials is quicker than it ever has been before. Whereas in the past it would have taken weeks or even months to receive marketing materials it can now be as little as a few days, this now means that businesses can produce promotional materials for a campaign or event to an accurate level rather than having an extra amount that will probably be wasted for a ‘just in case’ scenario.

Print’s Not Dead

Many seem to fall into a belief that companies are no longer using print-based marketing as many companies are continuously reporting a lower budget for printing costs, however it’s important to note that the vast majority of companies categorise print marketing as a marketing or PR cost rather than a printing cost. There are several schemes targeted at offices to become greener and reduce their paper that they however in these programmes and initiatives are usually aimed at restricting unnecessary general office printing not print marketing materials.

Targeted Marketing

Remarketing is all the rave nowadays in the world of marketing and especially in digital marketing circles thanks to the likes of Facebook and Google Adwords however print is quite often neglected as a remarketing tool which means that businesses are missing out on the to focus on the exact place, person, business or organisation that you previously had dealings with. You can create a targeted print marketing campaign specifically for that individual prospect creating a strong personal connection between your business and that brand. It’s possible to achieve this via email but for the vast majority of time this futile endeavour just leads to an email in the junk pile. You don’t need to focus solely on remarketing either you can look at targeting your print materials to specific types of customers for example to target businesses you could for example send material to offices, warehouses, dentists or hospitals you can or if you sell luxury products you could send out your marketing material to houses in affluent areas targeting customers more likely to buy your products.

Print is a Gap in the Marketing Market

Does anyone remember having to constantly remove leaflets from your door every 5 minutes? Has anyone also noticed that this is not happening anywhere near as much as it used to? This means the few leaflets we have going through our doors stand out it’s not happening anymore the ones that are there stand out. Whilst most businesses are focused on digital the best marketing approach is to exploit a marketing platform that others are now utilising. This a great opportunity to stand out from the crowd, go back to basics & utilise print marketing.

Questions You Don’t Think Of Asking

The Web is useful for asking questions but what if you don’t know what questions to ask? There may be a service or product that you could really benefit from but you simply haven’t’ heard of before so you wouldn’t bother asking. For example you may have lost a tremendous amount of data from your businesses’ computer, worth a valuable sum and you have no way of recovering it. You’ve never heard what a data recovery company is before as you’re not an especially techy individual but then you hear of a company that offers this service via a leaflet through your door. The company has noticed that there are several businesses operating from offices in your area and realises some of them may have had a computer failure, you get all your valuable data back and the data recovery company has a successful print marketing campaign, something that may not have occurred through a google search.

Branding & Consistent Visibility

In order to develop a strong brand for your business you shouldn’t focus on just one form of marketing you should attempt to reach out to your market via all outlets possible which includes posters, banners, direct mail, leaflets, handing out businesses cards, social media, organic search, paid search and even perhaps even TV or radio. By exploiting all marketing platforms your business will receive consistent visibility from its target audience. This means that your audience will see your brand everywhere they go and that way it grabs their attention and sticks in the back of their head for longer. Many leaflets may simply end up in the bin however vouchers and coupons quite often are hanged on to for quite some time, because it has a monetary value, regardless of whether they redeem to coupon or not that individual is thus exposed to your brand for an extended period of time. Print marketing also has that flexibility of being able to read it whenever you want if you hand someone a leaflet, they can take it with them and read it over a cup of coffee, where as an advert or tweet may be skimmed past if they’re in a rush. Finally the aesthetic value of holding a physical marketing product means that is much more memorable, than something seen on a screen.

Credibility of Your Business

It’s wrong to assume that everyone in 2018 is consistently online and making use of the internet. Many especially amongst the older generation are not as interested in using the internet and like to use more old-school forms of print marketing, from a B2B perspective decision makers in business are quite often older out of practicality. Let’s not forget that the options available to businesses are not simply either print or digital businesses can easily do both and use each form of marketing to compliment the other. For example you could have a leaflet that links to your social media profile and where you offer individuals entry in to a prize draw for giving you a like on Facebook. Finally it also demonstrates a level of credibility if your business is willing to take the time to produce business cards, brochures, flyers and other print marketing material then you’re probably willing to go the extra mile for your customers and offer a thorough service/product.

New Technologies & Cost

Variable printing is a process in which people can print differently according to different niches and targets whilst the process has been around for a while it’s now starting to become more prevalent and more targeted, meaning far lower costs for marketing materials. A great innovation in the print marketing world is QR codes and NFC which allows people to connect to your print based marketing in a digital format, for example scanning the QR code on a leaflet through a smartphone might lead to your website or social media profiles. Finally the cost of print marketing is the least expensive cost per Impression when compared to digital when you consider the cost of producing items and delivering them which could be free if you did it yourself. As a result of these innovations the print industry is now set to grow to £266bn by 2024, which demonstrates that the print marketing industry has adapted well to the economic challenges of the modern world.