It’s tempting for marketing gurus to declare that the print aspect of marketing is “dead” and, for this reason, that many businesses and organisations would be ill-advised to seriously consider utilising it. However, sometimes, the falling popularity of a marketing method can provide a strong incentive to use it.
After all, the fewer competitors of your firm who do use it, the more you can stand out simply by doing the opposite. Just consider the following off-kilter means of utilising print marketing.
Distribute printed books rather than ebooks
One well-worn marketing method in the B2B space is making and publishing ebooks as an alternative way of showing text and infographics that, otherwise, you might have preferred to save for blog posts. However, switching to printed books instead could pay off in the current culture.
That’s because, as LinkedIn points out, sales of printed books have recently increased as ebook sales have declined, largely due to younger readers’ preference for the paper-based offering.
Try printing out magazines, too
Remember the print magazine? Okay, so it’s not quite dead – but, over time, its popularity seems to have been eroded by the digital space, where websites serve many of the purposes previously met by those papery periodicals. However, statistics hint that you could benefit from bucking the trend.
In one study, customer magazines were found to boost brand loyalty by 32%, while 44% of all customers receiving a magazine act positively on it. Furthermore, independent editorial content in consumer magazines can, on average, improve the corporate brand image by 9%.
Embark on a direct mail campaign
Yes, evidence suggests that doing so can still be useful. The US Postal Service has reported that, of direct mail recipients, about two-thirds were swayed into visiting a particular website. This shows how you can cleverly use print marketing to augment your online efforts.
Besides, as acknowledged in a Forbes article, direct mail remains effective for reaching older people who are especially inclined to read long-copy mailers.
Direct mailers can take many different forms, all of which you could make a reality through utilising the right printing equipment from a manufacturer such as Duplo International.
Make print materials compatible with AR
Whether or not you reckon AR (augmented reality) is the future of technology or simply a silly fad, you can’t deny its effectiveness in the right circumstances. Just look at how the AR game Pokemon GO took off upon its 2016 release, while AR remains influential through Snapchat.
As AR is about overlaying digital elements on views of the real world, this technology can prove surprisingly useful in print marketing. Imagine someone being able to point their smartphone camera at your print ad and see a digital image suddenly spring to life on it!
Resonating with hyper-local markets
There are certain industries, like that of private investigators, where people still find the businesses and services they need by consulting print directories. For this reason, if your sector is particularly specialist, you shouldn’t forget about inserting ads into these directories.
