With all the marketing emails and social media campaigns the average consumer is exposed to, you’d be forgiven for assuming that, these days, all marketing is digital.
But while a great deal of SME marketing budgets do tend to prioritise digital channels, print marketing is far from dead. For many businesses, it remains not only a viable marketing practice, but a crucial one.
In today’s blog, we’ll be looking at the types of print marketing still commonly used, how to make the most of print marketing, and the most notable benefits of print.
Which types of print marketing are still effective?
Print marketing allows for a plethora of opportunities- arguably more so than digital marketing. Brochures and flyers, direct mail, newspaper and magazine ads, physical newsletters, banners, merchandise, business cards… any one of these channels has the potential to make more of an impact on customers than a social media post. At the end of the day, even the most unique social post risks being lost in an endless sea of bite-sized, instantly available content. Print marketing can not only be unique, but tangible, too. Consumers are far more likely to remember marketing material they can hold in their hands, rather than something they’ve seen online.
Combining print marketing with digital
One of the ways to make the most of print marketing is by combining it with your digital output. You can’t reach everyone with just digital marketing, nor can you reach everyone with just print marketing. In some cases, particularly if you’re a local business or you’re advertising a local event, the way to reach the broadest audience will be with both physical, and online, material.
You can also integrate these channels directly. One of the most common examples of this in recent years would be QR codes, which allow customers to instantly access your website or social media account by simply scanning with their camera. You can put a QR code on just about any marketing material (business cards, posters, fliers, that godless sphere in Vegas, print ads, etc); there’s heaps of creative potential and dynamic codes that are trackable and cope with changes to the details behind them make your print investment a sound one.
The benefits of print marketing for your SME
So what makes print marketing so effective, even now? There are a number of reasons, including:
- As we mentioned previously, people are more likely to remember physical marketing material than digital. This isn’t exactly surprising; the average X user probably sees dozens, if not hundreds, of branded posts every day. Most would struggle to recall the most recent branded post they saw, even if it was from a company they’re familiar with. But if they received printed material through their letterbox, it’s more likely to stick with them (even if it went straight in the bin!).
- If a large part of your target demographic is older and isn’t spending much time online, it may be that print marketing is one of the only ways to even reach them.
- The use of print can complement your digital marketing output (like the aforementioned QR codes on business cards or posters).
- It’s typically easier to target specific local audiences with direct mail than with paid social media ads, or PPC (pay-per-click) ads.
Conclusion: why print marketing is far from dead
While the marketing landscape is predominantly digital, print can be a valuable addition to your strategy, particularly when integrated directly with your digital output. It’s tangible, at the end of the day, and in an age where non-stop screens can feel increasingly suffocating, tangible goes a long way.
