Despite that, it’s best to not expect this decline to happen overnight. There are still people who read the paper, who look up items from a menu and even have a stronger appreciation from the occasional greeting card.</>
In all these examples, there is one key component that will allow you to get the most out of print marketing while still staying true to your goal of driving down its cost.
It’s content.
No matter what your industry, a clever use of a physical piece of print can still win over customers that really boost many of today’s digital marketing efforts. You may have already heard of QR codes but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
All these possibilities, however, are heavily dependent on the kind of content you have on print. Below is a short list of what to keep in mind.
#1. Less is more.
If there is one thing that has definitely declined, it is the idea of using print to purely advertise in large quantities. Mass producing flyers and posters is certainly more costly and wasteful when a single web banner can catch triple the amount of attention.
Print may not be able to accomplish much but it can emulate it in the right context. Menus are a good example. You don’t have to print much for a single restaurant but the visual content of a menu’s impeccable design will say a lot about that restaurant’s identity and brand to every diner that opens it.
Discuss with your marketers more about the context of a piece of print and how that context will draw in more of your target market with solid content. Think of trade shows, storefronts or any other position that will give you.
#2. Make the printed content a product in of itself.
Imagine you are in the business of engineering. You have enjoyed a moderate amount of success because you’ve developed some very impressive innovations. Now, you want to ramp up more excitement about your business and reach out further.
With print, you can do that and sell a product at the same time. Write a book featuring your past designs and your company’s history. Sell it at a modest price and market it to your current customers. Give it a very limited print run to not only reduce the cost but also excite demand. Maximize stylish print finishes like embossing and spot varnishing to make the book look like a premium product. This is actually already practiced in other industries but with solid content, it can apply to you as well.
#3. Three Vs — Value, value and more value!
Creating quality content is not just a collaborative effort in your own team but also with your target market. What do they want to see in order for them to pick up a piece of print? What benefit do they get that you can’t simply deliver with only a website ad?
Whether you are selling print as a product or want print to help you market a product, there is certainly more demand for value compared to the previous century. The good news is that value more often lies in the content than in anything else.
And even if you require other ways to deliver value, content can still play a strong part in driving a potential customer through the buyer’s journey.
The decline of print doesn’t mean the decline of its maximum strategic value for today’s professional marketers. This means you have to go beyond the convenience of print not needing a tab or electricity to reach a target audience.
You have to be where the audience is, know what they want and deliver it with the power of content. You can cut down the cost of print but you get more from your savings if the content of print still accomplishes much for your brand.
RICHARD NASSIF
1300 483 455
0418 260 940
132 Marsden St, Parramatta
www.rnprinting.com.au
richard@rnprinting.com.au-
COMPLETE PRINTING SOLUTION
