The marketing world is ever-changing. Digital and print marketing both race through technological upgrades at the speed of light. Print marketing is far from dead and can be used to accentuate your digital efforts. Consumers do enjoy the modern aspects of digital marketing; being able to quickly click through your offers is something the current consumer base expects. On the flip side, print marketing has a certain appeal. Physically touching something, be it a flyer or mailer, has a visceral quality not available through any digital means. Combining the two of them gets you the best of both worlds. Doubling the exposure means a better chance you’ll stay on the consumers’ minds over your competitors. Here’s how to maximize your return on investment by combining digital and print marketing.
Have Print Marketing Boosts Your Digital Presence
One of the most important parts of any marketing campaign is data collection. Online, self-advertising companies such as Facebook or Google Analytics bring customer information to you: what demographic is most engaged with your business, when they’re looking, and so on. Custom landing pages, called out individually on printed materials, are incredible tools for data collection. Say you have a flyer distributed to all coffee shops within a five-mile radius, asking interested consumers to go to ‘yourwebsite.com/coffee’. When you look at how many people go to that specific page, you know it’s from those print campaign’s flyers. This does double duty: it narrows down where your flyers are doing the best and boosts your digital presence. Web forms on your website’s landing pages allow you to collect information directly from the visitor. This maximizes the ROI for email campaigns, as the customers who opt-in want to hear from you. The goal of any marketing campaign, be it print or digital, is to get people engaging with you. If you can have them engage across multiple platforms at once there is a higher chance they’ll return to your business.
Start with the Print and Digital Marketing Basics: QR Codes
QR codes are the most common solution for combining email and print marketing but far from the only solution. A QR code is a scannable code on printed material such as a mailer, poster, flyer, or even billboard. When an interested consumer scans the code they are redirected to your web page or social media. This is a highly affordable way to bring people from printed materials into your digital realm. Printed pieces with QR codes can often be created in the office on a standard piece of printer equipment, making them an excellent choice for companies on a budget.
Hashtags and Variable Printing Make Marketing Easy
Another simple way to bring your social media presence onto paper is through the use of hashtags. This lets consumers do the work for you while gaining followers for your own page. An example would be Nike’s #justdoit billboard campaign. In this campaign, a Nike fan would see their billboard, tag #justdoit in their own social media post and spread it to their followers. You can also use digital data to implement variable printing. Studies have shown people react more positively to personalized things. A postcard that has the person’s name on it is more likely to be responded to than a generic one. Variable printing takes the digital data (name, birthday, you name it!) and includes it on printed material. This can be done at home using Microsoft Word’s mail merge feature for smaller batches or by large professional print marketing companies.
Consistency Through Digital and Print Marketing
You must have a consistent message through both digital and print marketing to be effective. Consumers are visual learners, so branding needs to be consistent through all materials. This can be easily achieved through a specific palette, strong logo presence, font, etc. You should always seek regular feedback! On print, this can be as simple as a ‘review us on social’ tagline. Web forms can include a ‘how did you hear about us’ dropdown to find out how successful different marketing is. The marketing world is relatively saturated with businesses. Standing out in the competition is all about being creative. Don’t be afraid to let your personality shine through your materials! Try a few different approaches to see what works best for your brand. For assistance with your print marketing campaign contact Vegas Ink and Toner.
