Printed Marketing Helps Businesses Increase Brand Awareness, Customer Retention

Over the past year, COVID has forced businesses to alter the way they market their services and themselves. Companies were forced to embrace the digital space as more and more customers spent time surfing the internet and social media while the nation was on lockdown. During that time, business owners leaned on digital marketing efforts to stay relevant and create brand awareness.

With COVID restrictions loosening their grip on society, more businesses have opened their doors and customers have been visiting stores in-person to help defeat the digital mental fatigue. As life transitions back to normal, print marketing will become more important than ever. With business employees having more face-to-face interactions with customers, companies will need more physical assets to conduct business.

Printed materials give customers something tangible to help them remember a company, what they are about and what products or services they provide. They also act as an instrument to help consumers remember to come back and visit later. Now is the perfect time to reconsider how to maximize print to drive your business. With companies having more physical interaction, physical marketing assets will add more value to your business and brand.

Engaging the Senses

Printed materials should play a major role in any marketing campaign for products or services. These items possess more than just information. They also create an opportunity for the customer to remember your brand because of its unique nature. Printed assets can engage two or more senses, which increases the chance of a customer remembering your company. While digital advertisements are easier to distribute through multiple avenues, they engage only one or two senses. This makes digital ads easier to forget as opposed to physical printed materials. In addition, consumers are becoming more immune to digital marketing assets because they are widely available.

As businesses and consumers continue through the next phase of the transition, it will be key for companies to offer physical marketing items to their customers. The interior and exterior areas of a building provide the perfect canvas for your brand to be on display. T-shirts, brochures, and floor graphics are great opportunities to engage the senses of the customers. Any form of messaging that doesn’t require power but captures the customer’s attention can be a form of print marketing. Whether it’s a floor graphic or a plastic cup, manufacturers can use different techniques and materials to reproduce content.

For companies looking to grow, print marketing can be a key instrument for building brand awareness and success. With many businesses stepping away from direct mail, now is the perfect time to place an emphasis on that asset as well. There is less competition in the space, which allows your company to create a unique experience for the customer. As previously stated, for those with a physical location, wall and window graphics are also great physical tools to create brand awareness through the art of print marketing. The combination of the two improves a company’s brand awareness and captures additional customers while sustaining current ones.

Creating Value with a Unique Experience

The importance of tangible marketing assets cannot be overstated. While the item holds key information for a business’ products or services, one of the most important aspects is the unique experience it delivers customers. Printed marketing materials hold tremendous value to brands because of that experience. As previously stated, customers can hold, see and sometimes smell these items. Engaging multiple senses, the marketed material resides inside the memory of the consumer and reminds them of your company.

Printed assets also make a company seem more real as opposed to digital marketing. When a message flashes on a computer screen or smart device pertaining to a company’s product or service, it is easy to dismiss it and keep scrolling. When a customer is physically holding a mailer or wearing a T-shirt, the message sticks with them for a much longer time because of the experience it creates. For example, I was working with a digital marketing company that makes the majority of its revenue in the digital space. Yet, they were surprised with how much more business they received after utilizing billboards and direct mail.

Print marketing can also help authenticate and legitimize a company for the consumer. In a world that operates through the internet daily, many individuals are capable of developing a website or advertising on social media. Because of that, consumers tend to be more skeptical of companies that only offer an online presence. It is more difficult to procure printed marketing. When an individual sees a direct mailer or brochure with a company brand on it, they associate those items as legitimate marketing materials.

Print and Digital: A Dynamic Duo

While print marketing and its advantages have been a major topic of discussion, it is important to incorporate both print and digital mediums to create a highly effective marketing campaign. It takes anywhere from seven to 13 touchpoints using two to three forms of media to capture a customer’s attention and influence them to make a purchase. Utilizing only one avenue, digital or print, makes reaching those touchpoints more difficult and less effective. Intertwining physical media (a brochure, direct mail, widow graphics, etc.) with a digital presence shortens the time span it takes to acquire and sustain customer business. After all, it is important to take advantage of all available assets when building success.

Written by Ryan Farris.