I’ve been working recently with a commercial printer, helping them to figure out how to keep their presses constantly busy during this period of recession and, whilst companies are tightening their financial belts, it seems they are turning more and more to e-marketing and social media to create awareness and promote sales.
It has to be said, that despite the advance in technology and the growth in all things web, printed collateral still has it’s place in your promotional planning, and depending on the market you operate within, some industries rely on printed words and images more than others.
Look at the retail sector, they still rely on this tangible form of marketing to promote their products but manage to balance this with advertising across electronic channels such as email, sponsored links, banner adverts, social networks and so on.
Getting the right marketing mix is critical. Whilst social networking and online channels are a hot topic at the moment, traditional print and mail channels are still driving people to make a web purchase. A digital presence on its own is still not enough to encourage sales.
Let’s face it, there’s nothing better than flicking through a brochure or retail catalogue with your feet up and a cup of tea, when you’re planning your next online shopping trip!
Print does seem to be getting a hard time at the moment and the cost of print has become more of a hot topic as the economy took a turn for the worse. Add to that slashed marketing budgets and its easy to pass up on print. I think its about making sure you dont lose sight of your P's.
ReplyDeleteThere is sometihng immediate about print but it does need to be appropriate to the environment in which your intended customer will consume the media. Offer based POS is an obvious win. Giving out an A5 sheet as customers come thorugh the door is obviously a great technique. In general tohugh I tihnk that a lot of digital techniques do out perform print at the moment. Direct Mail and Email share the same data cleaning responsibilities but the digital channel if handled correctly is often easier to clean than it's print cousin.
I think its about ensuring that your strategy includes everyone and so for that I would say use cousins together. For your direct campaign use DM and email. For your advertising campaign think about banners as well as print ads. Gathering everything together as a multi channel media multipler will produce signifficantly better results than ust one channel. I am not convinced though that catalgoues would be the first recommendation as they are costly to produce and lack the immediacy of an online store. An online store also gives you the option of a sale from home.
Hi Aaron, thanks for your comments. I agree that digital marketing techniques seem to be winning out to traditional print, and I fear that the inevitable decline in the industry will sadly continue to have an impact on the smaller printer.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, include every promotional aspect in your strategy and whilst catalogues might be costly to produce, when used effectively in the appropriate sector (Boden do this very well), they successfully drive people to buy online.