Businesses aim to make an impact and garner attention with their marketing campaigns, which can be translated into sales and continued loyalty. Yet the medium in which a business chooses to do this will highly influence its results. Recently, much attention has been focused on the place of print marketing in this increasingly digital age.
While multiple publications advocate for the cost efficiency and promotional power of digital marketing (particularly startups), the power of print remains strong. In fact, 67 percent prefer print over digital media, according to a recent European survey.
Yet the amount of digital subscribers and time spent online continues to increase, which raises the question: How can you optimize your marketing strategy in both realms? Both mediums bring their own benefits with them, and getting the balance right is a crucial element of achieving marketing success across all fronts.
What Your Business Stands To Gain From Print
The resilience of print despite increasing digital marketing preferences indicates that the value that it adds to a marketing campaign is both irreplaceable and unique.
Surprisingly, over 95 percent of people aged 25 and under still read magazines, and they have been shown to generate the highest return amongst all media – approximately $3.94 per each $1 spent on advertising, or as revealed in GFK’s survey, an ROI of 120 percent.
This indicates the strength of print media, and stems from the improved customer engagement and the trust it has been shown to evoke from consumers. When making a purchasing decision, over 8 in 10 people said they would trust print ads in magazines and newspapers.
Therefore, if you are looking to achieve the translation into sales and profits, you are better off financially choosing print. Businesses stand to make a higher return, more sales and retain more customers through boosted customer loyalty.
The Allure Of Digital Marketing
However, more people are online than ever today. People spend approximately 11 hours each day either listening, reading or connected to Internet-enabled devices every day. This makes digital media an enticing route to maximizing the reach of a business’ campaign.
Approximately 77 percent of households visit retail websites, and 75 percent check targeted emails, according to Nielsen. Then there is the cost efficiency of digital media. Ad campaigns on social media and video platforms require minimal finance, with the cost of registering on most of the social media platforms being $0 or close to it.
Finally, digital marketing can be incredibly efficient in communication with customers in getting the tasks done. Thanks to artificial intelligence, big data, and analyzation tools companies can spend half the time sending out personalized marketing emails or ads to their customer base. It can also be incorporated into a print strategy to lower the overall cost and efficiency.
Online stores and tools such as OnlineStamp.net can be used to procure needed accessories and tools for corresponding with customers, and thanks to the ease of online delivery, both time and money can be saved.
Creating A Harmonious Balance Between Digital And Print Marketing
What is clear is that neither digital nor print marketing is the dominating force in the world of marketing. In fact, each medium has its own specific uses, and businesses should focus on getting the perfect balance of both in their operations.
Having a presence both offline, and online is now essential to a business’ success in an incredibly versatile environment. Before you can determine the right apportionment, you must first define the nature of your business.
Digitally driven business (with a purely online existence) will require more investment and attention to be paid to digital marketing medium. After all, this is where its core audience is.
This brings us to the second point: pinpoint your audience location. This comes with doing the right market research and knowing the characteristics of your target audience. Younger audiences tend to favor video and other digital platforms.
In this case, this contributes to the case for investing in ads such as pop up ads or social media ads, while print media such as magazines will have certain age demographics in their readership statistics. Get to know these, and compare them to your intended audience when determining your business’ marketing budget.
Finally, factor in your budgetary constraints. A business’ financial reach will determine how much it can plug into the different mediums. A great marketing strategy will be able to seamlessly translate consumers’ attention from one platform to the other.
This means someone reading a promotional flyers will proceed online to visit the company website, blog or official social media account and vice versa. Getting the balance right can be a tricky one, and requires constant adjustment in accordance with the changing environment.
The key to staying ahead is knowing your market and taking cues from there. Make the effort to meet the consumers in their preferred territory, and your business will thank you.
