When many businesses start thinking about how to market in today’s world, many jump right to video ads and social media posts, believing that digital media is the only effective method of advertising anymore. Their thought process is understandable – consumers spend a great deal of time on digital platforms each day, and digital marketing can be very effective given the right strategy and industry.
However, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the agencies we partner with, it’s that print is still an important marketing tool, even in a digital-first world. Many of the agencies we work with regularly see sustained success when they pair modern-day features with direct mail and point-of-sale prints. Keep reading to discover why print is still a great resource for marketing agencies to help clients reach their awareness or sales goals.
Print Promotions Earn Higher Reach & Redemption Rates
When brands reach out to a marketing agency, they’re often looking for strategies and campaign ideas that will provide real results for their business. As such, it’s in agencies’ best interest to pitch promotions that have the best chance of generating measurable outcomes from the client’s target audience. If the client is interested in sending coupons or promoting actionable deals, direct mail is one of the most effective strategies to earn redemptions. According to research from R.C. Brayshaw in 2020, print and direct mail marketing drive an average customer response rate of 9 percent, compared to a 1 percent average for most digital marketing channels.
Many businesses and agencies love to use email marketing for its high rate of response and engagement, but print outperforms email in most industries, too. Research from Medina indicates the redemption rate for direct mail is 37 percent higher than the rate for email. Compared to its digital counterpart, direct mail often provides more room for detail, and consumers are more likely to hang on to physical mail longer than emails, which are frequently sent straight to the trash. Print can also feel more personalized, like the offers each consumer receives was delivered just for them based on their location and interests, which makes recipients more likely to act on them.
Print Encourages More Audience Engagement
In addition to heightened redemption rates, print ads can boost overall engagement rates for awareness-focused marketing campaigns. In fact, consumers’ interest in print has soared in recent years. According to Newsworks, the number of consumers who pay close attention to print ads has more than doubled since 2010, up from 23 percent to nearly 50 percent.
There are several reasons print benefits from higher engagement from consumers. For one, your direct mail messages often face much less competition in earning attention. Instead of dozens of digital messages hitting them at once, direct mail recipients are free to browse individual pieces of mail at their own pace. Colors in the piece can be more eye-catching in person, and the tactile nature of print also helps naturally grab readers’ attention away from other distractions to the piece in their hands. Consumers’ growing comfort with tools like QR codes and AR experiences has also made it easier for brands to take their audience’s initial interest in their print and expand it into a deeper experience on other platforms.
Print Delivers Quality Data
Using elements like QR codes and custom links in your print marketing can provide several other benefits, in addition to increasing engagement. By adding in a digital feature, you can track your recipients through the sales cycle just as you would through digital ads. These elements provide helpful data about your audience, such as how many times they scanned the QR code or which buttons they clicked on your campaign landing page. If you provide a unique coupon code to use at checkout, you can also track exactly how many sales you earned as a result of the promotion.
Print campaigns can also deliver valuable insights about your broader marketing strategy. For example, if you use different links or coupons codes for different geographic areas, you can learn which subsets of your audience had the best response to your offer. With this first-party data, you can learn how to improve future campaigns to build on your success. If you notice some zip codes or promotional offers outperforming others, double down on those areas next time to drive even better results for your client.