Does Print Advertising Have A Place In This Digital World?
Yes! Print advertising is still very much alive and well, especially in B2B markets. In our last blog, Advertising is Much More than What Meets the Eye!, we discussed the differences between B2B and B2C markets, and also the process of creating a print ad. At this point you are probably wondering why advertising still exists in print and why e-marketing hasn’t wiped it out.
Yes, online marketing is important and you need to use it; however you need to be everywhere your clients go. And the reasons why print marketing is still a viable source of advertising:
- Trade journals are read by your clients
- Oversaturated digital market
- Print can be used to integrate and enhance your electronic and social marketing programs
Traditional Advertising in Trade Publications
According to The Association of Business Information & Media Companies, in the B2B world 96% of your clients read print magazines. Do we really have to go further than that? That is a very large customer base to miss out on by substituting your print media with just using internet marketing. Cutting out print advertising isn’t an option.
Stand Out with Print
Yes, there can be too much of a good thing. We have now entered an “e-world” and are experiencing an e-marketing overload. We are now inundated with banner ads, pop-up ads, and even ads on social media. So there is no reason to try to come up with new ways to electronically reach your clients. Your customers are constantly using technology – laptops, smartphones and tablets so when they get to “un-plug” and read a magazine or trade journal it is a welcome change of pace.
There’s that term again. We’ve discussed the importance of integrated marketing in Marketing Integration: Several Channels—One Wheel. It’s important to integrate your print advertising campaign with your e-marketing and social media efforts. And there are new ways to connect your “old and new” marketing media. One great thing about digital marketing is that it can be tracked.
You can now track engagements with print by using QR codes and landing pages. If you think QR codes are dead you might want to read this. Ad specific landing pages are a wonderful way to continue the conversation with your clients or prospects that started with the ad you placed in a trade journal . Instead of using your general website URL in the ad, create a landing page and use a unique URL. By doing this you now have a way to track the performance of the ad. You have also engaged your client to go to a website where you can:
- Provide your client with more information about your product/service
- Give links for your client to download white papers, application notes, and/or technical notes.
- Create a lead capture tool for your client since they need to sign up with their email. (What?! You mean I can get leads from a print ad?)
You can also use a print ad to start engaging with your client on social media. Just like using a landing page for lead capture, you can drive them to your social media outlets by asking them to “follow” you for more information on a given topic, share ideas, give them a reason to engage with you.
No advertising campaign is a guarantee to bring in leads/sales, but if you put a solid integrated advertising strategy together you have a much better chance to increase your return on investment (ROI). After all, isn’t the point of advertising and marketing to:
increased awareness + lead generation + solid sales team = ROI.
If you still think print is dead, check out more reasons why it will thrive in 2014 and beyond. It’s time to stop ignoring print and add it back into your marketing mix.
What does your print media plan look like this year?