Print versus Digital – the final playoff

Marketing and advertising are making a lot of noise across all industries. It is getting harder to be heard, seen or noticed – and the only change will be noisier and more crowded.

As the marketing leaders steer the mob towards online marketing, YouTube advertising and social media communities, the smart companies are taking a look at what has been left behind. 

At EM Creative, we’ve seen a lot of change and taken good advantage of marketing and communication trends but what we are currently looking at is where, in the chaos, is there any space?

The ease and effectiveness of online marketing tools has supposedly been ringing the death-knell for printed material for the last 10 years. Yet, like a cat with nine lives,  print has survived.

We believe there are two main reasons why print has, and will continue to be a major player.

The first is the answer to our question – where is the space. As people’s inboxes overflow with copious amounts of data – far more than a single person can be expected to process in a day – post-boxes are lying empty for weeks on end.

The other reason print should be a serious consideration is its tactility. Printed material is tangible.

But those two reasons alone are not enough. Nor are we looking at print in isolation.

Effective campaigns, whether they are awareness based, product based, or event based, must incorporate all relevant mediums in order to make the right impact on the right people.  

An integrated campaign that seamlessly carries the audience between the online communication and into everyday in-real-life experiences will become more memorable than a campaign which is battling to be seen in the sea of online data – or which is a solitary island of information with no context or support.

To create a campaign that incorporates print,  you need to be able engage your audience on four levels:

Relevance
Reaching the right audience is key. The Real Estate industry commonly run a print campaign to sell a high value property by dropping flyers into post boxes. They are one-off drops that could be powered up by running facebook ads targeted to the same suburbs that received the flyer drop. In isolation, all the flyer does is remind us there are real estate agents.

Repetition
Repetition creates familiarity and familiarity creates security and trust. Even without a Coke a Cola budget, brands are able to create familiarity effectively and economically with strategically targeted campaigns that connect with their audience in as many different ways possible – again, off-line in-real-life elements can be impactful.

Relatedness
The sweet-spot between what the audience is looking for and what your solution to that is opens up the range of printable items you can use to create an impact. For a travel agency, your brochure in the form of a passport – in an envelope that can be used as a passport holder/case is a classic example. Related, useful and memorable!

Tactile
Don’t underestimate the sense of touch when you are creating a print campaign – embossing, textures and surface contrasts reinforce what the eye sees when people interact with an object.

Strategically planned and executed campaigns that utilise the strengths of both digital and print media will gain more traction and lead the way for future engagement with your audience.

EM Creative has been creating integrated print and digital campaigns for their clients for over 16 years. We know what works and why. We would love to talk to you about your next campaign.