Nine tips to re-energise your print marketing collateral
Is your marketing collateral stale and ineffective? Here are nine tips to help you freshen up your print marketing – and improve your results from it.
With social media, SEO and digital marketing taking up an increasing amount of businesses’ (and marketers’) attention, it’s easy to overlook more traditional print marketing.
But, in an era in which we’re continually bombarded with emails, social media messages, digital ads and other online communications, it’s becoming harder to cut through the noise and make a real impact.
This is where print marketing comes into its own. There are can few more powerful communication opportunities than physically getting your marketing into the hands of your ideal customers. To get them to hold, touch and feel your flyer, brochure, postcard or mailer.
And when a potential customer is reading through your print marketing piece, there’s no pop up ad or email alert pinging in to distract them from your message.
Nine tips to re-energise your print marketing collateral
But how can you insure your investment in print marketing really pays off? That your marketing collateral is as fresh and impactful – even exciting – as possible? Here are nine tips to inspire you.
1) Use specialty card and paper in different shapes and sizes
One way to breathe life into your print collateral is to use specialty paper. It can help you stand out and be remembered by your target audience. For example, textured paper can really enhance the tactile nature of your print collateral, and this in turn helps to make your brand more memorable.
But don’t stop there. Instead of sticking to the standard shapes and sizes, mix it up a bit and use eye-catching cut-outs in sizes that surprise your audience. Though be sure your choices accurately reflect your brand identity and are suitable for the target audience.
2) Use foil stamping to grab attention
Foil stamping is a printing process that uses foil in combination with dye to create luxury metallic effects on all kinds of print collateral from business cards to brochures. It can enhance print in several ways:
- It adds a strong sense of quality.
- The shiny metallic effect serves as an excellent attention grabber.
- It provides some additional texture.
Go here to see some examples of foil stamping.
3) Better graphic design
As business owners, sometimes we settle for whatever our graphic designers come up with. However, this can lead to mediocre results that don’t help us achieve our business goals.
So, take a look at your current print collateral and ask yourself whether this really the best design for the job. If not, then consider hiring a graphic designer that has a proven track record of working in your industry and producing high quality designs.
If you do, push them to dig deeper. Don’t feel that you need to settle for the first idea they pitch you. Be armed with a clear vision of what you want to achieve and make sure you get it.
4) Use authentic imagery
A major marketing trend now is authenticity. People are tired of cheesy, cliched stock photos that don’t reflect their own lives or reality in general. At worst, it puts people off. At best it just fails to appeal to them.
This is why more and more marketers are turning to authentic lifestyle imagery as it helps brands connect with people on a more sincere level.
5) Tailor communications to different events
If you have a regular calendar of events that your business attends every year, the chances are you use generic print collateral for each one.
On the surface this appears more efficient in terms of cost. However, you could be missing out on making a good impact. Different events (such as conferences and tradeshows) have their own energies, which is to say they have their own buzz and excitement. And a good way to harness that energy is to tailor your communications for each individual event.
6) Plan ahead for events
If you know that you’ll be attending an event that requires specific communication, then it’s a good idea to plan your print collateral in advance.
There’s nothing more stressful than leaving it to the last minute and rushing something through that ends up shoddy and ineffective. Advanced planning gives you enough time to develop creative ideas and allow your designers and copywriters to come up with something that really works.
7) Go multi-sensory
Scientific studies have shown that people are more likely to make a meaningful connection with your brand if their senses have been stimulated in some way. This is why print marketing is so much more powerful than digital marketing.
One tactic that creative marketers are turning to is the multisensory mailshot. The idea is to stimulate as many senses as possible so as to forge a positive connection with the recipient. So, think about combining your print marketing collateral with aromas, sounds and interesting textures.
8) Print-based content marketing
Many marketers associate ‘content marketing’ with digital marketing. But this is a very narrow view. Traditionally, content marketing has its roots in the print form.
One example is the purveyor of fine food that publishes a monthly or quarterly printed magazine packed with interesting recipes and articles. By providing useful, interesting and entertaining content, they earn the respect and trust of the audience.
So, in order to give your print strategy a boost, this is something you may want to include in your marketing plan.
9) Integrate it with online marketing
Another way to give your print marketing a boost is to make sure it aligns with your digital marketing, so that it becomes a tightly knit system that guides the customer through the marketing funnel.
You can use the memorable and tangible nature of print to grab their attention, and then direct them to your website or social media channels where you can use the power of digital channels to convert them into leads or customers.
For expert advice on direct mail marketing and more, visit Romax, a market leader in print and direct mail services.
Photo by Thought Catalog
