Is print a publishing relic, or an increasingly untapped marketing opportunity? Constantly reevaluating our approach and improving our strategy is the key to success in reaching our audience, gaining ground on competitors and giving our clients the best results – but could print be the opportunity marketers are missing?
At Future Fusion, our heritage is print – with our parent company Future Plc titles including Marie Claire, Wallpaper, Homes & Gardens and T3. But as a publishing company that’s successfully navigated the transition to digital with brands such as techradar.com and idealhome.co.uk, we can say with authority that print still has a valuable place in the marketing mix. Print and digital can work together to build a marketing strategy that achieves, reaches and does more than a single faceted approach. Rather than always being one scroll away from missing your brand’s story or new product line, they are holding the information in their hands, mulling it over and engaging with your content on a deeper and more tangible level.
Read on to discover the key benefits of print in a digital-first world.
Higher viewing frequency of print
It’s been shown that 70% of people are more likely to remember a brand they’ve seen in a print medium than online (Source). This isn’t to say that digital content is not effective, we know it is, but it is a strong reminder that print can be used to enhance your online marketing, increasing its life beyond a web page or social media post (when working with digital-first content), and a valuable part of any marketing strategy.
Look and feel
2015 saw a significant surge in the world of independent magazines. Sales tripled in five years, as audiences embraced ‘slow journalism’ – favouring the physical aspect of print media over the fast-paced digital advertising that can feel increasingly impersonal (Source). The sensory experience of holding physical media also enhances everything from dwell time to credibility and trust. Print media can act as a springboard for digital content, helping brands create a tailored and cohesive, omni-channel experience for their audience.
Post-purchase & retargeting
The limitations of digital media? You can only reach your audience through a screen. Print media offers the opportunity to find your audience when they’re away from their screens – unpacking their latest purchase (and prompting the next with a catalogue), or when you’re supporting your customer in getting the most from their purchase.
Accurate targeting
Here at Future Fusion Content Marketing Agency we consider ourselves an ‘audience first’ content agency. We pride ourselves in understanding our audience to create content that reaches and resonates with them. Print content is an avenue that has mastered the art of niche marketing; capturing specific audiences. From trade magazines that cater to a specific industry to local newspaper advertising targeting a specific customer base, print media enables you to speak directly to a target audience. It also allows space to focus on a niche subject that meets the needs of a target audience’s particular interest. Digital-first brands can use magazines, gift guides or catalogues to create intrigue and build engagement by giving audiences information that’s carefully curated.
Increased loyalty
Statistics show that readers consider print publications to be more credible and trustworthy than online sources, perhaps owing to platform demands for greater effort and accuracy – a result of the inability to return and tweak content. This generates trust, and trust increases reader loyalty. Readers trust print media to offer them something they can’t find elsewhere and creating this level of trust between a brand and the audience has a valuable place in the marketing mix.
So although there’s no Google Analytics to track your traffic, stop and consider how your brand is engaging with customers, and whether print is the arm to your marketing strategy that can help you achieve something that digital doesn’t.
By Hanna Glover and Lee Hart
We work for Future Fusion, the content marketing arm of Future PLC. We are experts at building communities around people’s passions and in doing so positioning brands at the heart of incredible content that drives transformative results.
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