It is true that businesses are spending less on print marketing than in the past. But, just because businesses are choosing to spend less marketing dollars on print does not mean that print marketing is dead. In fact, there are plenty of reasons your business may want to consider investing some of its marketing dollars into print marketing.
- Print Ads Get Undivided Attention — When people are reading print publications, they tend not to be engaged in other activities. This means that it’s the one way to get true attention for your ads and information that you’re imparting on your audience.
- Print Circulation Is Concentrated on Interested Readers — Since people have other ways to read material today, those who do continue to read print publications are generally very interested and trusting of the print information that they are reading. This means they’re much more likely to be responsive to your advertisement.
- Print Provokes People to Read It — Most people who are reading print are usually captive audiences in a doctor’s office, waiting in line for something, or they are very interested readers as mentioned above and subscribers to the publication. This means they’re much more likely to pay attention to the ad than if the ad was presented online.
- Print Takes Longer to See Results — One thing to remember is that print ads have a longer shelf life and take longer to start seeing results. You may pay for the advertisement and not see results for months until that issue is published. However, there are still ways to track print ads to find out how well they’re working, such as using special codes, phone numbers, and URLs only for that ad.
- Sponsored Content Works Wonderfully — One way to get your advertisement into a magazine is to pitch sponsored content. Even though the content will state “sponsored content,” it still gets results. Let’s say you sell a vitamin supplement via Amazon FBA. Why not run sponsored content in a health-oriented magazine leading to your store?
- Native Ads Still Get Results — Within print ads, there is something called “continuity of content,” which means that even the ads match what the publication is about and meets the interests of the audience reading. Due to that, they still get results.
- Buy Ads Based on Title of Publication — If you do decide to buy ads, buy them per magazine or publication based on the title of the publication, assuming that your audience is reading that publication.
- People Trust Print Marketing — Studies show that people, by and large, find that print ads are more trustworthy than online ads. If your audience is still reading print, shouldn’t you be where they are?
Print marketing is not dead at all. But you need to do the research to know who your audience is, what they like to read, and what type of print advertisements they’ll respond to. Print ads do work, but they only work as good as your research and the information you have.
JC Evans Inc has been helping businesses with print ads, direct mail and digital marketing for nearly 30 years. We can help you too.