Business marketing is a massive topic, and digital formats such as the internet, television and radio often dominate as the preferred choice for many companies. But I’d like to ignore the technological methods for just now, and discuss the beneficial power of offline marketing in the form of printed materials through business printing services.

The term ‘printed materials’ refers to a variety of promotional and every day-use business items – brochures, business cards, postcards, posters, letterheads and compliment slips, as well as advertising through magazines, newspapers and billboards. Whilst we often take for granted the authority these materials pose, they’re marketing power is actually quite remarkable, and here’s why:

Building The Brand

Branding should be a top priority for businesses, as it is the key ingredient to achieve familiarity and loyalty with consumers. This fact is clearly demonstrated by the many corporate brands that are well known for their logos/slogans. For example – the slogan “Because you’re worth it” makes you immediately think of L’Oreal, just as similar as “The best a man can get” with the Gillette brand.

Branding works just as powerfully with logo designs and this is where printed materials have the upper hand. You can saturate the market with brand designs through the various distributions of printed items causing potential consumers to subconsciously form a memory of your identity. Once they have that association between brand and services or products, there is automatically a sense of credibility that gives the consumer comfort and the willingness to proceed with a purchase.

Physical Presence

Printed materials are a physical item, not digital. This is a distinct advantage in a number of areas; the first being disposability. Online spam ads are easy to ignore, you click a button and they’re gone, plus the fact that you can’t take everything you read online as factual information. You just never know these days. A flyer or brochure for example is physically put in front of your potential consumers, and if the design has the power to entice them to have a look then you’ve already jumped the first hurdle. More often than not, some people may have a quick read and keep the document for later reference, should they need it.

Another major benefit here is the ease of reading. You have the document in your hands and you can clearly see the full effect of the text and design – you don’t need to scroll down to read the full text. Couple this with the fact that online users generally have a shorter attention span, a physical printed material is ultimately better.

Targeting A Market

Again, most businesses will be aware of how to contact their target markets, and this can be implemented into the distribution of printed promotional materials. There are several methods of doing this – whether it’s through using a development geo-targeting tool or by placing your flyer into an appropriate magazine/newsletter, but in each instance your marketing material lands directly into the hands of your target market, leaving them to make the decision whether to proceed with enquiries.

How far you extend your target marketing geographically will depend on your type of business and your budget for business printing services, and whilst response can be far slower with this marketing method, any response is always a good thing right? More often than not it has proved an invaluable tool and one every business should look to be executing.

A Less Intrusive Method

We are daily subject to digital advertising – adverts that interrupt our TV or radio programs or that disturb our time surfing the internet. We have no control over this type of advertising, which in most cases can cause some annoyance. Printed marketing allows consumers full control as to when they pick up the article to read it, and whether they decide to act on it. In a growing cautious society, this is a gentle technique that will not waver any judgment about your business and have the simple job of letting your consumers know you are out there.

Send The Message

The design of a brand and the way in which it is presented can cause an instant reaction and first impression, and this is the strongest point of any type of marketing as it captures an audience and entices them to continue reading or find out more about your business. This applies to items like business cards, postcards and brochures – if you were to be presented with a flimsy reproduction of a promotional piece of printed material, would you hold a credible impression of the business?

Probably not. A quality piece of promotional material has a lasting impression on anyone who sees it, and similarly can be the difference to whether a person decides to pick it up and read it or not.

Do quality substrates cost more? Perhaps. However, most business printing services have a vast choice of materials allowing the business to choose one that can both represent their image and be friendly on the bank balance. Plus the fact that most print companies can offer significant discounts for bulk orders or business packages, so the savings argue this point quite clearly.

Let’s not cloud the reality of this topic and forget the aid of digital marketing, as it is equally important, but just a gentle reminder that these traditional print marketing methods have not outlived themselves just yet! Business printing services can produce all the promotional items you need, then with the joint effort of online marketing you can guarantee to achieve the maximum level of exposure your business deserves. Then it’s time to sit back and enjoy the rewards as you steadily climb one step of the ladder to reach success.

This free guest post was written by:
Claire Austin has been working in the print industry for some time now, and enjoys bringing ideas to life from pixels to paper at www.circleleafletprinting.co.uk.