The Case for Print

Spray Foam Magazine – Fall Issue 2021 – How many brand emails did you get in 2020? The statistics are in, and they won’t surprise you. It’s raining emails, as The Weather Girls would say. Most brands are sending even more emails in 2021, according to a study by Ascend2, a marketing technology firm, that investigated marketing email automation.

Of the brands polled, over 74 percent are increasing their send. About 20 percent are staying the same, six percent are decreasing their volume, and only three percent are decreasing their volume significantly.

However, emailers are facing huge challenges. Over 45 percent of them agree that maintaining an engaged list is their most difficult task, and 37 percent agree their second most-difficult task is reducing spam complaints.

How do you get higher engagement while reducing spam complaints? It’s a difficult question, and the statistics agree: Only 38 percent of respondents said their email marketing was very successful at what they’re trying to achieve.

If you’re still having trouble with your email marketing strategy, it might be time to lighten the email load and combine it with a print marketing campaign.

Print marketing can increase your engagement because it’s far less saturated. You won’t be competing with literally hundreds of other pieces of mail waiting to be opened.

You also won’t have to worry about your print marketing being considered “spam.” Companies that use print marketing are often viewed as more credible and trustworthy. Print ads drive stronger brand recall and are more trusted by consumers when making purchase decisions. It’s powerful to give your customers a tangible representation of your company, especially if it provides value like an offer or industry-related advice. Over 65 percent of human beings are visual learners. You can make the most of that with an eye-catching print marketing strategy with high quality ads that make it difficult for a customer to ignore you.

These days, everyone wants to get to know who they’re buying from and what their values are. One of the best ways to do this is through print marketing.

It’s easy to assume that print marketing has lost its relevance in the digital era, with consumers trading traditional print materials for smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Businesses are also moving their advertisements online.

There are many benefits you can get from including print ads in your marketing strategy. For one thing, print is still a more effective medium if you want to build trust for your brand. It’s also a powerful driver of website visits since almost 30 percent of consumers who notice a print ad eventually visit the advertiser’s webpage.

• 81 percent of monthly newspaper readers still read the print edition and 51 percent read print exclusively (Marketing Charts, 2017).
• All other measures have also increased among people who notice print ads. For starters, close attention to print ads has more than doubled since 2009/10, from 23 percent to 49 percent in 2020. Also, ad recall for print news brands has increased by an impressive 67 percent between 2009/10 and 2019/2020, and emotional reaction to print ads is now 37 percent in 2020 compared to 22 percent five years ago (Newsworks, 2020).
• Consumers who see print ads also tend to visit the advertiser’s website—up 27 percent in 2020 from 12 percent in 2009, and purchase intent of consumers who notice print ads increased to 22 percent in 2020 from 7 percent in 2009 (Newsworks, 2020).

After having gone through the print marketing statistics we presented, we can say without doubt that print marketing is not dead. Its impact on consumer brand recall and purchase decisions are worth considering, especially if you want to implement an integrated, multi-channel approach to your marketing strategy.