3 Reasons to Use Print to Market your Small Business

These days wherever you look there is often the sentiment that the print-world and print marketing is dying and everything important is happening on digital. The facts however seem to be pointing the other way.

Digital book sales have ebbed, and printed book sales are rising. Amazon is focusing on creating brick-and-mortar stores. And even Google itself is turning to printed mass mailings to advertise their services.

A customer holds a print advertisement, they feel it, and they experience it with all their senses. If it is well created it doesn’t just get deleted right away, instead it can be kept and can be shared. With a great design and planning, a piece of print can even be valued. Printed marketing materials open a whole world beyond the screen to truly reach customers and grow your business.

If you’re looking to advertise your small business and are trying to decide where to focus your efforts, then consider the following:

1. Print = Credibility

A printed piece of marketing material is literally tangible. That tangibility transfers meaning to your customer. When a customer sees your logo and your message on printed materials, it immediately says you are serious. This builds credibility for your company and your brand. In turn, an awareness that your brand and business is real and caring starts to take shape.

Digital marketing may be cheap, but that is a reason it can be so ineffective. Small and big players look the same online. Disreputable businesses take advantage of the low bar to stand along side reputable businesses.

Print marketing instead says clearly that your business is not just another faceless email or shady pop-up. A carefully printed piece for your small business says you are legitimate, you are caring, and you are ready to do what you say.

2. Print sticks around

One of the keys of small business digital marketing is creating content that matters to potential customers. With a content marketing strategy, you create content that has value for your customers. This leads to interest in coming to your site and learning about  your business. This is a sound strategy for your website, but you should also use it for your direct advertising.

When many people receive a mass emailed advertisement, the first thing they do is delete it. They don’t approach it with interest or anticipation, they don’t even read it, they just click and delete.

Print offers your business an opportunity to take valuable content into the physical world. A calendar, a notepad, a specialized notebook, a fitness tracking poster, the possibilities in print aren’t limited by your potential customer’s screen or web browser.

Which leads to our next point.

3. Optionality

Okay, optionailty isn’t really a word, but we still think it’s great. It was used by the former manager of our Philadelphia 76ers, Sam Hinkie, as a way to describe setting up a process that gives the most opportunities to be successful long-term. Isn’t that what you want for your business’ marketing efforts?

In our opinion, print is all about optionality in a way digital advertising can never be. Options in size, options in color, options in texture, weight, surface sheen, and so much more.

With print you aren’t limited to a screen or a small box on the side of a website. Instead, you can find a way that truly and uniquely expresses what your company is and what it values.

Are you personal trainer? Consider a specially printed fitness tip book. A woodworker? How about printing advertising on wood grained paper? A florist? What about a business card that folds into a planter complete with a few seeds.

There are options in print to truly engage with your customer’s senses- all of their senses. Print marketing for small business also allows you to be more personable, to show your customers that there is a thinking and caring person behind your business. Print allows you to unleash your creativity, and truly connect with your customers in ways not possible with digital advertising.

Anyway you look at it print is still relevant for small business marketing. If you’d like to get help designing and printing your next marketing campaign, why not stop in or give us a call. We’d be happy to help.