Nopea.media CEO Jesse Kivialho visited a podcast, where he, together with the Loyalistic CEO Antti Pietilä discussed about why print still holds its place as a vital part of marketing.
Print may not be a relevant medium for all organizations and it’s not always possible or reasonable for that matter to head to all channels. However, the majority of organizations definitely have cases, where a printed product can grab the target audience’s attention, reach readers otherwise unattained and create added value with a tailored publication. Print is perfect for complementing the big picture of content marketing.
– Contentwise, you’re always advised to be present in different channels in order to cover a wide range. Being in a few different social media channels is worthwhile, because each media reaches slightly different people in slightly different circumstances. In the same way print is a complementary part of content marketing, which enables you to cover the real-life encounters, Antti points out.
How to Use Print to Reach Unattained Audiences
Content articles, be they online or printed, are an excellent way of communicating to the audience about how the organization can help them. Content that interests the readers and is more than just sales, lures them to ultimately get to know the organization a bit better too. But in order to catch the readers, you obviously need to reach them first.
By sending printed greetings to those you can’t reach by a newsletter, ensures your messages won’t pass them by.
How can you determine the readers you can’t reach digitally but might reach with print? One way is to examine newsletter statistics. Are there certain customers who repetitively leave the letter unopened, or prospects whose email addresses are missing? Send them a printed release to make sure your messages won’t pass them by.
What’s essential to realize as well, is how the role of print has changed in modern-day media landscape. Earlier, content was created print-first and the digital version was made afterwards at best, or at least by result of a separate layout process.
– Today, print is about promoting your digital content into the real world. It’s about sharing and packaging the content. As efficiently as possible, with a similar effort and logic as sharing it to social media. Not in a way, that would require a heavy process of production, states Antti.
Print Creates Added Value to the Reader
In today’s digital world, print is a format that feels valuable. Many top-level content marketers around the world have seized the trend of compiling PDF publications, guides and even books from online content. A reader pays a few dollars to acquire the book and the seller gets a prospect turn into a paying customer. A printed release and even a PDF is deemed desirable and valuable, even if it was mostly composed of content already available online.
A printed release and even a PDF is deemed valuable, even if it was mostly composed of online content.
Jesse and Antti encourage organizations and content marketers to think about the opportunities print can bring into their content marketing. Where can print help to pass out content more efficiently? What are your strategies for content marketing and customer loyalty? Where do you have customers or prospects you can’t yet reach as well as you’d hope? Could print be a way to lure the customer into the desired path or to bring them added value?
Read more about why printed publications are needed in a digital world.
Read also about the opportunities of print alongside digital – e.g. how to easily keep your printed material cost-efficient and up-to-date.
This article has been compiled from Antti Pietilä’s and Jesse Kivialho’s discussion on Loyalistic’s podcast. Watch or listen to the whole podcast (in Finnish).