Many business owners and marketers feel like they need to choose between print and digital marketing. With a constrained marketing budget and different skill sets across each format, combining the two can feel like entering uncharted territory for many marketers and small businesses.
We’re here to break down why balancing both print and digital isn’t just possible; it’s necessary. Both these approaches have their strengths and weaknesses and target slightly different segments of the population. As a business looking to approach marketing holistically, it’s vital to make use of all the different tools available to you.
If this seems like a daunting prospect, have no fear. In this article, we’ve compiled some practical ways your business can balance both print and digital marketing.
Build Synergy Between Print and Digital
You should not view print and digital advertising as two separate tasks to tick off your marketing checklist. Rather, you’ll get the most out of your marketing spend by synergising the two through strategies like enlisting custom sticker printing services to include QR codes and social links in your brand stickers, making use of digital marketing to promote in-person events and repurposing physical ads as PPC visuals, and vice versa.
Before spending a cent on ads, you first need to come up with a cohesive strategy for your digital and print channels. This requires knowing what you want to achieve: Are you trying to build brand awareness? Boost sales of an existing product? Introducing a new offering to the market? By having a clearly defined goal, you can then proceed to work on specific tactics to use.
Rather than thinking in terms of digital advertising and print advertising, a more helpful approach would be to think of digital and print advertising as one entity. As soon as you begin to see these two approaches as complementary, you can more effectively build a pathway towards achieving your business goals.
Run Multi-Channel Campaigns
A multi-channel campaign is simply expanding the advertising projects across different forms of media. Multi-channel campaigns are effective simply due to the fact that different marketing channels have their own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, print channels like banners and posters are fantastic for local area marketing, while digital channels like PPC ads and social media advertising give you the flexibility to target anyone, no matter where in the world they live. Moreover, print ads usually work better for older individuals who consume more traditional media, whereas online ads are better for targeting young, tech-savvy consumers. Focusing on both digital and print allows you to reach a greater number and diversity of consumers, helping you to grow your brand and increase your sales.
Multi-channel campaigns are also more effective because they bolster the reputability of the campaign and brand – when people view your ad in different environments, it reduces any scepticism about the legitimacy of the brand. For example, if you imagine a retailer popping up on an individual’s Instagram Stories advertisement, they’re competing with the many other brands that are targeting that individual’s demographic. If the person seeing the ad then sees the brand features in their favourite magazine, it sets them apart from the competition and establishes a more trustworthy and valued relationship.
Constantly Optimise your Marketing Budget
In an ideal world, we would be able to throw an unlimited amount of money towards whatever campaigns or channels we see fit. Unfortunately, all businesses face budget constraints, making efficient resource allocation crucial.
Allocating marketing spend in an optimal manner requires more than guesswork. It’s also unlikely you’ll get it exactly right from the start. Continually monitor the performance of your ads to find the optimal level of spending. For instance, this might mean slowly increasing the budget for your Meta ads until you hit a point of diminishing returns. On the print side of things, you can perform detailed market research to find the most profitable areas to set up posters so that you don’t have to spend on less effective placements.
To make a lasting impact while working with limited funds, you need to be efficient. Continually tinker with your digital and print campaigns to figure out the optimal levels of spending for both and allocate your budget accordingly. Research what print media your audience consumes and the reputation and status of each of these physical platforms. This way, you’ll be able to optimise your print budget by going with platforms that offer the best return.
Present a Consistent Brand Across All Channels
In order to maximise the brand-building effects of your digital and print campaigns, you need to remain loyal to the key elements of your brand. This starts with its aesthetics: things like font style, colours and key images need to remain constant if you want to create a successful visual brand. When you do this, customers will be able to recognise your business at a glance, whether it’s on a social media post or a billboard by a highway.
It’s also important to remember that a brand isn’t simply made up of its visual elements. Intangibles like brand values, voice and personality should also remain consistent no matter if you’re marketing digitally or through print. No matter what medium you’re using, your core message should always remain the same. When your audience sees this message across different advertising formats, you strengthen yourself as a company with strong values, which is becoming an increasingly important facet for consumers.
Maintain a Multifaceted Marketing Strategy with Print & Digital Assets
Marketing is an incredibly broad field. Today, it still encompasses traditional forms of advertising like billboards, posters and classified ads while digital channels like PPC and social media absorb a large portion of budget spend. As a business looking to grow, utilising all the tools in your arsenal and applying a cohesive approach across print and digital will help you achieve a result that is more than the sum of its parts. You can start playing around with the format you’ve traditionally avoided with small budgets, and begin to optimise it for an increasingly effective marketing strategy.