Even in our digital age, with many companies choosing to focus their marketing efforts on social media, email, and web marketing, print marketing can still be a highly effective tool for any business. With benefits like adding brand credibility, targeting your ideal customer, a less saturated market, appealing to visual learners, and the ability to stand out amongst the crowd, it’s no wonder that firms are choosing not to believe the adage ‘print is dead’.
Investing in print marketing can be highly advantageous to your company, but it’s important that you track this and ensure that you’re getting your money’s worth. It’s very easy to measure the mark you’re making when it comes to digital marketing, but print marketing presents more of a challenge. With that in mind, here are some suggestions on the best ways to measure and boost your firm’s print marketing ROI (return on investment).
Include discount codes and coupons
If you’ve produced a company booklet, brochure, or catalogue, perhaps through Duplo International, maximise on your ROI by including a coupon or discount code directly in the publication. You’ll be surprised how many customers bring the physical coupon with them to make a purchase of your products or services, or how many input the discount code on your website if you’ve got an online shop. This will reassure you that people are seeing your print materials, and that this marketing effort is paying off in sales.
Do some market research
There’s no question that it’s easier to do market research if your marketing is online – pre-collected digital metrics make this simple. However, market research is still very important when it comes to print marketing. It’s always a good idea to know how customers have heard about your company. For example, it might be that few customers are seeing your company’s poster in a certain location, but lots of them have flicked through your brochure. This helps to inform your future marketing and advertising choices. You can ask this question by getting customers to fill out forms (either on your website or in person), or when you’ve got them on the phone, or even via a post-service survey. If a customer had never heard of your business before your print marketing came out, this is a great indication that your ROI is high!
Focus on the print
If you want to be very specific when measuring your ROI, firstly decide on a set amount of time. Then, during this period, halt your other forms of marketing. Concentrate only on your print marketing – perhaps line up a print ad to come out in the midst of this period. Then track the daily traffic and web sales on your company website before, during, and after you’ve published this print marketing tool, in order to determine ROI. You can then adjust your marketing strategy accordingly if you find your print marketing isn’t quite working the way you’d envisioned.
