How to Integrate Print Marketing with Online Marketing
It’s no secret that many marketing venues are online that were once exclusively offline. Everything from television to brochures are online now. But does that mean that print marketing is dead? Hardly. It might not be as big as it once was because people now have multiple outlets, but that just means print marketing has to share the spotlight with its online counterparts.
People typically do their initial research about products online by checking out forums, review sites and the product manufacturer’s Web site. Some people do all their research online, but many still request brochures, catalogs and other printed materials from the manufacturer. People like to be able to relax on the couch without a hot laptop on their lap and just look through a catalog. The glare from looking at a computer screen all day is not appealing.
All of this means that you must integrate your print marketing strategy with your online marketing strategy.
Here are a few ideas on how to do that:
Use your print marketing to direct people to your online marketing. If you use postcards to draw people’s attention to your product and then direct them to your Web site for more information, you’ve just drawn people in with the information that would have been on a brochure for the price of a postcard. Since Web site hosting is cheap, you can put as much info on your site as you want and not have to worry about paying for an extra four pages of content like you would a brochure.
You can also cut back on catalog printing costs. Send out a 40-page catalog with your best products instead of your usual 56-page catalog and direct people to your Web site for more catalog selections. You save money on printing and people can still see all of your products on your Web site. You can focus your catalog on your best moneymakers and feature the not-so-popular items on your Web site only.
Create an e-newsletter. Include info that your customers crave, like how to save money on products in your industry and info on the best products on the market. If you already have a print newsletter, include a link in the newsletter for consumers to sign up on your Web site to receive the e-newsletter. You can build your email database this way and also keep in touch with consumers in the way that they prefer. Older consumers prefer to get their news in print while younger consumers would rather get their news online.
Include an interactive copy of your brochure or catalog online. Make it searchable so people can browse to exactly what they want online. Many people will note what they want from your print catalog and then get on your Web site to make their purchases. Make it easy for them by including a search box for the online catalog and making it easy for people to find what they’re looking for.
I Want Word-of-Mouth Advertising Balanced with Traditional Advertising
Advertising comes in all forms, from TV commercials to brochures. But it would be nice if most advertising came from people we knew and trusted, wouldn’t it? In one way, with word-of-mouth advertising, it kind of does. We see some cool shoes on our friend, she says they’re comfy so we go out and get ourselves a pair.
In another way, we see something on a celebrity and we immediately want to go out and get a knock-off since we can’t afford the real thing. Similar kind of concept – it’s almost like word-of-mouth, but more like picture-in-tabloid advertising. Either way, we like what we see and it’s not directly from the advertiser, which makes us like it even more, although some would argue that point when it comes to celebrities getting free stuff and wearing it to make us common folk want it.
Chris Brogan has a video on his blog (http://www.chrisbrogan.com/the-way-i-wish-advertising-worked/) from John Chow that shows Chow eating at a crab shack in Washington state. This kind of advertising is what Chris would like to see more of instead of newspaper ads or banner ads on a Web site.
I think the concept is good – people advertising for places that they thoroughly enjoy, without getting paid to tout it, but I don’t think this particular video is that great. It doesn’t make me salivate and want seafood the way a Red Lobster commercial can. There’s something to be said for staging and good lighting, I think.
And, sometimes ads aren’t all that bad. Some are downright funny (hello, Super Bowl) and there are even shows dedicated to showing the funniest TV commercials all over the world. Sad, but true – I’ve actually watched that show and I think I laughed out loud more than I ever did watching many sitcoms.
Besides, what would ad writers and production crews do if we took away the ad? They’d starve to death and we can’t have that! We’d have to live with the guilt and knowledge of wiping out an iconic pastime in America: the poor ad. And anyway, as people continued to make their own home video-type of ads, those people would become the ad actor and actresses and then they’d be hiring their own production crews and ad writers, and then we’d be back to square one.
So, I agree that word-of-mouth advertising works, or word-of-video or whatever you want to call advertising on the ‘Net, but I think we shouldn’t shun the traditional advertiser. When would we go to the bathroom during TV shows if we did?
