How to Successfully Leverage Online Marketing for Your Print Campaign

As technology becomes more advanced, more businesses are hopping on the Digital Marketing Locomotive; which, really, is not a bad thing. The 20^th century was obviously dominated by traditional advertising methods, like print and radio; now we have marketing machines like Facebook and Youtube that have taken over. 10-15 years ago, the concept of digital marketing was foreign and radical. In 2015, digital marketing has become the norm, so to speak, and if you aren’t participating, you’re falling behind. In many ways, Facebook, Google and Youtube can be considered traditional marketing methods.

But that’s not to say that the “old-traditional” methods don’t work anymore. They just have to be adapted. Print media, in many ways, still works, and is a strategy that can yield healthy returns if done properly. Print marketing is used less than years past, which means that you can really stand out with it. We’re going to discuss how to make print marketing work in 2015.

Combine print with social media

Social marketing permanently changed the game. It’s the preferred way for businesses to personally interact with their customers. Social media is pliable, and can be interwoven with other marketing methods—print media is one of them. They should be symbiotic; social media should prop up your print marketing, and vice-versa. In your print marketing (brochures, cards, catalogs, etc.), place the urls of your social media profiles. Your image should be consistent across all platforms (meaning your logo, color scheme, etc.).

Create a hashtag campaign, and integrate it with your print media. These hashtags would be placed on your print materials. Hashtags are a great way to actively engage an audience, as it gives them a way for them to get involved and create social media buzz around your brand. Unique hashtags can be easily tracked, and they’re great for getting a conversation started about an event, new product or announcement.

Use print to drive fans, likes and followers to your social media profiles. A direct-mail postcard campaign that hits the right demographics will work tremendously if there is some sort of incentive being offered. As an example, if you’re a restaurant, you could offer a 50% discount on a meal for the 500^th person to like your page. A simple contest like that will help to drive engagement to your page, which is what you ultimately should want for your social media marketing.

Leverage mobile usage

Instead of simple plastering long urls on your print, place customized QR codes that quickly take users to the intended page. That page should be mobile friendly and easy to load. QR codes can be modified with specific designs, with various colors and styles. Not everyone is a fan of QR codes, so it may be something you need to try out and test to see if it’s successful.

Leverage print to get phone numbers and valuable information. There is power in a targeted marketing list, and that absolutely holds true for cell phone numbers of your prospects. Short-Message-Service (SMS) marketing is a great way to collect phone numbers and other pertinent information. You can, for example, create a direct-mail postcard campaign to a local area. In that campaign, you can run a simple contest as a way to collect for numbers. On the postcard, place a code that your prospect would have to text in; that code would be an entry into a contest, and the prize would be a valuable product that you’re offering or free. Using an SMS marketing platform makes this operation incredibly easy to do. It’s a great way to collect numbers (which you can market to later).

You must leverage online marketing to be successful with print

If somebody had told you 15 years ago that print marketing in 2015 would no longer be considered traditional marketing, you would think that person was absolutely nuts. But that’s the way it is. Online marketing isn’t going to disappear any time soon, but neither is print. You must continually look for opportunities to leverage online marketing in your print campaign. This blog post is a launch pad for you to begin doing so.