These days digital advertising may seem popular but print advertising remains effective. There are several types of print advertising that marketers prefer to use depending on their marketing goals and strategies. Print advertising is used in introducing your brand to new clients and marketing new products to established customers. This is an effective way of promoting your company’s offerings to your prospective clients. With this blog, we will walk you through the different types of print advertising. In addition, you will also be educated on several reasons why print advertising remains to be one of the preferred forms of marketing.
What is Print Advertising?
According to Indeed’s definition of Print Advertising, this refers to the tangible material such as newspapers or magazines where products are being advertised. The purpose of using print advertising is to influence your readers to purchase a certain product or service that’s being offered.
Different Types of Print Advertising
Below are various types of print advertising that you can use to enhance your marketing strategy. Depending on your use case, you can use either one of them or mix them.
Advertising Flags
This is a form of print advertising where you can use either dye sublimation or digital printing to communicate your message with your target audience. There are several types of advertising flags you can choose. This may include block, feather, or teardrop style. In terms of printing, you can choose to have it printed on one side or have it printed on both sides of the flag. The great thing about this material is that you can customize the design. You can use whatever text or image you want to use depending on your goals. You can also customize the size of the flags, and align the size of your text design depending on how big or small your design is.
Magazines
This is another form of print advertising where you can include your brand’s products in the content. Several types of magazines are under different niches. These magazines may be food, fashion, travel, business, or finance magazines. Select the type of niche that resonates well with your brand’s products. In addition, some magazines have different types of targeting. This may include local, regional, or international audiences. Be specific with the type of targeting that you are after. If you are after a local audience, make sure to work with a local magazine.
Newspapers
Before digital advertising changed the advertising landscape, newspapers were the dominant form of marketing. Brand owners should have their offerings, services, and products advertised in the different sections of the newspapers. Let’s say your brand is a finance book, you can choose the business section of the newspaper for advertisement purposes. If you are a travel agent offering your service, you can have the lifestyle section to market your service. A newspaper is composed of different sections, you have the freedom to choose any section or all of it for your marketing strategy.
Snail Mail/Direct Mail
This is the digital conversion of advertisements you receive via emails. With snail mail/direct mail, marketers can send you their product offerings via your postal mail. This could be in the form of flyers/brochures. These brand owners will have a mailing list of targets where they will be sending off these letters.
Posters and Flyers
This type of print advertising is what you usually receive during car shows or in a showroom for rental properties. This is a simplified and summarized offering that is usually handed out during events, seminars, or training. These are usually a pocket size or bond paper size that is easy to carry around or be given out.
Billboards
As compared to flyers/brochures or posters, billboards are usually a larger-scale form of advertising. These are used to target consumers who are walking on high-foot traffic pavement or those who are inside their cars. The large size of this print advertising is designed to capture the attention of a larger set of audience.
Door Hangers
This type of print advertisement is specially designed to fit the door handles. These are great for increasing brand awareness, capturing new sets of customers, or introducing new forms of service or product. Let’s say that you are into gardening service. You have a new machine that could do the job for 30 minutes less than what it used to be. You want your clients to know more about it. You can then inform them of your new product purchase and service offering using a door hanger. Come up with an informational design and hang it on the doors of your clients.
Promotional Calendars
This is a great way of introducing your brand to your target. Incorporate your products into the overall design of your calendar. For each month, you can highlight a different product. This will get your clients more familiar with your products. If you are in the service industry, you can still use each month to highlight a particular type of service. For example, you own a spa business. For each month, highlight the types of massages that your customers can avail.
There are several other types of advertising apart from the ones mentioned above. These could also include the following:
- Bookmarks
- Letterheads
- racks
Top Reasons For Using Print Advertising
There are several reasons why using print advertising is still preferred by marketers and brand owners. Below are just some of the reasons stated:
Fewer distractions
One of the challenges these days is that there is too much information. This becomes a problem since people are easily distracted. Have you tried reading an article from a website, and then a notification from your Facebook account pops up? You go to your social media account and read through the message. Without realizing it, you have already spent half an hour talking to that person on your Facebook account and another 30 minutes scrolling through your newsfeed. This is why the attention economy is one of the focuses of most marketers. Content is not the king anymore but whoever can hold people’s attention is the king.
Price-Friendly
Depending on the quantity and the material of your advertisement, print advertising is a cost-effective form of introducing your brand. If you have budget limitations, you can use local newspapers and magazines to get the word out. It will help you reach your audience without stretching your marketing budget too much.
Customization
You can customize the design of your print advertisement depending on the type of media, material, and marketing goal. Just remember that you have to be consistent when it comes to branding. Use the same brand messaging, color, typography, and key elements.
Measurable Results
Similar to digital advertising, you can also measure the results of your print advertising. Check the foot traffic towards your store as a result of the flyers or brochures given around. You can also do surveys to check which type of print media is the most effective and invest more in that. In addition, you can also target specific types of audiences using print media. As mentioned earlier, you can choose to have either a local, regional, or international audience.
The ones mentioned above are just examples of the different types of print media you can choose from. You can combine one or two forms with your digital marketing strategies. Evaluate which ones are giving you the highest return in terms of sales. Increase your marketing budget on that medium. Make sure to collect data as much as you can. Learn and adjust your marketing strategy as you go on.