With digital marketing proving itself to be popular and effective, many companies have started moving away from print marketing. But are there still advantages to traditional print options like flyers, business cards and physical newsletters?

The problems with print marketing

Print marketing has fallen out of favour for a few reasons. A few of these reasons are included below:

• It can be more expensive than digital marketing. You can send an email for free, but with a physical newsletter you need to pay for printing and postage.

• It can be more time-consuming. You can spend hours handing out flyers, while a digital ad or email can be distributed with the click of a button. 

• It’s not as green. Using paper involves cutting down trees and posting it could involve using road vehicles.

However, despite its drawbacks, print marketing can still have some advantages. For this reason, print marketing has been making a revival.

Why print marketing isn’t dead

There are a few reasons as to why print marketing isn’t dead. Below are just a few reasons to consider using print marketing.

Print marketing tends to be more trustworthy

Studies have shown that people are more trusting of print marketing than they are of digital marketing. There are lots of dodgy ads and fraudulent emails on the internet and some people can be less trusting of clicking on an ad or an email for this reason. Print marketing is viewed as more legitimate and people are more likely to trust the details on it (which could mean more leads). 

People are getting more emails and less physical mail

People’s inboxes are getting more and more inundated with promotional emails. Door-to-door flyers and physical newsletters are meanwhile diminishing. Because of this, you may find that it’s easier to get through to customers using physical mail - there could be more chance of a letter getting read than an email. 

Print marketing isn’t always more expensive than digital marketing

Pre-press and printing services may be the cheaper option in some cases. While digital marketing can be done for free, a lot of us pour money into digital marketing strategies like PPC ads, SEO and paid social media posts. When compared to the cost of printing off flyers or sending out physical newsletters, digital marketing strategies can often end up being more expensive in the long run. You could find that you save money by posting less digital ads in a month and using more print marketing. 

Print marketing could benefit your digital marketing

You don’t have to choose between print and digital marketing. Sometimes the two can benefit each other. QR codes have risen in popularity - printing these codes on your flyers and business cards can allow customers to easily access your website or a certain webpage without typing in a long URL. It could be a way of building extra web traffic for an online business!