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Most businesses, both large and small, know that they need printed material, including the basics, like business cards, letterheads, and brochures. These materials enable you to put your perfectly crafted message directly into the hands of your ideal customers. 

It’s also important to remember that your print marketing strategy needs to be coordinated with your overall marketing strategy, including online, trade shows, events, sales presentations, and more. When crafting your print strategy, consider the following four steps:

Step 1: Make Sure You’re Covered Everywhere

The first obvious step is to make sure that you have everything you need because print media encompasses many things: indoors and outdoors, in the office, or even sent by mail. So, while many business owners think of print collateral as “leave-behind materials,” it’s important to remember that it can also take on the form of mailers and door hangers. Plus, signage, banners, and even car magnets. Examples include:

  • Booklets and Catalogs
  • Brochures and Pamphlets
  • Business Cards
  • Calendars
  • Direct Mail Ads and Postcards
  • Door Hangers
  • Flyers
  • Folders
  • Lawn Signs
  • Notebooks and Stationary
  • Rack Cards
  • Signage 

Businesses can use marketing materials like these in nearly any situation that you can think of, including waiting rooms and lobbies, trade shows, events, fundraisers, and more. 

Step 2: Make Print Part of Your Overall Content Strategy

Content marketing and strategy have been used a lot in the past few years, especially with the growth of online marketing. And it’s often thought of in terms of digital marketing, including email and social media. But a complete definition of content marketing will include all of the possible places that a prospect or an existing client might find or interact with you. 

Similarly to how there should be consistency among marketing materials, your marketing collateral strategy should be designed to work to aid and work in conjunction with other parts of the plan, including digital and print marketing collateral, leading to the third step.

Step 3. Use Print with Digital Marketing, Not in Competition

Studies show that due to the differences in how consumers respond to print compared to digital content, the business owners that take advantage of both forms will see the best results. 

One of the most significant differences with the use of digital is the lifespan of content. Content on the internet may be available at one moment, such as on search engines or a social media network, and then go months or weeks after. Sometimes even faster. By comparison, a printed piece can stay with a customer or prospect for a long time, at home, at the office. 

Step 4: Be Consistent Across All Media

If a customer believes in your business’s “story” or brand, you will need to be consistent in your efforts. Even if two companies have very different customers and values, they will both need to communicate everywhere they are seen so that people will believe and understand what they are selling.  

One of the marketing basics is to create consistency everywhere, across all marketing channels, such as the same logo, color scheme, and fonts. But beyond these basics, you need to be confident that your message is uniform across different media, whether print or digital. The only reversal of this perspective is to remember that context matters too. So what you say in a quick social media post may be very different from something you have written for a branded print calendar.