You may have heard that print is obsolete and that the only effective advertising is digital.
But by believing these myths, you limit the success of your marketing strategy. According to a study by the International News Media Association, print advertising itself has the ability to increase ROI by up to 240 percent. Print brings some specific advantages that are irreplaceable by other media. Here are 10 benefits of including print advertising in your business’s marketing strategy.
Digital marketing often casts a wide net to include a largely inattentive audience. However, print marketing, such as advertisements placed in magazines, is targeted to an audience who is already interested in your type of business. For example, readers who subscribe to Up North Action magazine or pick it up from one of our racks are looking for travel information pertaining to northern Wisconsin and Upper Peninsula Michigan. Advertisers in the lodging, dining, events, and attractions sectors know that they have a captive audience. What’s more, magazines such as Up North Action and Up North Home Showcase enjoy a loyal readership, so placing an advertisement in multiple issues of a magazine increases brand familiarity and likelihood of sales.
Print advertisements are budget-friendly due to their flexibility. Many small businesses are priced out of placing TV ads. Radio isn’t always appropriate. There are limited options in digital advertising. But there is likely a print ad that fits your budget. For example, 5 Star Marketing & Distribution sells full-page ads on coveted spots such as Up North Action and Up North Home Showcase magazines’ back covers to companies wanting the most visibility. 5 Star offers fractional-page advertisements with interior placement to those seeking the most affordable options.
Studies show that people scan a website for approximately 15 seconds, on average, before moving on. That is a tiny window of time to make a big impression! But you have people’s attention for longer when they’re reading print.
Reading a magazine engages several senses:
These impressions enrich readers’ experience with your advertisement, thereby creating emotional connections and deepening memories of what they saw and read.
When your readers enjoy a magazine article, they clip it out (and the surrounding advertisements as well) and refer to it later, or they pass it along to a friend who might value it, too. A magazine that sits in a doctor’s office waiting room, gym, or hotel lobby will be seen by many people over several months. Rather than getting lost in the fleeting world of cyberspace, where even permalinks are frequently broken, your print ad has staying power in the physical world.
As paper and ink are solid and tangible, print advertising is often perceived as being more believable and more influential than digital ads. On a print ad, the “fine print” may be small, but it is there in plain sight, rather than requiring a reader to click through a labyrinthine website in order to find it.
Digital ads that pop up and float around a web page, covering the content readers are trying to read, are a nuisance. Some people even install ad-blocking software to prevent ads from popping up on their screens. Other online readers may see an ad that interests them, but they avoid clicking it. They are wary of the spam and viruses that may result from bogus digital ads. These elements simply don’t exist in the world of print marketing. Ads stay put on the print page and pose no threat of giving you a virus.
People who live in or travel to northern Wisconsin and U.P. Michigan tend to value screen-free time. Whether it’s in a deep-woods lodge, on the lake, or on the trails, people can’t always get online in the remote Northwoods. Nor do they want to! Print media, on the other hand, reflects Up North travelers’ values.
Print marketing is a powerful way to reach, engage, and build the trust of your target audience. Print advertisements often lead readers online to get more information and to make the purchase. Print, while powerful on its own, is most effective when used as part of a multimedia marketing strategy. Print is a great introduction to your products and services; research has shown that combining print with other channels increases a marketing campaign’s overall success.
Today’s push toward reliance on digital marketing has created a digital space that is very saturated with ads. But fewer businesses’ opting for print marketing today allows companies that place ads in magazines and create brochures, rack cards, and other print media to stand out and be seen.
5 Star Marketing & Distribution can help you design, print, and distribute the print materials to boost your businesses’ overall marketing strategy and get the exposure your business deserves. To learn more, contact us today.
The world of digital content production is vast, and there is a wide range of content that is produced every day, ranging from high-fashion editorials, to community newsletters, to individually published zine’s. One of the most common, and most effective, forms of digital content is the online catalog. As marketing and sales efforts continually transition to online formats and ecommerce platforms become increasingly relevant, most brands have opted to create a digital version of their catalog, and in some cases, entirely switch to online material.
One massive advantage is that you do not incur any print cost, and with Issuu you can easily sign up for free to publish your catalog online. This is an incredible cost-saver, and is especially beneficial for smaller businesses that do not have the resources to print large quantities. On a global scale, this is also substantially more environmentally friendly than print media. As environmental consciousness becomes a larger factor for brands and their concerned audiences, online catalogs and other digital marketing materials progressively become a more attractive option.
The other advantage of digital catalogs is that the distribution process becomes exponentially easier. With print catalogs, you need to have a specific address for each catalog recipient, and then spend even more money on the shipping itself. This is often ineffective, and is another massive cost that is avoided with digital publishing. When you publish your catalog online, you can easily share it on social media, embed it in email campaigns, send it directly to specific buyer’s, and transform the content into other formats for continued use!
Before we dive into how to create an online catalog, let’s break down some of the key components of a catalog, physical or virtual. Although catalogs come in many different formats, certain elements remain the same:
Front cover: stunning design, title, brief description of content, edition number.
Table of Contents: Broken down by section and page number, list the content covered in the catalog. Highlight any key products or content that the reader won’t want to miss.
Introduction: Brief description of company, product or service, make sure to include an effective CTA.
Primary content pages: Show off your content, include visuals, prices, and ways the reader can purchase.
Closing thoughts: Include any final takeaways or CTA’s you want your readers to remember.
Back Cover: Make sure to include your website URL and contact information.
Once you have a general structure for your catalog, there are a few key details you do not want to miss when designing the actual pages:
Effective branding: Your catalog should be clearly identifiable with your business. Make sure your catalog matches the brand elements of your company including the font, colors, and logos.
Cohesive design: Use effective design strategies to create a stunning visual layout for your magazine. This includes making sure you incorporate effective color contrast, using clear fonts with headings and subheadings, and proportional layout of each element on a page so everything appears balanced.
Professional photography/images: Perhaps the most important detail, your catalog should include very high quality images of your products. The ultimate goal of a catalog is to encourage readers to buy, and your images should also work towards this goal. Beautiful lighting and crisp, clear image quality are all key.
Storytelling/Messaging: Although the goal of your catalog is primarily to highlight the products you are selling, you should also make sure to include some form of storytelling within your catalog. Give readers an inside look into your brand, highlight a brand ambassador with a full-page photo and caption, share insights into your industry as a whole, or deepen your reader’s understanding with a look at your production process. These techniques all help draw readers in and keep them engaged.
CTA’s/pricing/online sales: It is important to make it as easy as possible for your readers to transition from the catalog to your sales funnel. Part of this is making sure you clearly list prices, and where each item can be purchased.
At this point your catalog has been fully conceptualized, you have taken high quality product photos, and you have a rough idea of the design techniques and overall layout you want to use. But the next step, the actual creation of the digital catalog, can be a substantial challenge. Luckily, there are a variety of tools at your disposal: Powerpoint, Keynote, and InDesign are the most commonly used, with other accessible tools like Canva and Figma becoming increasingly popular. If you do not want to start completely from scratch, Issuu is here to help!
Issuu has created a variety of templates that are completely free to download and use, so that content creators can streamline and speed up their content production.
Simply download the catalog template from our help center, open it in your design software of choice (see video for compatibility), and customize it to fit your brand and content! The video below breaks down how you can locate these templates and customize them to fit your exact specifications.
Now that you have created a stunning online publication, what’s next? It’s time to start marketing and sharing your new catalog and the offerings inside!
The Issuu platform is the perfect place to publish and distribute your content for maximum engagement and reach. Here are a few steps to help get you started and optimize your content for digital distribution:
Publish your content: Learn how to upload your content from your computer, Google Drive, or Dropbox and publish it on the Issuu platform.
Add links to your website to send readers directly into your sales funnel: Take advantage of Issuu’s add links capability, and generate clickable links that link directly to specific product pages on your website. You can also link to another page within your publication to create an interactive table of contents!
Embed your content directly onto your website or blog to increase reach: Issuu’s embed tool allows you to quickly embed your publication in your website to naturally increase reach and promote your publication to all website traffic.
Repurpose content to continue your success: Publishing your catalog is just the first step. Learn how to use Issuu to remix your content for different platforms and different audiences!