Why you need to integrate online and print marketing
Integrate online and print marketing – Don’t believe anyone who tells you print marketing is dead.
Just take a look at the flyers which come through your door every week for businesses like restaurants, take-aways, landscape gardeners, window replacement companies, and supermarkets.
Print marketing is alive and well.
This isn’t a case of online OR print marketing – businesses should be using both to reach their goals.
It’s important, though, that your print and online marketing materials complement each other.
The last thing you want is for your customers to receive conflicting messages.
There are two key ways you can ensure your print and online marketing aren’t fighting one another and becoming far less effective:
- Make sure the design is consistent across both.
The design you use is an important part of your brand.
It’s not just your logo, it’s everything you choose to use – from the colours and fonts to the images.
If your design is consistent on your printed products like brochures, flyers, and business cards, and your online presence like your website and social media accounts, your customers will find it far easier to identify you.
Many customers who see a flyer will have seen your Facebook or Twitter accounts, for example.
Some may have visited your website.
All of these visits are ‘touch points’ between you and your potential customers.
The more ‘touch points’ there are, the more likely someone is to make a purchase.
- Ensure your content is consistent.
The images and the words you use in your website copy, blogs, and your print products should not give your potential customers mixed messages.
Your brand needs a consistent story which is shared across all the marketing items you use.
One of the easiest ways to ensure consistency of message is to create a profile of your ideal customer (a customer avatar) and a mission statement for your business.
You can keep that at the forefront of your mind when you’re creating content.
Ask yourself what problems your potential customers have and how you could solve them.
Then, create three key messages for them. That might be ‘we save you time and money’, ‘we make the process easy’, and ‘top quality at affordable prices’.
Distill those into a one-line mission statement which can act as your strapline on your flyers, business cards, website, and on your social media profiles.
When it comes to blogging, find out what would be useful to your potential customers. Make it informative and not sales-driven. It’s all about starting relationships with them, starting to create ‘touch points’.
