The Death of Print Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Is your business differentiated in your local area? Branding is essential for creating trust and repeat business on a local level. For many local businesses, street signage, vehicle livery, brochures and flyers will generate as good a return-on-investment as online marketing is likely to do.

Getting noticed is often about doing things differently. If your competitors are pouring their marketing spend into online tactics, then a little bit of print may be all you need to stand out. Depending on your business, a good ol' fashioned mail drop — done well — may get better results than your globally focused MailChimp campaign. Mail is the new email.

Print carries a perception of value that most web-based marketing doesn't match. Send your client an email and 90% of 'em will bin it; send them a brochure, flyer or other direct mail piece, and 64% will hang onto it.

I know, I know. But if this stat is even half true it's worth noting: 80% of physical mail is opened, only 20% of email is opened.

Forget the buzz relating to mobile websites. In the traditional sense, the response rate for email-based marketing is 0.12%; the response rate for traditional direct mail marketing is almost 5%. That's more than 40 times better. 40!

Even for web-based businesses, print has its place. Various studies have shown that two-thirds of online purchases are driven by print marketing, and that print marketing carries a better online purchasing conversion rate than online marketing alone.