You have the company logo, the message, the emotions, the fonts, the colors and the target audience. The big question now is how to apply all of these commodities to market your brand. Printed marketing materials, as you know it, are the backbone of any branding efforts because it’s the best medium to position your company in front of your ideal customers.
20 to 30 years backward, using printed materials for marketing and advertising was the number one way to promote your business. Newspapers, magazines, brochures, you name it, printing was a corporate name in the industry. Fast-forward to millennial age, print became less relevant and took a backseat as digital marketing came to life.
Not so fast here. If you think that Print is “dead,” think again: Printing is making a big comeback recently. It becomes a viable way again to solidify your brand identity and market your business. You can now utilize print materials to target your buyer personas and acquire visitors for your website.
New Lessons From the Past
Before the domination of digital marketing, printing is the leading authority of branding and advertising. Now that it’s making a comeback, it’s wise if you use it alongside with your other weapons in your digital marketing arsenal. If you use it in an old-school way like how you do it in the past, you will end up in the same route and get the same results.
The conventional marketing methods no longer work the way they used to, and smart business owners and advertisers know it. Instead of using print materials to interrupt people with marketing messages, you can adapt the out-of-the-box methods to give your print materials a whole new life.
Check out the following tried-and-true ideas below where you can incorporate print materials to your branding schemes.
Corporate Identity Package
It’s first on the list because it’s often the first thing people think of when they hear branding. Corporate identity packages may lack the sheen of other branding strategies. However, they yield massive repetition which is crucial to the success of a campaign.
A robust corporate identity package contains brochures, business cards, envelopes, presentation folders, and letterheads. The beauty of medium is that it carries the image of your company and augments its message for every piece of correspondence you issue to the customers.
Direct Mails
Direct-mail campaigns is always a force to reckon as it put your brand’s message directly right into your customer’s’ hands. It can be anything from flyers, postcards to multi-piece sales letter packages with loyalty program and 80-page catalogs. Powerful branding is achievable through direct-mail repetition.
Just because your prospect doesn’t respond to your first direct-mail piece doesn’t mean that mailing is not helping out. You need to be patient and persuasive. In short, you need to dispatch more mails (without going overboard of course) as the probability of response grows with every succeeding mails.
In fact, marketing sherpa reveals that 82% of American consumers believe that print marketing is the most credible type of marketing.
Point-of-sale Displays
Simple point-of-sale displays such as a brochure, a coupon book or even a menu can help enhance your branding efforts as people voluntarily pick them up. Another way to use it is by sponsoring a charity through a retail outlet where you can ask customers for a small donation.
These clients in return, place your brand name on die-cut shapes and tape it to the wall for people to see. All you need to do is supply printed cutouts and add the name and logo of your company to a portion of it. This method will not only put your brand to prominence, but it will also show that your business has goodwill and compassion which can be an advantage to attract new business.
Press Releases
Press releases should come on printed company letterhead form and should reach media distribution. Press releases are strong branding tools because when your brand printed exposure, you gain an equal third-party validation and the opportunity to reach customers you never thought you could have.
Stickers
Stickers are the most creative and fun medium among branding methodologies. You can affix custom-made labels to anything. From car bumpers, notebooks, walls, windows, restroom stalls, filing cabinets, mirrors, you name it, you can stick it!
If you can create appealing sticker designs that customers will love, the better for your brand. Some companies even give stickers to children at parades with cute characters and their company name or logo.
Calendars
If you want a daily exposure for your brand, distribute free calendars to your customers. Calendars may sound cliché, but it’s one of the most effective branding strategies.
It possesses an intrinsic value as people like to stay organized and setting a calendar in their personal space is one way to achieve. Plus, they get to see your brand! So, it’s a win-win situation.
Banners
Banners are ideal for event sponsorship, which is also an excellent way to exhibit your brand’s image in front of hundreds and even thousands of potential customers in one stroke. It could be a festival, a concert, a sports event, a campaign show or any other event where people gathers.
Takeaway
It is important not to skimp on materials when you develop a branded marketing campaign. It applies in particular to branded printing materials since your customers equate the quality of your company to the quality of your promotional pieces. Make sure the quality of print materials you use complements your branding strategy, and you’re ready to go.
Maria Estrada
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- 7 Proactive Ways to ‘Print’ a Name for Your Brand in the Market - August 29, 2017
