Turning prospects to customers is the art of marketing. Understanding the needs, wants, desires of your potential customers is the key to harnessing the right results. Print is one of the under-spoken about tools in the marketing toolkit, so let us unpack it a bit more.

Ask any marketer about the customer journey, and you’ll get a wealth of knowledge and they will all agree on the vast number of touchpoints it takes to influence a customer to say yes.

A useful premise to remember is marketing is educating your customer about your “Product”. Ask any educator about how people learn and they will tell you about Visual Auditory and Kinaesthetic learning styles. Everyone one is different, to how they learn and what they respond to. This does mean that any marketing strategy needs multiple touchpoints of different content medias which engage with potential customers.

Of course, the relevance of this is essential. Knowing and understanding your customers is key. A useful place to start is by creating a pen portrait or profile, think about; age, background, family/home life, work/income, social circles, any other relevant factors.

Touchpoints:

• Websites – yes you’re reading this blog.
• Social media – we can guess a social platform directed you to this link.
• YouTube 
• Events /tasters/roadshow stalls (face to face) – ensure your audience go away with the right physical call for action, from sign up cards, flyers or something more substantial like a brochure.
• If B2B, then business networking can also help you build trust with your potential customers too. See our blog on getting you remembered 
• Partner promotion – cross-marketing can be very powerful when the right partners are identified and a mutual win-win is achieved.
• Print advertising, can be very effective when placed in the right publications and combined with editorial material to back up the advertisement content.
• Direct mail – let your creativity run here, the objective is to create an item which will engage for the greatest amount of time, which has total relevance to the recipient. See our blog on Direct Mail
• Poster or banner placement, this is the drip feed to the conscious. Again creativity is key, challenge people to look twice, use wordplay to excite the reader. Think about placements in more unusual places to catch people’s eyes.

It’s worth looking at the retention of information span of any touchpoint used within a marketing strategy. Digital communications tend to be more “instant” of the minute whilst print is renown for having a longer user engagement lifespan. The impact and the potential cost and the resulting in a return on investment. Assessing these factors should drive the priorities within your marketing plan, or the mix you use to drive your audience to engage more with your business or product.

Revisiting the customer pen portrait will also provide key indicators towards the tone of voice (language) of your communications, along with a visual style which they will respond to. This will also form part of your brand proposition and identity. If you need further assistance on building this further we can direct you to relevant specialists.

Word of caution, critical friends are essential at this point, getting individuals who understand your product/business to review you customer pen portrait, quiz your understanding of their habits, will significantly aid you in getting this right. Equally asking key allies to review independently or ask questions blind which will help you confirm these essential marketing points.

So how does print engage with this, we are experienced in supporting small businesses, ensure that your products visual identity matches and works with your audience. We’ve got substantive experience in tailoring promotional materials to fit your budget and ultimately your price point. We have loads of tools for promotional print, from the obvious to the more subtle for brand awareness. Print is a tool that can drive traffic to your other communication channels to improve the customer journey for your potential customers. Along with solutions to help you sign and brand your “place” to ensure maximum visibility.

Whilst as a printer, we’ll happily guide, support and ask questions to ensure your marketing buck, is getting you the best bang, we don’t do marketing strategy or other media. We’re fortunate to know many professionals who can help you. These professionals are the full source professionals who work across different media to maximise the impact and delivery of your marketing messages.