Digital marketing: One swipe and it’s gone

Social media, digital marketing and online advertising are now a fact of everyday life. The simple solution is a swipe across your smartphone screen to remove unwanted content. 

 

However, when there’s something we’re genuinely interested in many of us still like to settle down with a book or magazine. You can step away from all the digital background noise for a while and simply absorb something interesting. 

 

friends and family and receive comments in moments. Almost seven out of 10 people around the world are smartphone users, so it’s the obvious way to reach people. 

 

You might spend a lot of time and money creating digital content and setting it up, ready to share online. However, you have just a few moments to catch someone’s attention before they move on and your content disappears. In as little as two seconds your audience could move on to something they find more interesting. 

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) and marketing automation can deliver personalised content based on previous interests and searches. However, this is where people start to feel uncomfortable. It’s certainly strange to see repeated advertisements for gardening products because you searched for hosepipes at the weekend. 

 

However, people pick up a book or magazine because they’re interested in what it contains. They’ll make time to sit down to browse and enjoy what they see. The chances of them reading and remembering the contents immediately improve. 

 

Printing has allowed us to share thoughts and ideas for thousands of years. Once the majority of people learned to read, the possibilities for discovering new things were almost limitless. Even now, millennials still see print as more trustworthy than digital content. 

 

Time spent creating and sharing printed content can reward you for days or weeks as people re-read and share publications. This gives you a marketing advantage. 

 

The touch and feel of printed material is something digital content certainly can’t match. Paper weight, thickness, and quality can appeal to all the senses. 

 

If you wish, you can share much more information in print than in digital advertisements or on social media. You have more space, so you can concentrate on layout and design to make an immediate impact. Careful choices of colour and typography can attract specific types of people. 

 

What’s more, print advertising recall is almost 1.7 times higher than its digital alternative. 

 

While there are pros and cons for print and digital content, you can combine them and have the best of both worlds. QR Codes and social media hashtags on printed materials and links to subscription pages and online content complete the experience.