The Power of Print

Posted by on 20/12/2011

High-impact campaigns are built around print's power

Whether you keep customers posted by direct mail marketing or wow them with 00H campaigns, print has potential to offer more engaging ways of plugging your brand than easily-ignored email, writes Jenny Roper at PrintWeek

The numbers speak for themselves. Far from being gradually phased out and replaced by digital formats, printed materials are still a crucial part of many marketing campaigns. While email, digital screens and TV have a role to play in the media mix and are complementing more traditional campaigns, print advertising is still alive and well. So says a recent Mail Media Centre report, which found that in 2010 an average of 91% of direct mail was opened, that 48% of customers felt information received by direct mail was easy to understand compared with 20% by email, and that the percentage of mail where customers took action increased from 4% in 2004 to 5% in 2010...

Still need convincing? Then take a look at PrintWeek's pick of some of the most successful printed campaigns of late...

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Howard Hunt Group's Boden 'Love is in the Air - Great Royal Wedding' campaign

The campaign The aim of the mail-order clothing retailer’s campaign was to obtain more data on those customers who had ordered a catalogue 12 months ago, but had never placed an order. Digitally-printed personalised postcards were sent to 25,000 of these customers, which encouraged them to enter a [personalised] URL to participate in an interactive online scratch card game. Winners then had to call a number or click through to a specific area of the Boden website. For those who participated in the competition but did not redeem their prizes, follow-up emails could still be sent out.

Why print? Print was crucial in spurring people to go online, says Howard Hunt’s assistant managing director Lucy Edwards. "Sometimes, even when we have a customer’s email address, it’s the direct mail piece that drives them through to online," she reveals. "An awful lot of companies are finding this, so print’s becoming a really powerful part of the communication cycle." Sending the initial communication out in print was also useful, Edwards says, because where customers had ordered something but not gone online, it showed that they were more comfortable with purely printed communications.

The result The whole campaign generated a significant ROI of nearly 150%, and the targeted follow-up email campaign generated a 16% increase in click-through rates. Boden now has a larger database of customers’ emails and date of birth, which they can use for further strategic campaigns.