Dove Direct Print and Marketing Blog, “Boost Your Customer Experience with Print”

Welcome to the Dove Direct Print and Marketing Blog. Today's post, "Boost Your Customer Experience with Print," encapsulates the relationship between digital and print marketing. Most brands and marketers have taken the plunge in recent years to add print marketing to the mix primarily to enhance and grow their digital engagements and response rates. To that end, the numbers are relatively consistent in that print does elevate the effectiveness of a digital marketing campaign.

We have always been of the mindset that unified marketing builds brands. However, when we dig deeper into the marriage between print and digital, merely having a direct mail piece to accompany a digital marketing effort may not be enough to push the purchase needle. The art of repurposing content in a marketing campaign is an excellent place to start.

Gary Vaynerchuck, CEO of Vayner Media, often gives impressive examples on how to repurpose digital content across channels, including blogs, videos, ad banners, and the like. He made a point one year, repurposing a single piece of content into 31 marketing segments, albeit digital.

Press forward to 2019, and marketers are encountering far more challenges for their brands to break through the digital clutter. Hence, to effectively reach enough targets to satisfy the ROI, the marketing budgets across all media have come under intense scrutiny.

Before we explore the print side of the marketing equation, let's take a stroll down frequency lane. One of the main reasons we face a seemingly never-ending barrage of television commercials is for one single reason: frequency.

Television advertising execs became acutely aware that the more times an ad would run, the higher the probability that the brand would have success. As a result, radio, newspaper, magazines, and eventually digital, all came to the same conclusion. Frequency is the difference maker.

Frequency in Digital

How many times have you visited a website offering a product or service, and shortly thereafter, you start to get ads on your cell phone, tablet, or desktop from similar companies? Moreover, since the algorithms and AI are working overtime, it becomes difficult to break through, and more collateral is required to be posted throughout the minutes, hours, and days to compete.

Even bloggers will admit that a single blog post notification delivered via email or on a social media channel will generate on average, a 1 to 2% engagement rate. For the most part, 1 to 2% could be significant depending on the size of the blogger's followers. A blogger with over 1 million followers at a 2% engagement rate is 20,000.

However, when you move from reading content to securing new business engagement and sell through, that's an entirely different story. Does frequency work at this point? It depends on multiple factors. Beyond frequency for any marketing campaign, digital or traditional, there are factors that can help improve the effectiveness of your digital marketing.

Repurposing

To begin with, it is a good practice to create all digital collateral at 300 dpi (dots per inch). Why? Even though the web only requires a 72 dpi, 72 dpi will fall short of creating crisp print collateral. Therefore, creating a print piece from a 72 dpi file will fail to yield the kind of results that can compete with other printed collateral executed at 300 dpi.

It is essential to understand that any 300 dpi file can be edited, changed, and saved as a new piece of collateral, thus saving time and resources, which remains print ready. The infamous, "Save for web" function associated with top graphic art programs converts that 300 dpi file to 72 dpi for digital applications.

Direct Mail and Landing Pages

Marketers design landing pages to convert users into buyers. Effective landing page designs feature strategic content, and that compels a response to a call-to-action, whether that is to obtain information or compel a visitor to take action, or to make a purchase.

However, before you build that landing page, keep in mind that the printed version will need to contain particular attributes for the demographic and psychographic targets. Moreover, since variable digital printing relies on data collection and management, this data will become helpful for constructing landing pages, digital collateral, and repurposed direct mail pieces.

As a result, by using data to construct all the marketing materials and relevant copy, this process serves both the digital and the printed marketing collateral, thus solidifying a unified, marketing initiative. We recommend this process as it is an efficient methodology, unifying print, and digital collateral, which will undoubtedly enhance the customer experience.

The direct mail piece, whose objective is similar to those of landing pages, is to persuade users to take action. Also, and most importantly, direct mail also provides the capability to direct users to that landing page, or any other online destination. Moreover, the direct mail piece also stands a much better chance of being seen, as physical mailboxes will never contain thousands of pieces of mail on any given day.

Testimonials

Now that we have Google, Facebook, Instagram, Yelp, and others, the internet is ripe with folks willing to share their views and opinions with the world. As a result, testimonials represent a powerful tool and are considered by many brands as the most credible content that can be trusted. Note: In 2019, due to the rise of online influencer pay-to-play marketing endorsements, the testimonial line is becoming somewhat blurred, and should be employed cautiously.

That said, 98% of B2B buyers admit that testimonials and reviews provide the most credible form of content collateral. In the print world, testimonials can be added to point-of-sale displays, brochures, catalogs, and sell sheets. Print collateral that includes testimonials or 5-star ratings merges the product or service features and benefits with a trusted endorsement.

Case Studies

Case study messaging takes testimonials to the next step. Case studies provide a more in-depth analysis of problem solving, solutions, and outcomes. Instead of relying on a testimony, which is one person's statement, case studies frame the challenge, demonstrate how the brand created and executed a solution, and provides details about a favorable outcome.

Typically, case studies are several pages in length, and when applying a case study to printed collateral, it is advisable to shorten it to a single page. By lifting the salient points of the case study, stripping down excessive graphics, and including the problem parameters, and what path the brand took to produce a favorable solution, bodes well for both trade show applications as well as direct mail pieces.

The Net-Net

Most brands already posses digital content and to effectively boost consumer engagement, we recommend converting that content into print versions with physical collateral. Beyond digital frequency, brands can improve their customer experience and results by repurposing content, direct mail marketing, landing pages, testimonials, and case studies. These tactics help to convert and reinforce your messages. Thanks for reading, "Boost Your Customer Experience with Print."

Let's have a conversation about direct mail strategies, printing, print software, transactional documents, variable digital printing, brand equity and unified marketing collateral during our next Open House. We invite you to join us for an hour or two, June 27, from 10:30 am to 4:30 pm. Let us show you how to improve your document processes to optimize your workflow, reduce your costs, and maximize your organization's printing, letter shop and mailing capabilities. Dove Direct does have an official USPS certified bureau located within our offices that will save you time and money. And, if you bring us your files, we will create a demo file for you. For more information call Carla Eubanks at 404-629-0122 or email Carla at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Dove Direct, your Atlanta based print and mail solutions provider offers organizations end-to-end data, printing and mailing solutions: Data Management, Variable Digital Printing, LetterShop and Fulfillment, Fully Automated MLOCR Presort Bureau, Marketing and Production Management Support and Secure Data Life Cycle Management.

If you don't want to wait for the Open House, you can reach Dove Direct today by calling 404-629-0122 or use the contact form for Dove Direct.