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Print vs. Digital Marketing Landscapes

Marketers; take a deep breath.

Print traditionalists and digital enthusiasts are ripping each other apart trying to stake their claim on the new Marketing Landscape. Only Print and Digital are not oil and water. They complement each other; like peas and carrots or peanut butter and jelly.

You see the fight over which marketing channel is better, print or digital, to communicate your message is actually very silly. The truth is both have much to offer and should be viewed as collaborative partners in delivering your customer message.

Merge the Best of Both Worlds

Think of your marketing message like an overnight package. In order for you, the customer, to get your package delivered it needs to use multiple forms of transportation. From the distribution center where your product is picked from inventory, your package travels on a truck to an airport. From there it is flown on a plane to an airport in your distribution region. After being unloaded from the plane, your package is then taken by a second truck from the airport to your local distribution center. There your product finds its way to a 3rd, last mile, delivery truck to get the product to your front door. Consider this hub and spoke deliver scenario “traditional”, much like print is.

Now enter the drone, the new logistics “disruptor”. Think of the drone much like you would digital and social marketing.This new hi-tech device will quickly and cost effectively improve all of your delivery needs and change the old hub and spoke delivery design beyond recognition. Except, it won’t.

Sure drones will have their rightful place in the future of home product delivery, but they will more likely serve as a last mile option in certain geographies. Drones will instead work in tandem with the trucks and planes that get your product to the point of last mile distribution. In this way, drone technology will collaborate with other transportation vehicles to deliver product from inventory to your customer’s home. Creating, in many instances, a better delivery model.

Print and Digital marketing collaborate much the same way in delivering your marketing message. Both have roles in educating and informing our customers of our products and services. Both touch our customers where they live both online and offline. Each have attributes that are unique and powerful. But above everything else, used together, print and digital help companies weave a marketing narrative that more completely connects with your customer and drives business growth. This is why there is so much chatter about multi- and omni-channel marketing.

Integrate Your Customer’s Experience

The challenge for marketers in the future will not be deciding WHERE to spend their marketing budget, but HOW to effectively communicate their message to their customers in a comprehensive omni-channel approach. The challenge for marketers will be figuring out ways to engage your customer across all the channels they use to create a comprehensive dialogue with your customer. Not deciding which channel to vacate.

Remember, when it comes to marketing, print and digital complement one another. They provide the varied landscape necessary to keep up with your customer and advance your marketing message consistently. So when planning your marketing budgets don’t begin by allocating budget to specific channels. Instead, focus on how an omni-channel approach can help you deliver an educational and informative message in a consistent way that is “sticky” with your customer.

Just like Peanut Butter and Jelly.