In this world of the Internet and digital everything, it would make sense if you thought that businesses no longer needed printing the way they used to, After all, virtually everyone has a computer with access to the web, so email and internet traffic must make up the majority of correspondence that once required printing services of some kind. But if you do think that way, hold on to your ink-stained copies and think again.
For example, if you took a guess at how many business cards are printed per day and you guessed under 27 million, you would be wrong. There are 27,397,260 business cards that get printed every single day for people around the world. Often these business cards need printing asap and rush printing options and fast shipping keep these printing companies humming along. But of course business cards are not the only area of printing that can be pointed to as evidence that digital printing is not dead.
Direct marketing has been around for over a hundred years. Businesses have long been using the US Postal Service to market to their potential customers and that has not stopped. Instead of opting out of printing altogether, 76% of businesses say that their ideal strategy for marketing these days is a combination of digital and print marketing. Sending a prospective customer a promotional gift of some kind in the mail goes a long way toward having that customer remember your company’s name and brand. Printing something with a company’s logo and sending it to a customer allows them to hold that material in their hands. When it comes to remembering and retaining a company’s name, 84% of Americans said that they were more apt to do so if they had something tangible to hold on to.
One of the secrets to direct marketing is knowing how the materials will be handled by the potential customers. Direct marketing materials come through the physical mail. People love to check their mail. It’s like receiving a present. When it comes to mail in the US, 62% of Americans say they enjoyed checking their mail. In Canada, the number increases to 63% of all mail checkers. Once they get the mail inside, 80% say that they sort through the mail straight away. It is at this point that printing really pays off. If the material can capture the mail opener’s attention, that’s when the magic happens.
There are many ways in which the digital world has encroached on the world that once belonged to printing alone, but that doesn’t mean that printing is going to be obsolete anytime soon. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The two work together to attract new customers t businesses every day. If you receive an email that doesn’t grab your attention, what do you do? You’re very likely to delete it. But if you receive a letter or a postcard from a company that you’re not interested in at the moment, you might get a magnet and put it on you refrigerator.
Printing has been around for centuries. It’s not going anywhere.
