- The UK is the sixth largest producer of printed products in the world; with a large amount of businesses (big or small) to cater for.
Printed matter contributed £580 million to the UK’s balance of trade in 2021, showing just how important print is to many companies across the world. Only the USA, China, Japan, Germany and India sit above the UK in terms of national print markets worldwide, with all areas of the UK utilising print in some form or another.
Fun fact: The Southeast of England sees the highest number of printed adverts made each day, with over 13,000 businesses utilising print in the area.
- Printing adds relatively more value than most other manufacturing industries.
In terms of GVA (Gross Value Added), print advertising sits third in the value of manufacturing industries across the UK with only wearing apparel and fabricated metal products sitting above it. Gross Value Added (GVA) represents the amount that individual businesses, industries or sectors contribute to the economy. It is the difference between the value of goods and services produced by businesses (output) and the cost of raw materials and other inputs which are used up in production of those goods and services (intermediate consumption).
- Printed ads are viewed 3x times longer than the average digital ad.
With printed ads, they can take up many forms and have many uses. As a visual media in its own right, a carrier and display of information, advertising, entertaining and educating. Look around and you’ll see many examples of print right in front of you. Print is not only books, newspapers, magazines and advertising – it is packaging, fashion, art, signage, creativity, security and information.
- Campaigns including print are 67% more effective at delivering new customers.
According to the evidence and the experts, print advertising’s engaging and effective mix makes its severely better than digital ads when attracting a new client base. The question for businesses shouldn’t be print vs digital, but what does each medium bring to the overall success of a working, effective campaign. When reading a piece of printed advertising, 60% of the time spent reading this is solely focused on the ad itself. For digital? This figure is only 19%.
Fun fact: The long-term memory encoding of mail is 49% stronger than email, and 35% stronger than social media advertising, making it more likely to impact future behaviour.
- 90% of campaigns that included door drop print ads reported a rise in acquisition compared to 59% for those without.
There is something about receiving a piece of mail in the letterbox that excites customers, especially as email and digital has very much taken over the world we live in. you are much more likely to see a higher ROI if you use print marketing as your method of engaging new customers.
- The volume of global print and printed packaging is expected to drop 15% in the next 8 years, giving it a growth in market value by 7%, largely due to less competitors being around.
It is no secret that print on a global scale has become less as the internet significantly grew due to the pandemic. The latest Advertising Association / Warc Expenditure Report reveals that advertising expenditure declined by 7.1% in 2020, but had a strong recovery of 18.2% in 2021 and is predicted to rise further more by 7.7% in 2022. Whilst the print component of advertising media expenditure has shrunk, it is back on the rise and remains an important channel for a significant amount of advertising, and perhaps one that is more effective than marketers believe.
Print’s effectiveness was powerfully proven in Ebiquity’s 2020 Re-evaluating media for recovery report. It looked at how brands could grow during these challenging times and found that brand salience is now number one out of the 10 most valued attributes in an ad campaign.
- The three biggest trends that impact print and its effectiveness directly is consumer preferences (personalisation), demographics and sustainability.
It will come as no surprise to learn that printed ads that are directed towards the audience itself is one of the most effective ways in which to gain a response. If a piece of mail was talking to you personally, you are much more likely to respond. The same goes for emails, texts, phone calls…when you are being spoken to 1 on 1 through the medium of personalised print, you are much more likely to engage with this business. Especially if the business was targeting its correct demographic, this will attract more economically active customers. Say if you were a football club for example, statistically, you are looking to send out mail to those in your demographic, which, for a football club is males aged between 18-49.
Sustainability is a huge factor that many businesses consider when deciding to use print advertising. The print and paper industry is surrounded by myths, many of which are rooted in historical misconceptions about paper’s impact on forests. For many years, service providers have reinforced these environmental myths in their efforts to move consumers to digital communications. The need to bust these myths and raise awareness of paper’s sustainability is now more important than ever.
- People are slowly turning away from digital, with more people deactivating social media accounts than ever before in the last year.
An average person in the UK spends one hour and fifty minutes a day on social media, and for some, this is becoming too much. Although a majority of social media users (74%) have not deactivated any accounts, this still means that 26% of social media users in the UK have in some form. This is just under 15 million people within the UK alone.
What’s interesting is that younger users are more likely to deactivate their accounts as compared to older consumers. Speaking in numbers, only 13% of the social media users aged between 55 and 64 deactivated an account against the 26% of users in the 16-24 age group. However, these young users consider deactivating an account to be a short-term solution. Reasons for deactivation were most commonly wanting to spend time doing other things, the possible consequences of posting certain content and the feeling that social media had become too dependant and personal-image driven.
- 51% of people do their best to block or avoid online adverts, 55% don’t pay attention to them whatsoever.
This can be directly relatable to the point made above. People do not typically go onto social media to seek advertising, so when they see it, they try their best to either ignore it or remove it completely from their feeds. Social media was after all made as a form of connecting and communicating with friends or celebrities and following what they’re up to. Marketing and advertising has very much taken over some of these platforms, and it is not hard to figure out why people want to actively avoid these adverts when they disrupt their time on social media. This is not to say social media advertising is a bad method of marketing, especially as there are platforms where you must be following the account to see their posts (consumers own choice).
- 74% of people say they would be more likely to respond to a print ad that was personalised to them.
People love to be spoken to directly. If you were sent a piece of mail that was specific to you (offer, information, personalised imagery/name…etc) you would be impressed by the effort that company has gone to in order to make you feel important. By sending out personalised, unique mail, you can capture the attention of your consumers instantly, especially if you are reaching out to them using information specific to them.
Getting through the letterbox is one thing, but gaining active responses and interaction is another. It’s all about bringing your brand to life through high-quality, expertly designed communications that are compelling enough to grab attention that triggers a response. You can make a strategic, detailed plan become a piece of creative marketing with ease here at Alpha Response. Any design, any message, any personalisation, we can send out this mailing for you to create the best customer experience possible.
In an increasingly digital world there are few businesses left who are truly aware of how print can help them to accomplish their marketing objectives. The overabundance of digital material has presented us with an opportunity for print to become truly effective at creating engaging, creative, and versatile content that benefits from being held and read in person rather than through a screen.
When print is personalised specifically to the receiver, the open rates are practically 100% each and every time, with response off the back of this being 50%! You can choose anything, from different coloured envelopes on outside to personalised names, imagery and information on the inside, the possibilities are endless!
If you are interested in gaining more customers using an integrated campaign using the power of personalised print, then get in contact with us today!