Print advertising may seem antiquated in the age of online content and social media, but it’s far from obsolete. In fact, print advertising remains more effective overall at prompting action from customers, with 80% of consumers acting on direct mail print advertisements, a 37% higher rate than from email marketing. What’s more, 82% of consumers trust ads in magazines and newspapers the most of any form of marketing.
Including both print and digital advertising in your marketing strategy is the best course of action for most businesses. Data from the UK firm Top Media shows that online campaigns are 400% more effective when combined with print advertisement.
The truth is, while the amount spent on print advertising has been declining in recent years, it is still a very viable way to build your brand and connect with customers. Here are some pros and cons of print advertising to consider as you’re planning your next marketing strategy.
Pros of print advertising
Customers prefer print.
Statistics from Epsilon show that 73% of U.S. consumers prefer direct mail over pop-up ads or other online advertising because they can read the materials when it’s convenient for them—not as an interruption to the other things they were reading.
Not only do many consumers prefer print ads, but they can be far more effective at building customer loyalty. In a USPS survey of Millennials, 75% of respondents said receiving print mail makes them feel special, as compared to email marketing, which 37% say they receive far too often and only 19% frequently or always open.
Print remains the most trusted form of advertising.
The introduction mentioned that 82% of consumers trust newspaper and magazine ads the most, but there were other telling statistics from that Marketing Sherpa survey. Physical ads hold three of the top five most trusted advertising channels, with 76% trusting ads and catalogs and 69% trusting ads in public spaces, like billboards or posters.
Comparatively, no form of digital advertising earned more than 50% of consumers’ trust. Online pop-ups were seen as the least trustworthy, with only 25% of consumers trusting these when making a purchase decision.
Consumers spend more time looking at print ads than digital ads.
Pop-up, banner, and other display ads have become so pervasive that many consumers are in the habit of ignoring them completely. With a pop-up, for instance, you may only get your ad in front of buyers’ eyes for as long as it takes them to find the button to close it.
That’s if they ever see it at all. Many people, especially those from the Millennial and Gen Z generations, use ad blockers and pop-up blockers every time they browse. Even email subscribers may never see your ads. In a survey by Tech.co, 30% of respondents said they’ve declared “email bankruptcy” and abandoned their inbox. It’s estimated that 57% of all email addresses are abandoned and never get checked.
The likelihood of customers seeing print advertisements is far higher. With direct mailers and catalogs, 45% of customers surveyed by The Private Postman kept fliers they thought would be useful, and on average this kind of direct mail marketing material is kept for 17 days before being thrown away. Print ads in magazines can have an even longer shelf life for people who collect and save the publications they subscribe to.
Customers don’t just keep them, either—they spend longer looking at them. The average print advertisement is viewed for about 2.2 seconds by 75% of readers. This might not sound impressive, but it is compared to digital ads, which are looked at less than half as long, by fewer than half the number of consumers. In fact, only 4% of digital ads get more than 2 seconds of view time, and only 9% are looked at for longer than one second.
People remember what they read in print better than from online sources.
In a study conducted by researchers at Canada Post, participants were shown either a print ad or a digital ad, and asked to name the brand. Fewer than half (44%) who saw digital ads could recall the brand, but 75% of those who saw print mail could remember the brand name. Similar studies conducted by Penn State and USPS have confirmed these findings.
The reason behind this is based in cognitive science. It is more taxing for the human brain to read content on a screen than on a printed page. Because of this, the mind is able to better devote resources to memory when looking at printed material, making recall more likely.
Print advertising drives higher engagement.
The response rate for direct mail has been rising steadily over the past few years. The largest jump came between 2017 and 2018, when the Data & Marketing Association shows it jumped from 5.1% to 9%. That same survey showed that 42.2% of direct mail recipients at least scan the items they receive, while only 22.8% say they don’t read it at all. Compare this to the 1% (or lower) response rate for digital channels, and direct mail is the clear winner when it comes to customers taking action.
What’s more, data from the USPS shows that people who received catalogs spent 28% more money than those who didn’t receive them. Customers who received a catalog were more than twice as likely to visit a company’s website and make a purchase than those who saw an ad online, while 60% of existing customers and 67% of prospects visited a company’s website after receiving a catalog from them.
Cons of print advertising
It costs more.
The costs of print advertising vary widely. A small ad in a publication with limited circulation may only cost as little as $50, while full-page ads in widely-read markets can have price tags in the six figures. The range for direct mail, meanwhile, can be anywhere from 30 cents to over $10 per person, depending on the materials, design, and extent of the campaign.
While the costs vary for print ads, there is one thing that is definitely true: the cost per ad is going to be lower for digital. While digital ad campaigns also have a wide cost range, the average is around $3-$10 per thousand impressions, significantly less than the expense for print advertisements.
The effectiveness of print ads is harder to measure and optimize.
There are ways to add tracking capabilities to a print advertisement, for example by using a specific promo code, call tracking number, or QR code to identify customers who have found you through print ads.
You do need to go out of your way to do this, though, and not all forms of print advertising will support these kinds of tracking measures—nor will all customers who learn about you through print ads end up using these trackable features of the ad.
Conversely, digital advertisements come with multiple metrics and forms of tracking built right in. You can monitor analytics like the number of views, click-through rate, open rate, and other metrics that give you more in-depth and precise insights about how customers are engaging with and responding to your campaign.
The reach is more limited.
Digital advertising and marketing is an excellent way to reach a lot of people at once at the lowest price. This is especially true of pay-per-click campaigns or similar cost structures. While it’s true that only a small percentage of people will likely look at the ad, that’s not as much of a concern if you’re only paying for the people who actually engage with it.
The lack of share-ability is another limiting factor with print advertising. An individual may pass a flier or magazine ad along to a friend, but they can only do so with one person at a time. Online advertising, conversely, has the potential to go viral, or be shared with hundreds or thousands of people at once through social media and other digital communication.
Ultimately, it comes down to what was said in the introduction: the best results for businesses today come from using a combination of print and digital advertising strategies. Online ads are more affordable and better for casting a wide net, both geographically and across demographics. Print ads, meanwhile, allow you to target specific consumers and get higher engagement from those individuals you target. In the end, though, the truth is that print ads absolutely do still have a place in today’s digital age.
