Budgets may be waning, but the fact that a certain three-letter acronym usually only heard in the finance department is now in regular use in the marketing office should be seen as an opportunity for print, not a threat.

I am of course talking about ROI.

There’s no doubt that in the eyes of many, print’s place in the marketing mix seems to be weakening, but in this age of cross-media, multichannel communications all the evidence points to the fact that its importance should be growing.

With consumers complaining of media overload and messages often lost in the maelstrom, print should see itself as a collaborator of digital media, not a competitor. The forward-thinking printers, marketers and buyers need to be agnostic when it comes to communications methods and instead simply focus on which application (or combination thereof) will be the most effective.

Clearly, I must declare an interest: I’m unrepentantly passionate about print and I make no apologies for that. However, even if I filter out that bias, it’s clear that print only enhances any form of multimedia campaign (and vice versa) as illustrated by our print vs email feature.

Equally, when data is described as the new oil, it’s clear that any communication method that utilises it in a way that adds value to the consumer experience and builds a relationship, without being seen as threatening or invasive, is critical.

After all, that is the true power of print: it’s trusted in a way that digital media finds hard to match. So, if you combine the brand value of print with the data collection strengths of digital, then you really do have a marketing vehicle that is
hard to beat.
Darryl Danielli
Editor, PrintWeek