The report, seen exclusively by PrintWeek, was commissioned in June and results were collected over a two-week period in July by marketing consulting firm TKM Consultants.
70% of those surveyed said that more than half of their revenue is print-related.
Mtivity chief executive Patrick Kremer said: “For years, there has been a rumour of the death of print and there was even a stretch of time where we would refer to it as the ‘P word’.
“In the last year, there seems to have been a resurgence. I don’t know necessarily in volumes but certainly in the way people are discussing print and being more outspoken about it being a critical channel for them delivering marketing communications.”
TKM approached 180 print and marketing companies, many of which were cherry-picked from the 2015 PrintWeek Power 100, of which around 60 took part.
All the respondents were senior executives from the companies approached, which were predominantly UK-based.
The survey also found 80% of respondents believed print is the channel most utilised in their campaigns, 30% ahead of email and digital (both 50%).
“That was pleasantly surprising. There has been so much talk about the other channels for years, so it was interesting to hear that print is a very critical part of people’s go-to-market strategy and companies are quite openly embracing it,” added Kremer.
TKM managing partner Anil Noorani, who conducted the survey, said: “From DS Smith down to the smaller organisations, we wanted to understand where the priorities lie.
“It is brilliant print is still so relevant. Print was almost a dirty word three years ago but now we think about it in relation to other channels, especially with POS, brand activation and packaging being absolutely bulletproof in the industry and growing month-on-month in terms of revenue.”
The survey investigated other marketing-oriented issues separate from print, such as the top marketing technology investment priorities, top campaign management bottlenecks and the demand for transparency.
Its main conclusion was that marketing agencies must embrace ‘MarTech’, a portmanteau of marketing and technology, in order to become embedded within modern-day marketing.
Kremer said the report was mainly commissioned to give Mtivity further input and guidance on its own product development and strategy, along with establishing the company as "thought leaders in the space".
