We are living through 2022 and it is the digital era. Everything is digital now, whether it is news or education or office work! After the Covid Pandemic, digital is the new normal. You can study online, complete your office work online, order food online, do your shopping online and book all even the appointments online for which you might have to go in person. In your phone, laptop or iPad, you can read books, news, websites for all kinds of products and services and their advertisements. So why is the printing industry still alive? Why are there millions of printing companies still printing various materials all over the world? Why are the best printing company websites having good web traffic? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why there are consumers of hard copies of books, newspapers and advertising leaflets and pamphlets:
Tangible
Most distinguishing feature of printed material is that it is tangible, unlike digital material. You can touch the paper, smell the ink and feel something. When you read a book and end up loving the story, it is the feeling of sitting in a corner of your house, holding that book in your hands that you will remember. It is something that you can’t experience when you read an e-book on your electronic device.
Effective
When you market your product with content on printed mediums, you have an advantage of leaving a lasting impact on your target audience. Digital marketing is effective, there’s no denying that, however the pairing of print marketing along with digital marketing can do wonders. The marketing emails are often filtered out into spam folders and most people clear their spam folders without even looking at it. People do discard brochures and leaflets too, however at the very least they’re bound to take a look at one side and that will leave an impact to some extent as well.
Relatable
As popular as it may be, electronic devices and the digital era are fairly new life experiences, there are many people all over the world who still find hard copies of books and newspapers more relatable and preferable. Not everyone uses the internet for connecting with the world. In fact, boomers, baby boomers, Gen X and Gen Y, are all print medium consumers to some extent. They even exhibit brand loyalty and spend money on print medium materials.
Useful tagalongs
When a company uses print medium for marketing, they produce and give the target audience useful stuff such as a calendar or a keychain or magnet. These things tend to leave a long lasting impact on the target consumer base because they will be using the things for a long time and be constantly exposed to the brand name, logo and tagline or such.
Complementary
Most successful brands are smart enough to utilize both the digital and print mediums. Digital marketing is powerful and print marketing is complementary to digital marketing. For example, Zomato and Swiggy are food delivery apps and both are very active on social media, through social media and even application notifications feature, they advertise their services very effectively. At the same time, when the food is delivered, you will notice that the tapes over the food containers have ‘Zomato’ or ‘Swiggy’ printed over them. Regardless of where the food is from, if it was delivered through Zomato or Swiggy, you will see their names on taping over the food containers. Print marketing compliments digital marketing like this in many cases.
Easy & Permanent Access
Digital data, in the form of text or visual image or such has a limitation on it- internet access. You need mobile data or Wi-Fi to access most of the things that you have stored or can find online. You will also need a battery in your device which is charged enough to run and keep the device on. And this can be tricky, there are times when you run out of battery and your device might power down. Sometimes, you might not have Wi-Fi or mobile data. In such situations, you will not be able to access whatever you need at the moment. Printed documents or books or such on the other hand, can be accessed anytime and anywhere without any limitations. It is one of the most important advantages the print industry has which cannot be overlooked.
Trustworthy
Times have changed but one aspect remained the same and that is the trustworthiness of documents in physical form. A physical printed copy of a document still holds more weight than a digital one. Apart from the conventional ways being the reason for it, there is one more reason for the same. It is the possibility of compromise with digital form of documents, it is easy to fabricate, edit and forge digital documents, while making a duplicate or compromised copy of physical document can be very very difficult and unlikely.
The Printing Industry really is alive even in the 21st century and it is going to stay alive for a long time. Whether it is successful marketing or convenient consumption, print is always the way to go along with digital.
