The Print Marketing Renaissance

One topic we bring up from time to time, here, is the idea that print marketing is all about standing out from the pack. I know, it sounds ridiculous. But things have changed. The days of opening a mailbox to a flood of junk mail are over. Print marketing today is about risk. It’s about creativity, and it’s about trying something different. We’re not here to talk about junk mail, or sending out millions of generic postcards. It’s time to treat print as a non-traditional marketing source.

Business2Community has recently published an article showing 7 major events in marketing, and why they all point toward a return to the print medium. It’s a great article (which you may have seen on our Facebook page), but we’re going to go one step further. We’re going to give you a few ideas that may inspire you to take B2C’s list to heart.

Broad-Interest Publications are Leaving Print

Newsweek announced earlier this month that they would be ceasing all print publications. Dozens more general interest magazines are leaving print behind, and that means that a huge opportunity for marketers is opening up.

Does your business cater to a niche audience? Send out a brief magazine appealing to their interest. It doesn’t need to be a weekly, or even a quarterly, thing, but what could make you stand out from the crowd of catalogs better than this?

Changes in Consumer Usage Open the Door for Digital Integration

Digital integration is no longer an option for marketing – it’s a requirement. Today’s consumer demands more from marketing materials. More information, more detail, more interesting content, and more bells and whistles. For your next campaign, try including a print component that plays off of your digital efforts. Push consumers to your social media pages, or direct them to your other digital resources. Just don’t rely on QR codes to do the job for you. Innovate!

The Social Web is Crowded, Make Things Personal

Print has always been the most personal form of marketing communication. What do you think makes a better impression with a new client: A direct message on Twitter, or a hand-written ‘Thank You’ note?

Our print solutions can make all of these things possible, and print has not seen consumer interest like this in several years. Take advantage of the possibilities, and give us a call.

The Tray Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages. For information about the company and its successes, visit www.trayinc.com

Learning From Mistakes

In today’s digital world, all eyes are on you, all the time. The critical eye of the consumer never closes, and the world of social media has created a place where even the smallest branding faux pas is a recipe for complete financial disaster. There are cases of poor taste, such as this May advertisement for Belvedere Vodka. Even worse, there are times when brands can be persecuted for things they have absolutely no control of, or involvement in.

What can you do when your brand is thrust into the spotlight of consumer criticism? Can either of those examples serve as a template for escaping a PR nightmare?

The Skittles Strategy

When details about the tragic Trayvon Martin shooting went public, Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea became unintentional icons of lost innocence. The brands were spoken of almost as often as the investigation itself. Consumers, invested in the horrific details of the killing, began to accuse both brands of profiting off of the tragedy and media exposure. Neither brand had anything to do with Martin’s death, but both were being ripped to shreds on social media for failing to respond.

 Image from Ad Week

What did they do?

Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea were forced to act, and responded with letters of condolence to Martin’s family. They said it would be the last word on the matter, and both brands stuck to their guns, refusing to give in to the public outcry.

What went wrong?

Consumers were convinced that both brands were pulling in record profits from the media hype, and demanded financial recompense. It was a bizarre and unfounded complaint, born from a collective desire for closure that court proceedings was not providing. Arizona and Skittles did their best to avoid further scrutiny by keeping silent, and they ended up being seen as uncaring and cold.

The Belvedere Vodka Strategy

In early March, Belvedere began a commendable social media effort, relying on a strategy of casual humor, and easily shared jokes, each one a clever ad for their product. Unfortunately, the casual attitude went too far, and an ad that never should have made it past editing wound up on their public-facing Facebook page.

Image from Huffington Post

What did they do?

The ad was a clear misstep, and the backlash was fast and fierce. Belvedere pulled the ad once the blogosphere had gotten wind of it, and issued a series of apologies. They attempted to save face with a donation to an anti-sexual violence non-profit, but the move was seen as a shady PR stunt, and the brand has still not fully recovered.

What went wrong?

By the time Belvedere had responded to the complaints, any response they made would have been too little, too late. Unfortunately, once that ad was made public, there was nothing they could really do to make up for the damage it caused. Even though Belvedere went one step further than Skittles and Arizona, they were still seen as a corporation saving face, instead of an apologetic brand. They owned their mistake, but it wasn’t enough.

So, what can you do differently?

Any brand of reasonable age and size is in danger of falling into an inescapable faux pas like those above. It’s an unfortunate – but unavoidable – aspect of business. The solution lies in relying on the expertise of a branding agency, and using all of the available tools you have to protect your investment. If the worst happens, you need to be able to rely on a team that is flexible enough, fast enough, and smart enough, to turn the situation around.

The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages. For information about the company and its successes, visit www.traypml.com

The Tray Way: Where will Marketing be in 2012?

The end of the year is approaching, which brings with it the end of procrastinating on planning for 2012. While we have a lot of great things to remember about 2011 - especially on the award front, we are looking forward to the opportunities that are ahead of us. So, what is the marketing community thinking about for this upcoming year? There is lots to read about, but one item that caught our eye was a recent press release out of the Midwest regarding forecasting marketing budgets.

According to research by Under the Radar, a Chicago-based firm, most U.S.-based marketing brand managers intend to increase their budgets in 2012, as well as plan to develop even more innovative marketing strategies. Other predictions include:

• Brand marketing managers are quite optimistic about the first half of 2012 and increasingly even more optimistic about the second half of the year.
• ROI will be a key focus, with results surpassing “brand image” in regards to how the budgets are broken out.
• The winners in 2012 will be those brands that can capitalize on innovative experiential marketing opportunities and treat each prospect as a unique customer.

Working with clients in many industry sectors, we agree that 2012 will see a demand for increased focus on the actual dollars-and-cents return that marketing investments are having. For some, this will mean finding the newest technology or platform and jumping full-board into it in hopes that it is the "silver bullet." However, we see this as an opportunity for an experienced firm that has an expertise in all forms of marketing processes to test new, innovative strategies on proven platforms. By continuing the process of integrating one or more current marketing techniques (print, web, social media, etc.), it allows marketing experts to be marketing experts and push a strategy forward, as opposed to research and learn about another platform that is based around potential. Additionally, by evolving and learning from what we know, this will allow for the opportunity to bring tried-and-true marketing processes back to the forefront.

In the end, if 2012 can keep pace with 2011 in the marketing landscape, we are in for an exciting year.

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The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages.