The Pros and Cons of Printed Marketing Materials

 Many marketers say they value that printed marketing materials such as brochures enable them to provide a physical copy of information, but they also say they worry that people simply throw those materials away, according to recent research from RRD and Finn Partners.

The report was based on data from a survey conducted in November 2022 among 300 marketing professionals in the United States who have insight into the decision-making processes at their organizations.

When asked what benefits print marketing has over digital marketing, respondents cite that it enables them to provide a physical copy of information (41% say is a benefit), that it provides an offline channel for consideration (39%), and that it provides a tactile, interactive, and memorable experience (34%).

When asked what challenges print marketing has compared with digital marketing, respondents cite the fear that people just throw printed materials away (47% cite as a challenge), that they can't track response rates effectively (38%), and that printed materials become out of date too quickly (34%).

Some 63% of marketers surveyed say digital marketing generally has a higher ROI than print marketing, 14% say print has a higher ROI, 20% say the ROI is equal, and 3% say they don't know because they don't use print marketing.

About the research: The report was based on data from a survey conducted in November 2022 among 300 marketing professionals in the United States who have insight into the decision-making processes at their organizations.

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Product Management Toolkit (Part 1)

 

https://bit.ly/3ph22xH

Quick Instagram Tips for Promotional Products Businesses

By Sarah Semple

Instagram for Promo: 5 Ways to Build and Connect With Audiences

Building brand awareness can be hard if you aren’t up to date with the latest business tools, including social media. That's why we’re diving into ways to use Instagram—perhaps the most popular social channel—in order to reach your ideal audience. Instagram is not only a great way to connect, but also a helpful tool for promoting your business.

Last month, The Next Web ran an article on how the New York Public Library (NYPL) created a new project called Insta Novels. The project was designed to encourage younger generations to crack open a book by recreating classic novels as Instagram Stories. Social media isn't going anywhere, especially for millennials and Gen Z, so NYPL took something those audiences love and turned into something they'd want to interact with. We think that’s pretty genius:

While the content that NYPL created might not apply directly to the promo industry, it does give us a creative example of how places, like the library, are developing innovative ways to reach a new audience and better connect with existing audiences.

With that in mind, here are a few tips on how you can use Instagram for promo businesses, or even for your clients.

1. Determine your goals

This might be one of the most important parts of using any social media, and it's especially so for Instagram. Think about these next few questions before starting out your page:

• Who is your audience?
• What type of message do you want your followers or potential customer to takeaway?
• How much time do I want to dedicate to building this platform?

We talked to Angela Morris, promotional product consultant at Geiger, mid-south division, whose @thepromoshopper Instagram account is one of the best in the promo business. For Morris, defining goals is the single most crucial step for companies on Instagram.

“If you want a gazillion followers, then you would have a much different approach than if you just want to interact with existing clients," she said. "Go with the flow. Though there is a ton of advice and statistics out there on how you 'should' do things on Instagram, this is ever-changing and it’s important to not lose sight of your own identity for the sake of following what worked for someone else. Remember, it’s subjective—what works for someone else may be different because their objectives, goals and time commitment was also different than yours. #YouDoYou”

2. Keep the Instagram Stories coming

So, how exactly can Stories work in the promo industry? Looking at what NYPL did, companies can utilize Instagram Stories to market products or showcase events. It’s always a good idea to stay up to date with posting images to your profile, so why not take a video and upload it as well? This can work for any business that doesn't want to overcrowd their Instagram feed. Seeing numerous videos in a row (on your feed, that is) can get kind of repetitive. Now, you can save them to your Stories and have followers tap through them. It’s as simple as that.

Another tip is to create a "highlight" that you can save your content to. This is a great option if you’d prefer your Stories stay on your page for longer than the standard 24 hours. Plus, end-users can go back and view it whenever.

Later, an Instagram scheduler app, released a blog post called "The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Stories for Business," and it covers just about every question you might have about using Stories. One section is based on what to post, which is useful for anyone starting out. From the article:

Like with regular posts, if you’re using Instagram Stories for business, it’s good to post a mix of fun, lighthearted content and promotional content. Instagram Stories is a pretty relaxed place in general, and the quality standards are a lot lower than they are for regular posts.

Unlike posts, you don’t have to feel as much pressure to create lasting content. Think of this as a way to allow users to see your creative spark in action and have a little fun.

3. Create compelling posts

Josh Storey, social media writer for SanMar, Seattle, Wash., shared his experience creating content for the supplier's robust Instagram channel. “This is an evergreen piece of advice for all social media," Storey told us. "Inform, reveal, entertain but do not advertise. If a customer wants to see your catalog, they’ll go to your website."

In general, we find that one of the biggest issues with social media is being able to push out interesting content, every single time. It’s not always easy creating posts that are going to appeal to everyone in your audience. But, if there’s something we’ve learned from asking the social media pro, it’s that when you create posts about things you actually care about, your followers can tell.

“I also like to interject personal posts about my other loves, travel and cats, as these two things are what have brought me closer to clients, colleagues and supplier partners above all else," said Morris. "Showing your interests and personality opens a door for commonalities, inspiring ideas and more meaningful connections! If you’re wondering about if it’s possible to mix your personal and professional social media, the answer is yes!"

4. Construct powerful hashtags

Instagram isn’t always just about the posts. In a post for Social Media Today, writer Andrew Hutchinson offered up a few pointers businesses could benefit from. One of them centered on hashtags. While posts and stories allow you to connect with existing followers, it's the hashtags that allow businesses to reach and cultivate new audiences within their industry.

In addition to explaining that you're able to use up to 30 hashtags per post, Hutchinson points out in his article that, as of last December, Instagram users can now follow specific hashtags. This is big news for Instagram. The tough part about building an audience is actually being able to reach them. With this newer feature, people can find your hashtag and stay on top of it whenever you use it. Remember to use words or phrases that people would actually search for. You do have 30 hashtags to play around with, but make the most out of them—and make sure they're relevant and targeted—in order to grow your following.

“Hashtags are important so that you can attract certain people or industries, plus help make it easy for them to find you,” Morris told us. “I love using hashtags creatively and sometimes throw in some funny ones. That’s when I know who is paying attention. I’ve had clients that never interact on social media call me and say something about that funny hashtag. #WhoAreYou #MyCatLikesColeman”

5. Set a schedule

This last step is more of an overview of how you can use Instagram more effectively for your business. Storey gave us some advice on how to stay consistent with your posts. “Set yourself a schedule and post at least four times a week,” he said.

We wrote previously on how to regulate your social media with a scheduling app. While this might not be exactly what Storey means, it can be an option if you’d rather automate the timing of posts.

If four posts a week is too many (or too few), adjust to your own needs and goals. Once you find a posting frequency that works best for you, do your best to stay consistent.

“At first, it might seem like a challenge to come up with content that often, but once it becomes a habit you’ll find your feed filling up with followers,” Storey said.

1. Post captivating images and videos

Instagram is the spot where users go to see visual 
content, but it also provides a prime chance to share 
videos with your followers. Unfortunately, since Instagram is 
all about quick visuals, it can be a challenge to hold people’s 
attention. The time you put into creating captivating content, both image and caption, will ultimately be the difference between a post users see and engage with and one they just scroll past.

Angela Morris, a promotional product sales consultant for 
Geiger based in Nashville, Tenn., previously told us that for her, being sincere in your posts is big, and something your audience will notice. “For me, I like to post about products that I personally like and would use, because no message is worth posting if it’s not based in sincerity and authenticity,” she said. “The old saying ‘a picture says a thousand words’ is true and will be felt by your audience as they scroll on by. #BeReal.”

“Post visually engaging content—content that catches the eye,” said Evan Tarakjian, social media and content creator for Spector & Co., the promotional products supplier based in Montreal. “People scroll through their feeds quickly. Make sure your content stands out. How? Tell a story with your content. Instagram offers you the ability to pair video with still images. Mix it up, and don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Make sure the look and feel of your content stays consistent. Use similar colors, and try not to mix styles from post to post. When someone lands on your Instagram page, the grid needs to look polished and consistent.”

If you’re interested in posting videos on Instagram, Tarakjian suggested using subtitles, since most people prefer to keep sound off for social media feeds. “Also, be sure you have linked your Instagram account to your Facebook business page to 
access the Instagram Insights,” he added. “This will allow you to determine valuable information about your audience and the best times to post.”

2. Use the Instagram Stories and Highlights functions

Instagram Stories don’t have to be meticulously crafted images or videos—they can be brief updates better for “real-time” interaction with users. They’re especially useful during trade shows or events, or even if you want to directly address your audience. Stories disappear after 24 hours, but you can always add them to your Highlights section if you’d like your 
audience to be able to go back and view them later.

Quick Twitter Tips for Promotional Products Businesses

By Sarah Semple

According to Statista, Twitter has 326 million worldwide users. That’s more than the entire population of the U.S., making Twitter one of the top social media platforms based on active users. While not all 326 million people are going to be relevant to your business, the numbers put into context the kind of reach and impact Twitter can have for businesses. Here’s how Bonnie Harris put it in a 2018 article for Business 2 Community: “Your profile is the face of your business on Twitter. It is the first thing anyone scrutinizes whenever they bump into your handle on the platform.”

Of course, there’s a lot of competition out there for businesses on Twitter, so you need to find ways to stand out. Here are a few.

1. Follow the right people

When you’re planning your Twitter strategy, ask yourself the following questions:

• Who would benefit from my business’s tweets?
• Who would connect with posts my business retweets?
• Who would find my content interesting or helpful?

Then, follow people or businesses that fit those descriptions. Unfortunately, following someone on Twitter doesn’t automatically mean they’ll follow you back, but at least you’ve taken the initiative and put your brand out there, and it gives you further chances to engage with their posts, increasing the likelihood you’ll get on their radar. It will also help you see the kind of content they engage with, giving you ideas on what to share yourself.

Annie Dimock, social media editor for Printing Impressions, Philadelphia, Promo Marketing’s sister publication, touched on why following people and businesses within your industry is so essential to having a successful channel. “Only follow companies relevant to your brand,” she said. “You don’t want an oversaturated timeline with content that isn’t of value to you.”

2. Utilize Twitter chat functions (or jump in on a Twitter chat)

If you’re already using hashtags on Twitter to drive people to your tweets, you’re off to a good start. But hashtags serve another purpose that may not be as widely known: Twitter chats. These are scheduled events where likeminded individuals, well, chat about a certain topic, with a preset hashtag tying the whole thing together and allowing people to follow along.

They’re great for networking online. And the promo industry has one, called #promochat, which happens every Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET. Jay Busselle, marketing director for Equipment Zone, Franklin Lakes, N.J., who has more than 4,000 Twitter followers, happens to be its founder. But there are plenty of others. He noted that, through a website called Twubs, you can find a number of topics and calendars for when each is happening.

“Once you find a chat that interests you, make note of the associated hashtag. Then simply make sure you are online and logged into Twitter at the scheduled time, and search for the hashtag to find the latest tweets,” Busselle said. “Twitter chats provide amazing networking opportunities and give you and your company a tremendous amount of exposure. You can participate by answering some of the questions that the chat moderator has shared. You can also respond to or retweet with comments on how you feel about other people’s answers.”

Busselle had a power tip for using Twitter chats: “Monitor and engage in specific Twitter chats where your clients are or should be engaged. There is a chat for every industry and thousands of business topics.”

3. Keep your content short and to the point

Twitter changed its original 140-character limit to 280, giving users twice the real estate for their tweets. While this does change things for people who want to write posts that are on the longer side, it’s good to keep in mind that Twitter is meant for shorter updates. Evan Tarakjian, social media and content creator for Spector & Co., the promotional products supplier based in Montreal, explained that shorter tweets are more likely to get noticed.

“Create updates that are short and sweet,” he said. “It’s true that tweets that are shorter get retweeted more often. Expand your audience with the use of hashtags. Have a good mix of tweet types. This mix can consist of retweets, images, links, quotes or short videos.”

10 Landing Page Mistakes That Are Killing Your Chances At Conversion

It can happen to the best of us, you’re spending lots of money buying ads, you’ve designed and optimised your ads so the get lots of clicks, but there are no conversions. You double checked again to make sure the links are not dead in the ad, and they are coming to your site.

So why aren’t they converting?

According to research done by MarketingSherpa, 44% of B2B clicks are directed to a home page, instead of a dedicated landing page. So where are you sending your traffic? Sending ad traffic to a dedicated landing page helps to improve your page relevance (which is an essential ingredient of your Quality Score, the single biggest factor in determining your ad results and costs).

Sending (paid) traffic to unoptimized landing pages is a big waste of time.

A landing page is a standalone page designed for one specific objective. Or at least it should be. In reality, even if you sent your traffic to a dedicated landing page, they ask their visitors for too many different things. Everything is shouting for attention. And with all these things screaming for attention, visitors tend to leave.

For you as a small business owner or a startup, every dollar wasted is a dollar you can’t spend growing your company. So what are the most common mistakes made on landing pages and what can you do to make sure you don’t make them?

In this article, we go through the ten most made mistakes and show you what you can about them.

Landing Page Mistake #1. Slow Page Speed

We can start talking about all the things that might be wrong with your landing page, like point two, too many distractions, etc. But that would mean that people first need to see your landing page.

If your landing page doesn’t load with five seconds, 74% of your visitors are already dropping off before they could even get distracted by all of the other points.

For eCommerce sites, this is even worse. Having a three-second load time? Half your traffic is already gone. That is the reason why the best brand in the world first focuses on reducing their load time. Their load time is below one second and so should yours be.

So how can you check and improve your loading speed? First off you need to check your current speed. Tools like Pingdom or Google’s PageSpeed Insights will give you a quick idea how you’re currently doing and what specific items could be optimised.

Most of the times there are a couple of things slowing down the loading speed of your website, which is easily fixable:

• Cleaning up your code, removing extra’s that you don’t need. Minifying your JavaScript and CSS files etc.
• Minimising redirects where possible
• Just like your the previous two steps, a lot of people forget to optimise their visuals and run them through tools like TinyPNG, etc. to reduce the file size
• If all of the above three items still don’t make a dent in the universe, it might be time to upgrade your hosting as well

Landing Page Mistake #2. Too Many Distractions

A lot of people are in the belief that a user should have a choice. That more choice is better, however in the case of a landing page where there is only one specific objective, having a choice is bad.

We live in an attention economy, and too many choices kill the ability to make a decision.

Every extra element you add to your page decreases the importance of everything else on your page. By minimising distractions, you increase the attention towards the most important items. This means the navigation bar should be gone, links in the footer should not be there, etc., etc.

For example, in 2009 the landing page of Twitter was asking for seven different actions:

And even though they could point to all these things on their homepage to try people to convince to use Twitter. The purpose of that page should only be two things. Either you sign-up or you sign-in. All the rest, like links to their USP’s, etc. were taking people away from those two goals.

If you compare that to what their homepage looks like right now, you can see the difference.

The Twitter homepage in 2017, focusing on the two most important items: sign-in or sign-up.

They’ve removed every extra element that could be distraction their visitors. Focusing on the two most important things. Think of it like this. When you arrive at a page like this, most people’s reaction would be “What am I supposed to look at here?”.

You need to get rid of any visual distraction that would prevent someone from taking the action you want them to take on your landing page if you want it to be successful.

Landing Page Mistake #3. No Unique Selling Proposition (USP) or Value Proposition

When all distractions are removed your landing page, the first thing a visitor should see is the most important sales point you have. Why would someone want to buy your product or sign-up for your product or mailing list?

Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP), or Value Proposition should communicate in a clear and firm voice what makes you so special. Depending on the goal of the landing page, this could be the product you’re pushing, the promotion you’re offering or some statistics that make your business so unique that the visitors can’t help themselves to sign-up.

People sometimes make the mistake of confusing their USP with their Call-To-Actions (CTA). To make it easy to remember, your USP is your primary and unique selling point, while your CTA turns the interest generated from this USP into the action you want them to take.

Some examples you can use on your landing page:

• The easiest way to [product or business purpose]
• The #1 provider of [service]
• [Well-known-brand] gives you [thing], we give you [better thing]
• Get [your service] Free for [length of trial]!

Landing Page Mistake #4. Copy That Doesn’t Match Your Offer

Everything you write on your landing page from the Value Proposition to the body copy needs to be in line with the offering your giving and the ad copy that led people to your landing page in the first place.

When someone sees an ad for something and the landing page they land on is talking about something completely different they are gone before you know it. The copy of both USP and the body copy on the page needs to be relevant to the user because that is the only way you can keep their attention and make them complete the action.

Look at the above picture, for example, the copy on the left is better than the copy on the right, because of the copy on the right repeats that “top rated Bluetooth earbuds” again, compared to just some generic product title on the right. Where are the earbuds that I just saw in the ad?

Landing Page Mistake #5. Not Having a Preview of the Item and Other Visual Mistakes

We’re living in a visual society, so why don’t you take full advantages of them on your landing page? There’s a lot of reasons why the visuals on your landing pages are hurting your conversions; let’s have a look at them:

• Irrelevant images – Almost a bit the same as your copy not matching your offering. The same problem can happen when using a wrong hero shot, a visual representation of your offer that demonstrates how your product or service works so your prospects can picture themselves using it. If you’ve created an ebook and have a landing page set-up for that, use a picture of the ebook to give people an idea of what they are getting. Any other images won’t be bringing any value and will only distract
• No images – Almost as bad as having a wrong image, is having no image at all. An image can help and support the value proposition that you’re trying to communicate. Make sure that the visual you offer stands out on your page and communicates your content clearly though.

Landing Page Mistake #6. Not Optimising Landing Pages for Search

Just like writing and optimising your normal website copy for SEOwriting and optimising your normal website copy for SEO, you should also do this same practice for writing the content for your landing page. Especially if you’re a small company with not a lot of budget to spend on ad campaigns, you need your landing pages to be shown up in organic search results.

Be sure to do keyword research before writing your headlines, sub head lines and product descriptions. Otherwise, you might have a perfectly good converting landing page, but it only converts as long as you keep putting money behind it. If no one search for the content on your landing page it will never rank.

For example, you could make a page by mistake that the title tag, H1 heading and image alt tag information optimised for just the keyword “playbook” when that is too general, and you will never rank for the keyword “Social Media Playbook”.

If you want to optimise your landing pages for SEO be sure to:

• Use the model numbers of product title in your title tags and H1 headings
• Use brand names in your title tags and H1 headings
• Don’t forget to include an image alt tag information
• Don’t keyword stuff the page, but just repeating it over and over again (never a good idea)
• And never, ever use iframes to showcase the content of your landing page. Make sure that the content on the landing page is there.

Landing Page Mistake #7. No, or uninspiring Social Proof

A lot of marketers make the mistake of creating a landing page without any social proof. Social proof, or endorsements by others, however, can showcase a strong reputation, it shows that your trustworthy and as a result can increase the conversion on your landing pages.

Reviews need to be actual quotes from real, relatable customers, celebrities or influencers that have used your product or service. Showing real people with their name, function and profile picture, makes your page seem friendlier and can help showcase your product in a way that is hard to achieve by just your copy. Of course, the better known a person is, the better the social proof.

Take a look for example at the social proof on our landing page for our social media playbook, why do these testimonials work so well?

• The include the full name, and picture of real people who read and got value from our playbook, as well as the position and company they work for, or any awards they got, proving their credibility
• They are relatable to traffic arriving at that particular landing page because they are well known in the industry

Social proof shows the value of the product or service you’re trying to offer on your landing page and can have a strong influence on your conversion rate. By including them on your landing page, you show credibility making potential leads more at ease into trusting your business.

Landing Page Mistake #8. Poor Mobile Experience

In May 2015, Google mobile searches surpassed desktop searches. This is a trend, and it’s not going away. 80% of Facebook’s Advertising Revenue can be attributed to mobile.

Image Source: Business Insider

There is a high probability that over 50% of the visitors to your landing page are arriving there on some mobile device. If your landing page is not optimised for the mobile experience, your losing money and credibility.

Next, to that mobile visitors have a different intent and high distraction levels and expectations that are not always inline with people viewing your landing page on desktop.

To get the most out of your landing page on mobile ensure that it is not to there is not to much text and that the text that is on your landing page is clearly readable. The average width of an adult thumb is 1 inch, which converts to 72 pixels. Make sure that your Call-To-Actions are big enough for easy click using your thumb.

Landing Page Mistake #9. Your call-to-actions are confusing people

Call To Actions (CTA’s). The lifeblood of any organisation. After all, what good does it do for your company, when someone pays a visit to your landing page and leaves again?

A lot of marketers love CTA’s so much that they try to add multiple of them on a landing page. The logic being, if a visitor doesn’t like your primary CTA, there is always another one right?

But as we already showed in mistake number two, too many distractions can hurt your conversions. The best practice is to only place one single CTA on your landing page.

Try playing with the copy, colours, and urgency on your CTA’s to find the perfect mix for your landing page:

• Use an action verb (get, do, try, start)
• Use “You” instead of “My” (Start your free trial)
• Be specific about what they’ll get (Get your 14-day free trial)

Landing Page Mistake #10. You’re Asking For Too Much

If you a brick and mortar store and a someone walked in, potentially wanting to buy from you. Would you ask where they live, how many family members they have and maybe if you can hold their credit card while they browse through your store? Probably not.

Or maybe when you’re in a bar, and a total stranger walked up to you asking for your phone number? Would that work? Okay there might be a slim change for that one, but you get the point 

Why wouldn’t these examples work though? Because there is no trusting relationship yet, you’ve never met before, and you’re immediately asking for all sorts of private details.

The same thing goes for a lot of forms on landing pages.

You’ve just fixed all of the above and your potential lead is ready to fill in the form, but then… your form is way to complicated.

And of course, for your business, you want to have as much information as possible so you can properly qualify your leads. But for a visitor, they want to get your product, your ebook or whatever other it is that your offering as quickly and easily as possible.

Even one or two extra fields can drastically decrease the conversion rate of your landing page according to research done by Hubspot.

So what to do? Try to find a trade-off; maybe there are some form fields like a location you can already automatically pre-fill. Or maybe ask only a name and email address the first time, and the second time when someone comes back asking for a little bit more details.

A lot of companies are asking way more information on a form than they need. At a basic level, you need an email address and maybe a name. The rest you can obtain later. Before adding any extra field on your form ask yourself this question: is this information necessary to complete the current transaction? If not leave it out.

There you go, the ten biggest mistakes you could be making on your landing pages that are killing your conversions. And now you know, there is no excuse anymore to keep on making them on your landing pages.

Time for you to take a critical look at your current landing pages using the above tips. Time to get those conversions up and improve your business results.

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