Guest Post by Robert Alpha Avant
Hello everyone! Today I’m very pleased to introduce a friend of mine, independent marketing consultant Robert Waddington, aka Robert Alpha Avant. I like to call him the Alpha Dawg because of his aggressive style and fierce sales stamina. Robert is a digital marketing master, yet he’s a print geek at heart. Well, maybe geek is the wrong word. He doesn’t get gooey over paper art the way I do. He gets weak in the knees because he believes in the power of print to generate revenue for his clients. I’ll let him explain the rest.
Why I love printing
Emotion is a powerful tool. Emotion is the catalyst that can change deeply engrained thoughts, and bring out both the best and worst of humanity.
In skilled hands, emotion can be a force that can direct, suggest, and otherwise shape things that might be headed in a completely different direction. I mention emotion and printing together as they have been inexorably linked since Gutenberg started fumbling around with moveable type way back in 1450.
Regarding emotion, I would like to make a quick digression to the story of Vedran Smailović, a former cellist in the Sarajevo String Quartet. During the siege of Sarajevo (which lasted from 1992 to 1996), Mr. Smailović would regularly play in the ruins of the bombed out buildings.
This bold and quite heroic move on the part of Mr. Smailović stood in striking contrast to the emotive and gentle music of his solo performances. This striking juxtaposition resonated worldwide and soon became a touchstone for the power of the human spirit in the face of tyranny and oppression.
A similarly emotive image was also struck by the single person standing down a long line of tanks during the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989.
In the few minutes that Mr. Smailović played his cello, or in the moment that man took his stand in front of the Tanks in Tiananmen Square, a wave of emotions that would take hundreds of words to tell transferred to the viewer in one simple image. This transference coalesced into a clear message of the strength and triumph of human spirit which in turn touched so many disparate people from every corner of the world.
Yes indeed, emotion is a powerful communicator.
Printing and emotion go hand in hand.
Now, printing is not the same emotional touchstone that the above mentioned examples are, but it does work similarly on a lesser scale. The printed word was the vehicle that drove humanity out of the dark ages and into the age of enlightenment. It was printing that fueled education and subsequently allowed for such huge developments in science that gave way to the industrial era.
Printing has been an integral part of man’s advancement and it deserves a rightful place in the growth of man. I bring this point out because there has been a trend of late to dismiss printing as if it is a dead or non-relevant industry.
That thinking is not only erroneous, but it is very far from the truth.
Printing is vital to local communities and industries.
For instance, brochures and direct mail pieces are far more effective than emails and websites in terms of conversions per pieces. Yes, a printed sale literature does cost more per piece than its electronic equivalent, but the return is substantially higher with printed matter than it is with electronic marketing methods. Check out this study on ROI of printed material vs. online marketing methods for more info.
Why I recommend print campaigns to my clients
In my business, I provide marketing services to B2B and B2C companies in various market segments. For every marketing campaign I perform, I almost always suggest a printed piece as part of the overall strategy. I do this because it is both smart and provides a genuine ROI on investment.
I recommend print not just because it is so effective, but because of the emotional component I refer to in the opening paragraphs of this article.
Emotion is a powerful tool. Emotion comes in a wide range of intensity. The higher emotional intensity the printed piece versus the lower emotional impact of other media is a valuable bit of information. What will you do with this information?
As a business owner, you might not be taking part in a revolution, but you have a need to connect with the public. Your ability to connect to the public is commensurate with your ability to stay in business. Make sure you use the emotional power of print in your growth strategy.
Do you love printing?
About the Author
Robert Waddington has been writing about marketing and business since 1999. He covers topics regarding industry segments, branding, the marketing forces that drive commerce, and the need to be up-to-date with trends. Robert is the founder of Alpha Avant. Alpha Avant provides content, technical writing and social media consultation services.