How interactive print helped one printing company increase a client’s revenues by 22%
Digital clutter prevents business growth
According to Hubspot, 35% of marketers now send their customers 3-5 emails per week. For many people this is just too much. Some marketers are of the opinion that the more e-mail you send out, the better your chances of your message being seen at some point by the recipient.
However, the rise of e-mail frequency means that it can be increasingly difficult for your message to get seen. Compared to this, direct mail still stands out to the recipient. Recent research by JicMail, shows that direct mail stays in a household for an average of 7.4 days. That is considerably longer than the average e-mail. In addition, 9% of recipients of direct mail visit an advertiser’s website.
The challenge is to encourage as many recipients as possible to not only visit the website but also to take the right action and to share data with you. And that’s where interactive print comes in.
What is interactive print?
Interactive print is a way of combining print and digital that encourages prospects to engage with a piece of print and carry out an action. This action will attract them and potentially start them on a bigger journey.
Interactive print has also been known as augmented reality. However, augmented reality focuses on the digital element. In the past, it has often been associated with effects that look very impressive but don’t necessarily encourage the audience to take further action.
Compared to a traditional e-mail campaign, interactive print often allows a marketer to start off a more personal relationship with their audience. It inspires the prospect because it shows them something different. But this inspiration also encourages the audience to take action. It helps a marketer to control the journey that the prospect will take. It allows a marketer to achieve impressive results.
Here is a case study that shows how effective interactive print can be
One printing company had an Australian rugby league club as a client. During the first Covid pandemic lockdown, the club was struggling to stay engaged with its member base. This was particularly challenging when so many organisations were turning to more e-mail to try and stay in touch with their audiences. As a result, membership of the club was declining, along with the associated membership revenues.
The printing company suggested sending a physical birthday card to members. When members opened the card, they were prompted to scan a QR code within the content to “Receive their exclusive birthday wish and gift” from the club. When the code was scanned, the recipient received a hologram-like birthday video message from players in the club. In addition, they were given a birthday discount on merchandise.
An incredible 82% of club members engaged with their birthday cards. The click through rate was 327%, showing a high level of sharing by recipients. Membership decline was slowed by over 60% and online store revenues increased by 22%.
The club has now implemented the same technology to launch on-site campaigns from posters and pull-up banners. They are also printing a fridge magnet that members can scan at any given time to receive club updates and, more importantly, offers that change on a regular basis. Finally, they are looking at creating interactive treasure hunts at the club based on this technology.
The success of this campaign has also opened the doors of many other sports clubs to the printing company.
Is interactive print only for companies with a good tech team and clients with a big budget?
Many printing companies feel that they lack the investment and technical knowledge required to create a campaign like this. However, this particular promotion was produced by a franchise printer with just six staff.
Interactive print software has now developed to the point where it is now available at an affordable SaaS level. In addition, some software allows users to create their own campaigns without the use of expensive experts. Campaigns do not have to be complicated to create: the video element of this promotion was implemented in just three minutes.
How do you get started with your own interactive print campaign?
- List existing clients who could benefit from an interactive print campaign like the one featured above
- Find out more about interactive print software – one option is UnifiedAR who sponsored this article and whose software powered the case study. They offer affordable, self-service options as well as help with campaigns
- Design a similar campaign to the one above that you could present to one of your clients
Marketers know that traditional digital campaigns are struggling
This a chance for printing companies to show businesses of all types and sizes how interactive print can work for them. It is also an opportunity to gain traction with businesses that don’t believe in the effectiveness of print.
Look out for further education on interactive print from me in 2022 as well as more case studies.
PS If you would like a more in-depth version of the case study featured, you can download it here.
