In the last 5 years people have spent a lot of effort trying to productively market to a world that is spending more and more time online, but becomingly increasingly disinterested in viewing advertising during this time. As the length of time that people spend in a digital environment continues to increase, understanding the role traditional forms of media have in increasing online sales is key for marketers today.
People read in a different pattern on digital devices than they do print. When viewing text on a screen “ reading behavior is characterized by more time spent on browsing and scanning, keyword spotting, one‐time reading, non‐linear reading, and reading more selectively, while less time is spent on in‐depth reading, and concentrated reading. Decreasing sustained attention is also noted.” ( emerald insight ) These patterns attribute to peoples ability to mentally block out online advertising. Because in Digital forums they are already in a browsing mindset. “The implicit feel of where you are in a physical book turns out to be more important than we realized,” says Abigail Sellen of Microsoft Research Cambridge in England and co-author of The Myth of the Paperless Office. ( The Reading Brain)
In almost every format from newspapers to magazines to books, the printed versions are showing to be the preferred method of consuming content and advertising. In some respects due to the fact that “Researchers have suggested that people comprehend less when they read on a screen because screen-based reading is more physically and mentally taxing than reading on paper. E-ink is easy on the eyes because it reflects ambient light just like a paper book, but computer screens, smartphones and tablets like the iPad shine light directly into people’s faces.”( emerald insight )
However, people are still spending more and more time online but absorbing less. Between 2015 -2016 alone people increased their time spent online dramatically, and are soon expected to be spending more time consuming digital information than there are hours a day because they have the ability to have multiple devices running at once. At an equally high rate is the prevalence for people to utilize ad blockers, which cost publishers nearly $22 billion during 2015 and rose by 41% (pagefair).
While Print and online advertising are each best suited for different demographics understanding how they can effectively work together is key. “Print advertising led to the greatest increases in the metrics closest to purchasing behavior: brand likeness and purchase intent. Print ad exposures generated lifts that were 7% points higher than those for Online and 3% points higher than those for TV (magazine.org). Online Advertisers also accept that like most other forms of advertising online marketing is mostly about branding, while native advertising and content marketing have become more successful and increasingly popular studies still show that branding and recall is much better in print advertising than in digital. Digital advertising is great at reaching a broad amount of people and building branding opportunity for businesses. Print, on the other hand is usually much better at targeting people locally. More traditional forms of advertising like Print are also the perfect vehicle for increasing online sales because people tend to respond more productively to them than digital advertising. 54% people cite trust as a reason not to click on banner ads
Utilizing the direct mail component, as well and newspaper and magazine are all targeted ways to increase brand recognition to drive traffic online. “ When asked to cite the brand (company name) of an advertisement they had just seen, recall was 70% higher among participants who were exposed to a direct mail piece (75%) than a digital ad (44%). ( Forbes ) Vanity url , QR code , and creating interactive print advertising are key ways to create dialogue between your audience and their digital devices. Just because the type of media is “traditional” doesn’t mean that it can’t be exciting, interacting, and fun as print advertisers becoming increasingly more clever with their print campaigns.