Print has always been a potent channel for direct marketing and communication, and one of the safest. This is not new information to us. But recent events on Twitter including the image above sent out by ‘Nintendo America’ have sent shockwaves through the socialverse.
The reputation and stock prices of brands caught up in the current Twitter mess have plummeted and created crisis-level conversations in the advertising world. These conversations will have a significant impact on the online channels brands and businesses use to advertise and an increase in allocation for print marketing is a logical conclusion.
I am going to skip how we got here. Do a search for Elon Musk + Twitter, and you will quickly get up to speed. I am focused on the fallout, and how print needs to POUNCE while the door is open for 2023 budget planning with print customers of all sizes.
Take these talking points and run with them!
SAFETY
Ask: Have you ever seen a brand/company/business being impersonated in your mailbox? Have you ever received printed information from a brand/company/business that led you to a ‘customer service representative’ who stole your personal data and credit card information?
Print marketing is the safest bet for all things security. And I mean all things, starting with it’s the REAL brand/company/business communicating with me.
At this point in time, many brands/companies/businesses require quick communication with their customers alerting them to their ‘official’ Twitter account.
They may also require customer communication that they are leaving Twitter, not providing any customer service through the platform (including the airlines!), instructions for safely contacting them, a process for reporting fraud, and messaging that outlines how the brand/company/business will support customers who have been misled.
EDUCATION
Now is the time to whip out all the glorious stats about the effectiveness of print marketing in the omnichannel mix. Do not trash digital media or social media marketing in the process. Your customers may still be doing it on other channels.
This isn’t an “I told you so” moment; it’s an “I GOT YOU” moment.
Through print marketing and printed communications we can talk to everyone, groups within everyone, or individuals that comprise the whole or comprise the segments. We can get messages out to the market fast; we can get the right message at the right time to the right recipients and generate customer loyalty in the process.
This is pre-emptive, crisis intervention, or worse it’s crisis management. I know there are still supply issues with paper and envelopes but trust me, no brand/company/business will hold these communications to wait for a specific stock or envelope. GET CRAFTY, fast. Deliver the best quality you can and update/upgrade options as they become available.
FEEL GOOD
There is so much negativity on Twitter (and other social channels) that users aka your customers, their customers, and consumers have cut down their time on platforms. TikTok is the one exception since it is perceived as a community by its users and is highly regulated and monitored for nefarious behavior.
People go to TikTok to feel good, and it doesn’t disappoint. I can be on there for an hour before I realize it, and I am often smiling or cracking up most of the time. I also search for air fryer recipes, and life-hacks, and watching ‘Dancing Michael’ Makin (@dancingmichael) never disappoints. Yes, THAT Michael Makin.
Another channel for feeling good: print! Most of us have experienced ‘good’ through print: news, opportunities, offers, celebrations, announcements, achievements, invitations, acceptance, rewards, diplomas, certifications, cards, and letters, to name a few.
This is THE time to remind brands/companies/businesses to invest in customer and employee happiness through printed materials including apparel. An email or text won’t do it. Not now. Now is about knowing your message has reached the intended recipient and wasn’t blocked or sent to a spam folder.
GET PRINT TRENDING WITH CUSTOMERS
Create packages to help your customers engage in a trusted communication channel. One that makes people feel good, fosters loyalty and retention, and most important is safe to open!
PRINT LONG AND PROSPER!
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See Deborah’s featured post: How to Tell if You Are Considered a Print Vendor or a Print Partner
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Deborah Corn is the Intergalactic Ambassador to the Printerverse at Print Media Centr, a Print Buyerologist, international industry speaker and blogger, and the cultivator of Print Production Professionals, the #1 print group on LinkedIn. She provides printspiration and resources to print and marketing professionals through education, events, Podcasts From The Printerverse, ProjectPeacock.TV, and an array of community-lifting initiatives including Girls Who Print, Elevate Print, #PrintChat, #PrintLife and International Print Day.
Deborah also helps companies create more meaningful and profitable customer relationships by utilizing more than 25 years of experience as an agency, brand, and corporate print buyer who has assessed, hired, and worked with a plethora of printers and service providers.
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This November 2022 might be the turning point in our most media hyped industries: Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX is insolvent. Elon Musk’s Twitter is loosing its biggest advertisement-spenders and firing 50% of its employees. Marc Zuckerberg’s meta looses users and fires 11,000 of its digital experts. Zuckerberg seems to be lightyears away from metaverse. And we – Johannes Gutenberg’s disciples – we are living in the printerverse merging our 500-year-old medium with the digital future on the world’s flattest flat screen: paper. Cheers!
I couldn’t agree with you more… except on the MetaVerse. It’s wonky and won’t get to its potential anytime soon, but it’s not lightyears away. They have pumped/dumped so much money into it, there is no going back unless they take the loss and move on – and I can’t see that happening. It’s going to roll out in stages and add form and functionality just like the internet. Think about your browsing experience before MOBILE-first, and before that. It’s night and day within 10ish years. Don’t count it out, just yet. By 2030 it will be populated and hopping – some version of it.
Believe it or not: God created the world in seven days. But Zuck is not God. The MetaVerse is as wonky as SecondLife, which exists since 2003. Zuck‘s Vision is nothing else than a Tower of Babel. 3000 years ago, the sky was their limit. Their problem was the babylonian confusion of language. Zuck‘s problem is simpler: a 3D-avatar needs tons of CO2 to stay alive. Our blue planet now has to nourish 8 billion human beeings. Our earth cannot feed another 2 billion avatars.
It is like bitcoin-mining: As energy-costs and CO2-compensation costs are escalating, Zuckerberg will never ever earn the money to finance hugh server farms all over the world.