Using Print Media to Market Your Business

Shalom Solomon 19th October, 2021

In an increasingly digitalized world, traditional methods for marketing are surprisingly still in use.

Every day of our lives, we come across a number of traditional marketing media, littered by the roadside, on newspapers, on the TV sets, in gatherings, through marketing agents and so many others.

One of the many traditional marketing channels commonly used by marketers and businesses to promote and advertise products or to simply reach out to prospective consumers is print advertising.

Print media has been used for marketing for a long time and is still very much in use today. Businesses and marketers exploit the benefits of using print media to market, promote their products and also reach a wider target market.

What is Print Advertising?

Lucid advertising defines Print advertising as a form of marketing that uses physically printed materials to reach prospective customers on a large scale.

For Ian Linton, print media advertising is a form of advertising that uses physically printed media such as magazines and newspapers to reach customers.

Bottom line is, print advertising revolves around the use of printed elements to market the products and services of a business.

Forms of Print Media Advertising

1. Newspapers

Newspaper advertising is really the oldest form of advertising available for businesses of all kinds to market and promote their products and services. Marketing using newspapers involves running advertisements for a company, in a newspaper usually print in this case. Newspapers are a form of mass media that means your adverts will be seen by a wide demographic of people but, it also offers the opportunity to focus your marketing. In that, your target market might be business men in Adamawa state, hence, you use local newspapers in Adamawa state to promote your business.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

2. Magazines

Magazines are similar to newspapers, except the fact that they are fancier and are published periodically such as weekly, monthly, bi annually, quarterly and annual magazine publications. Be that as it may, magazines always have a faithful readership. Their patrons always read their issues and have a level of trust in the publishers. This trust is what your marketing campaign would leverage on to reach its target population. People are sometimes hesitant to follow through with prompts from ads because they do not trust the source of the information.

3. Direct Mail

Direct mail is another form of traditional marketing although it is not commonly used in Nigeria. Businesses or marketers can send letters, postcards or vouchers to prospective customers through their local mail boxes. This form of advertising is usually more direct; akin to speaking to the person face to face. Reports show that there is an 80% return on investment when businesses market with direct mail.

4. Billboards

Asides newspapers and flyers, billboards are also one of the longest-running forms of advertising. Though they might be a bit on the high side, advertising with billboards are best for increasing awareness for your business, products or service. When your billboard is done well, people are more likely to purchase your products over alternatives on the shelf.

5. Posters and Flyers

For small businesses that cannot afford to buy a page on a newspaper of pay for a lot of postage stamps or mount a gigantic billboard by the road side, posters and flyers are a very good way to promote their business. I like to think of posters as mini-billboards the only difference is that people might not be able to see it from afar. One advantage flyers have over most forms of advertising is that they are quite portable and can be carried around. That means, a prospective client can always check her bag for your restaurant's flyer to verify if you do home delivery.