The use of digital media is continuing to rise dramatically across the world. To put a figure on this growth, there was a 13% average increase in budget for digital marketing between 2019 and 2020¹. What’s more, there is nothing to suggest this trend is set to slow down in the foreseeable future.

Due to a combination of technology advances, changes in the way we are going about our daily lives and the increase in remote working for many of us during 2020, our customers are now reading, buying and working online more than they ever have done before.

As a business, it would be easy to see this as the green light to invest more of your marketing budget on those popular digital channels. Particularly with money tighter than ever and many organisations facing cuts to marketing budgets.

But before you jump to that conclusion, it might well be worth your while pausing for thought. Just doing what everybody else is doing is an easy way for your sales messages to get lost among all the others out there from your various competitors.

One reason that personalised print is so effective these days in comparison to digital is that customers receive less of it. As opposed to the hundreds of emails clogging up their inboxes, customers are likely to receive just a handful of print deliveries a week.

Following that well-known marketing adage: “when everyone else zigs, zag”, you are now likely to find better value by turning to print media. This provides a direct, tangible and effective alternative for you to engage your customers and make a lasting impression with them.

However, to retain the sense of higher value that comes from scarcity, it’s important the assets you produce are perceived as premium quality or else they will end up in the recycle bin as fast as any email. Research tells us that the quality of print comms, from the media type to the design, makes a significant impact on how effective it is.

To inspire you and demonstrate the kind of engagement that can be achieved with print, take a look at a couple of examples that received international recognition, the Mercedes hologram direct mail piece² and the Ford Ranger, ‘How to break up with your Ford Ranger’ door drop³. Both pieces of work highlight the limitations of one-dimensional email in comparison to highly versatile print campaigns.

One of the key considerations that has traditionally held back print investment is budget. Reduced production costs were arguably the main appeal of digital media when this option first emerged on the scene. We could understand that you might be reluctant to consider investing in high quality print solutions if you rely on expensive outsourcing partners for production. But there is now a very good way to get around this problem.

Your business can save money and produce quality assets in-house by investing in the imagePRESS C170 Series from Canon. This is an advanced solution that offers the office functionality you’d expect from a ‘workhorse’ printer with additional finishing options. Quite simply, it offers you the best of both worlds: an economical everyday printer but also one that delivers the kind of high-quality output that enables you to extend your capabilities into pro print.

The quality really is so good that you can use the imagePRESS C170 Series to market your products and services to impressed customers without having to outsource print production to your regular supplier.

Better still, the portfolio of imagePRESS C170 Series products is designed to offer a wide spectrum of capability to meet your individual business requirements. The range is designed to deliver consistent, high-resolution, vividly coloured print assets to enable you to achieve the most effective and engaging results. Our range offers the technology you need to create versatile, playful and exciting outputs, covering everything from posters to customised packaging.

With FOGRA-accredited quality brand colours reproduced consistently across multiple jobs, over an extended period of time, a high level of finish is guaranteed for all your projects. You’ll also benefit from unrivalled versatility. Create distinctive formats including standard size A4 and A3, envelopes, media up to 350gsm and long-sheet functionality up to 1300mm. Enjoy just as much flexibility with textures, choosing from gloss, silk, plain and textured media, variable data and a comprehensive range of in-line professional finishing.

To find out more about what the imagePRESS C170 Series from Canon could do for your business, take a look at the portfolio brochure.