In 2011 a number of our customers came together to form the Charterhouse Customer Panel; a research panel designed to shed light on the issues you’re facing in marketing procurement.
To kick-start the New Year, we’re announcing the results of our first survey on print and digital integration: who’s doing it, how are they using it, and how can you generate more results from your integration methods in 2012?
The Results
We discovered that the majority (70%) of marketers are using print to drive interest to their digital content. The most common objective, stated by 61% of respondents, is to increase traffic to their website. None use print to drive people to mobile content – including mobile websites – and only 2% employ it to attract audiences to social media.
But while the emergence of QR codes and other tools have created new opportunities to integrate print and digital marketing, marketers are still using relatively simple tactics. The most common is a standard URL (83%), while more sophisticated tools such as QR codes (26%) and augmented reality (5%) are used less frequently.
Emerging Technologies
These tools may have been disregarded as mere fads in the past, but as brands get smarter, they are discovering how these can be used to add genuine value to the customer experience. Some innovations, like augmented reality visualisations of what products will look like in our homes, could fundamentally change the way we interact with brands for good.
According to the Panel, the reason behind this relatively basic approach to integration is a lack of clarity about the potential benefits of emerging technologies. Though marketers are yet to be convinced by these emerging tools, around half (46%) agree print is vital to driving interest in digital content and campaigns.
Plans for 2012
We asked the Panel about their plans for print and digital integration in the future, and there was enormous appetite to experiment more this year. Half (51%) are planning to use QR codes in the next twelve months – double the number that are using them now – and almost two thirds (59%) plan to link to social media content rather than their own websites. A small proportion (7%) even plan to integrate print and augmented reality in 2012.
So where do we go from here? Clearly, experimentation with new techniques is key to fuelling innovation. But it’s also important to study examples of best practice to ensure your print and digital integration delivers the best possible results.
Another salient piece of advice is, simply placing a QR code on print marketing to drive clicks to your homepage is not going to achieve significant results. The objective of linking print and digital should be to engage audiences with additional worthwhile content as part of a broader experience.
Ivan Skoric, Head of Digital Services at Charterhouse
In the news:
+ Mobile Marketing
+ Institute of Direct Marketing
