When a successful national business comes out in favour of print marketing, you ought to sit up and listen to what they have to say. The chief executive of the John Lewis Partnership’s media agency, Tim Pearson, reported that print marketing offered the best return on investment of any marketing campaign. At the Newsworks’ Shift 2016 conference earlier this month, he said: “Print is our most effective ROI channel. It really does deliver commercial value for the partnership. News brands are consistently in the top two [advertising channels] for brand and conversion metrics.”
John Lewis’ Three Pronged Approach
Waitrose have perfected a three pronged approach to marketing, two of which rely heavily on print. They advertise in the print media, they produce their own in-house magazines and supplements, and they distribute online branded content. As a printing company, we’re most interested in the first two ‘prongs’.
Advertising in Print Media
Tammy Einav, the managing director of Adam and Eve/DDB, the creative agency that produces campaigns for the John Lewis Partnership, says print “allows us to tell a richer story.” She highlights the “Add Panache to Your Picnic” campaign they ran for Waitrose in the Daily Telegraph. The adverts featured simple recipes and ways to spice up a picnic and led to a spike in sales of the intended products. This kind of advertising, suggesting how your life will be improved by a product, is particularly effective in print. It’s also no coincidence that Waitrose, a high-end supermarket, were targeting the readers of a broadsheet newspaper.
Image courtesy of Waitrose
Producing Your Own Content
myWaitrose members can pick up Waitrose Food magazine for free every time they shop. A whole magazine may be a little ambitious for a smaller company, but you can always produce a supplement. Perhaps there is already a magazine for your trade you could arrange to have a self-produced supplement distributed in? Advertorials (adverts in the form of editorial content) are a less expensive way of producing your own content.
The best approach to marketing is the one that works for your company. If you push a particular product or service, look out for a boost in sales for that line and make sure you are ready to meet it! If you would like to talk to some experts about producing your own full colour supplement or magazine, give us a call on 01603 488001.