Online and Print: Like Peanut Butter and Jelly?

Some self-appointed experts proclaim there's a vast difference between the brave new digital world and more traditional media like print. Although there are obvious differences in the way messages are delivered, fundamentally there are more similarities than it may seem.

At the core, it all revolves around communication. We are still trying to communicate the same things:

Persuading recipients to open our communication

Encouraging people to read our relevant messages

Convincing our target market to believe the point we are trying to get across

Driving people to take action on our message

There's no denying that the Internet has changed how we communicate. However, it would be a mistake to believe that digital should completely replace message delivery methods like print. As studies have shown, most people trust print more than email and social media. Anyone can send out a tweet, blast an email, or publish a Facebook post, but only legitimate businesses will invest the time and necessary resources to create a print campaign.

It's interesting to note a recent trend with many online retailers and other Internet-based businesses using print advertising to drive visitors and sales to their websites. Even Google uses direct mail. Online and print work well together when there's a solid strategy in place.

One of the unfortunate side effects of the digital age has been the exponential increase of spam and junk aimed at businesses and consumers. The low cost barrier to entry has encouraged irrelevant messages to fill in-boxes and clog the Internet with useless information. It turns out there is a cost to free.

The other negative side effect of digital delivery and the Internet has been to give equal footing to the useless and the idiotic. This makes the job of having your messages stand out even more difficult.

Whether you're writing an email, a web page, or social media posts, it's a struggle to be seen and heard above the massive onslaught of junk and spam in the digital wasteland of today. Ironically, the new additional marketing mediums of today have made it much harder, not easier to get your message across.

Despite the issues, digital is here to stay. But print is not going away either. There are strengths for both mediums. Smart businesses and marketers know that for any campaign to work as well as it can, there must be a combination of print and digital.

Using print and digital together is a lot like having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Sure, you can have one without the other, but it tastes a lot better when you combine the two.

Comments

Preparing Files for Print

If you design your own marketing materials, successfully preparing your files for print production can not only save you time and money, but will also ensure your final product is exactly what you envision. Here are a few tips on how to prepare your files for print: Include a listing of all contents used in your file, such as fonts and images. Save your files with explicit, useful names. Include high resolution (300 dpi) images and make sure the images are linked to the images used in the document. Modify images in a photo editing program before placing them in a layout file. For example, if you rotate an image, rotate it in Photoshop before you place it in Quark or InDesign. Check your printout for text flow issues and bad text breaks. Include all font styles (bold, italic, etc.) for every typeface used in the project, not just the individual font. Use exact measurements and guidelines to ensure accuracy. Include registration marks for bleed trims. Define the size of the document to m

JPEG or TIFF

The JPEG file format has gained prominence over the past few years, in large part due to its ability to provide a fairly high-quality image at a fraction of the size of other formats, such as TIFF. Of course, that benefit comes at a cost. JPEGs save disk space by eliminating some of the subtle color changes not readily apparent to the human eye. At a minimal compression setting, those changes are fairly hard to see. The higher the compression, however, the more of those changes are lost, and the blurrier the image becomes. Here are some tips to remember when working with JPEG images: • Start at the top. If you’re taking your own digital photos, set your camera to its highest-quality JPEG setting. The images will come out larger, but the quality will look sharp. For photos when print quality is especially important, set the camera to save images as TIFF files, if that option is available. • When editing an image, consider saving it as a TIFF, instead of a JPEG file. TIFF files are large

Pack Extra Meaning into Your Message with Strategic Color Combinations

Of all the elements of design, color is probably the most challenging to understand. Color originates from a light source that is viewed directly or seen as reflected light. While colors can be displayed in spectrums, prisms, or contrasts, the power of colors is not only in their arrangement, but in the way we perceive them. Want to add depth to your message? The colors you choose can add an extra layer of meaning. Colors Prompt a Specific Response According to Sally Augustin from Psychology Today, research shows that particular colors can prompt measurable responses . Here are the impacts of five particular colors, and how you can use them to your advantage: Green Seeing the color green has been linked to more creative thinking—so greens are good options for pieces featuring innovation, creativity, artistic specialties, or proactive growth. Red People featured in front of red backgrounds are generally seen as more attractive when silhouetted against other colors, so reds are great fo

Solid Impressions

Search This Blog