While digital marketing dominates, print materials offer a unique opportunity for e-commerce businesses. Strategically placed print can drive targeted traffic and create meaningful connections with your audience. By incorporating practical design tips, seamlessly bridge the offline and online to boost site traffic, make more sales, and build lasting customer relationships.
Key Takeaways
- Distributing print materials strategically in locations frequented by your target audience can significantly boost your site’s traffic and sales.
- Ensuring cohesive design with well-placed URLs is crucial for maximizing the effectiveness of print campaigns.
- QR codes simplify navigation to your site, while social media icons help customers connect with your brand.
- Use bold, contrasting colors and place URLs where they’re visible, such as on the back of business cards or at the top of flyers.
- Arrows or lines guide attention to URLs or QR codes, and short phrases like “Visit Now!” encourage action.
- Offering exclusive discounts or promo codes in print materials encourages visits to specific product pages.
In the age of digital marketing, print materials are less competitive. Statista projects that digital advertising spending will be an estimated $740 billion in 2024, vastly greater than the print ad projection of $34 billion. For an e-commerce business, optimizing content for the top spots in search engines is pivotal, but that doesn’t mean print should be ignored entirely. So, take your efforts offline. Hand out flyers or business cards in areas your target audience frequents. These practical measures will increase brand awareness and exposure by putting your products in front of more people. Simply journey below to discover materials that can help boost your site’s traffic and sales with intuitive print designs.
Print Marketing Materials That Increase Traffic & Sales
While print materials benefit e-commerce, there are many types of print marketing materials, each serving different functions. Here’s a list of print materials that benefit e-commerce traffic and sales.
Packaging Inserts
As an e-commerce business, you’re already shipping products to customers. Go a step further and include packaging inserts in each box for little to no additional costs. For example, place a thank you card at the top of the box for customers to see when they open it. On the card, include a discount code to show appreciation. Other than discount codes, you can add a web address to another product the recipient might want.
Packaging inserts, like the thank you card, will build trust and help drive traffic toward other products on your site that interest customers. The likelihood that customers return for another purchase increases as well.
Catalogs
Whether it’s one sheet or a booklet, catalogs offer customers an extensive guide to your website’s products. To increase the potential of conversion, include a web address to the product page of each catalog entry. Consumers are more likely to follow URLs to products they want and check out others that weren’t included in the catalog but are available on your site.
Package your marketing materials in catalog envelopes for tactile satisfaction and a sense of nostalgia associated with receiving physical mail that elicits a positive emotional response towards your brand. The odds for conversion are greater since print marketing has a higher response rate than email, with 56% of consumers believing print is more trustworthy.
When you understand the benefits of catalog envelope printing, you can leverage these insights to
Flyers
Inexpensive and easily distributable in high-traffic areas, flyers beautifully complement the launch of a new campaign. Whether launching a new product, an exclusive online-only sale, or an event, flyers with a web address can announce your latest campaign. Intrigued recipients will follow the URL back to your site and reap the benefits while you see an uptick in traffic.
Business Cards
A quick and easy way to spread information about how customers can reach your business is by using business cards, which can drive traffic and sales to a specific page on your site. Along with your company logo, tagline, and phone number, include a URL to your website or a particular product page. The business card recipient will follow the web address and explore your site. After they’re done, they’ll most likely reach out for more details using the contact information.
Handing out business cards with URLs to your e-commerce shop drives targeted traffic. This is especially helpful for pages where you want to see an increase.
Brochures
Brochures convey to potential customers what your business offers in more depth by using high-quality images of products that entice consumers to visit your site and detailed product descriptions that explain the benefits of your products and services. Use this opportunity to highlight parts of your site that need extra attention.
Add product page URLs to drive traffic for each product or service in the brochure. The web addresses help increase the probability of conversion as well. Recipients have already been educated on the product and feel motivated to buy; save them time by including a direct URL to where they can purchase the product.
Practical Design Tips That Drive Traffic & Sales
Print marketing materials need to be optimized for web addresses. A URL must be added to the design appropriately and incorporated intuitively to maintain a cohesive design for strong e-commerce branding.
Incorporate social media icons and QR codes
When adding URLs to products or your website in printed materials, use a QR code that is cohesive with the design in color and size. Place the code in a prominent location with proper spacing between visual elements to ensure the design hierarchy is balanced.
QR codes allow recipients of your business cards, brochures, flyers, and catalogs to easily reach your site or specific product pages for an increase in traffic. If you want to drive traffic to your socials, incorporate social media icons to show customers more ways to connect with your business.
Emphasize the website URL
If you choose to use a URL, make it stand out from other design elements by selecting a bold, contrasting color for the font that helps catch the customer’s eye. For example, if the print design mainly uses cool colors, a warm color like orange or red would help the URL pop.
Also, ensure the URL is located where the recipient can easily find it within the design. The back of a business card is a popular spot for URLs. For flyers, placing the web address in a banner at the top or bottom of the material is common. The material’s ability to drive traffic to your site hinges on placement; a poorly placed URL will be overlooked.
Use visual cues and calls to action
To further allow the URL or QR code to stand out, use visual cues such as arrows or lines in the design to direct the customer. The visual cues will guide the customer’s eyes toward the web address, ensuring that it’s noticed.
Likewise, a call to action, a short phrase like “Visit Now!” to accompany the URL or QR code in the design, encourages recipients to follow the web address. Without it, you’re hoping the recipient makes the connection on their own, which can result in a smaller click-through rate. Use a call to action in your print materials to increase the chance of a boost in traffic.
Give Testimonials
For materials with more space real estate, like brochures, catalogs, and flyers, include a customer testimonial or product review in the design. Reviews and testimonials intrigue potential customers to follow the URL and explore the products you offer, increasing the probability of a boost in traffic.
Use these testimonials, along with visual elements, to create a narrative about your brand that engages users. Engaging the recipient with a narrative that aligns with your brand makes them more likely to follow the web address back to your e-commerce site. Explore ten of the best storytelling brands for examples of good story branding.
Tell them to google you
In print designs, simply ask recipients to Google your company in a short call to action. An increase in searches can indirectly influence a website’s Google organic rankings. While branded searches are not a direct ranking factor, they can improve rankings by impacting user engagement, brand authority, and indirect signals like backlinks and social media mentions.
More branded searches often lead to higher click-through rates on organic listings, signaling relevance to Google. Increased branded searches also indicate growing brand awareness and recognition, which Google considers when evaluating a site’s authority and trustworthiness. This will improve your SEO rankings, driving more traffic via organic search.
Include Promotions
Additionally, print materials open the door to exclusive offers. Promotions encourage sales by offering deals or discounts. For example, in a catalog, you can add promo codes for specific products in the design to drive traffic to those e-commerce pages on your website and increase sales. Doing so will help build trust with your customers while guiding traffic.
Conclusion
Though your product might be exactly what someone would buy, your digital efforts are for naught without the means to connect. For an e-commerce brand that lacks storefronts, circulating print can help reach consumers and raise awareness for your products. Start by designing print materials to achieve your business’s goals, then distribute them in locations your target audience frequents to see an increase in traffic and sales.
