Web Design and Marketing Collateral: How to Marry the Two

By: William Scott, Website & Brand Strategist
Linkedin: WilliamUnsung
Employee Practicing Learnability in Web Design

Marketing Collateral Defined

Cohesive branding is essential to successful marketing. The stories you tell about your company or product should reinforce and play off of one another to make a complete and compelling picture. The tools companies use to market their services are collectively referred to as marketing collateral, and include any print or digital medium used to promote the brand. 
 
Because there are so many types of marketing collateral—web, print, social media—it’s important that your company unify them into one narrative, making it easy for customers to understand what your company represents, no matter what kind of collateral they’re looking at. 
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The Importance of an

Integrated Marketing Strategy

Why is this so important, you ask? Because any company not pursuing multiple avenues of marketing and designing these media holistically puts themselves at risk of being left behind in the digital age. Specifically, a unified marketing strategy will: increase your conversion rates, maximize business opportunities, allow you to connect genuinely with your customers, ensure a satisfactory ROI, and help you build not just awareness, but also loyalty for your brand. 
marketing-collateral-1

Is Print Dead?

It is a myth that, because of the advent of the internet and social media, print is dead. Instead of being obsolete, print collateral no longer needs to be all things to people and can therefore focus on the demographics that are most likely to consume print media. Not to mention there are some things only print media can give you, like tactical interpretation, environmental targeting, and personalization. 
Integrated marketing is especially important when marketing to a particularly lucrative demographic—millennials. Digital natives who don’t have to Google what a cassette tape is, millennials respond well to both print and digital marketing collateral. 42% of millennials prefer direct mail to online ads, and a whopping 66% prefer a physical copy of a coupon instead of an online one. When marketing to this unique generation, an integrated digital and print collateral strategy will increase engagement, lead generation, and conversions. 
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How You Can

Combine Print and Digital Media Effectively

Let’s explore six different ways that marrying print and digital marketing collateral can help your business grow: 

ONE

Postcards

Using postcards to get the attention of those customers most likely to buy your products can be very effective if you pull them in with one or two top notch items from your catalog and then direct them to the website to view the rest of your products. Including a time-sensitive coupon will not only increase their likelihood of buying, it will allow you to track conversions and sales more easily. 

TWO

Table Tents

If you own a bar or eatery and are looking to increase your marketing reach, table tents are a really easy way to do this. All you have to do is set up cards at each of your tables with a QR code that customers can snap while they’re waiting for their food and drink. (They’re already on their phones anyway!) And don’t only use this code to subscribe them to your email list, offer them a coupon that they can use instantly (or on their next visit) so they’ll be incentivized to receive your newsletter, join your rewards program, or otherwise convert in a way that’s beneficial to you. 

THREE

How-to Guides

Creating a how-to guide or other kind of booklet for your customers is a great way to give them in-depth and reliable information about your field of expertise. Maybe you’re a clothing company with a how-to guide for laundering different types of fabric or a restaurant with a book of simple weeknight recipes. These booklets are an opportunity for you to promote your products as they relate to these activities, but this collateral should first and foremost be a valuable resource for your customer. If they feel that their problems are being solved, they will return to your website when they are seeking additional help.

FOUR

Brochures and Flyers

It’s difficult to compete for ad space in the online world where even tons of paid advertising and SEO marketing can’t make up for the sheer number of ads bidding for customers’ attention. But with print advertising, you can put flyers, posters, and brochures in places that your customers go that competing advertisers don’t. 
 
This is a good way to break through the clutter and get your app in front of people more effectively. You can also include QR codes on your print materials which take consumers to a specific landing page on your site, your Facebook page, an unlisted discount link, or whatever else your call-to-action draws them into. If you can, use this opportunity to collect email addresses or other information you can use to retarget these consumers in the future. 
 
Once you’ve created compelling flyers and posters with specific calls to action, use your creativity to put your collateral in unique places that other advertisers won’t necessarily use. Have you ever seen flyers on the ceilings of dental practices? That’s unique product placement. 
FIVE

Print Newsletters

Printed newsletters may seem like a thing of the past, but in fact they can be the only way to get in touch with certain demographics. Whatever you’re printing, you should always link it to your website, social media, or other digital collateral, encouraging consumers to engage with you in new ways beyond the one they are currently using. It’s paramount that you provide social media links with your newsletter so that customers who wouldn’t otherwise subscribe can do so that way. 

SIX

Business Cards 

Yet another form of print collateral that you can leverage to drive your audience to your website or other online presence. It may seem old fashioned, but you definitely don’t want to come up empty-handed the next time someone asks, “Do you have a business card?” Not only should you include your social and website links on this card, you can get extremely creative with the way you present the information. Your business card is essentially a trailer for your website. It’s a taste of your brand, visually and graphically, so make it count. The consumer should be thinking, “I really want to know more about this brand.” You can include all of your social links, but feature whichever one you get the most mileage out of to increase your chances of converting customers once they get there. 

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Takeaways

If this feels like a lot of information, that’s because it is. An effective marriage of web content and compelling print collateral is not an easy thing to accomplish. It requires intense collaboration between designers, marketers, and salespeople, all of whom should have expertise in this field. You really can’t afford to get your brand marketing wrong, which is why Unsung Studiois here to help. We offer branding services, web design packages, print collateral design servicesand more for small and large businessesalike.