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[/responsive]As consumers engage with brands via more digital touchpoints than ever, print still remains a critical part of retailers overall marketing strategy. In fact, it’s so important that 7 out of 10 retailers call their print materials and ads “critical,” according to a report from Nielsen Research. Yet only 8% said the same about their digital channel efforts.
Despite an increase in digital engagement among consumers, especially Millennials, Nielsen found that “more retailers believe print marketing is more important than digital. And this belief is not unfounded,” notes the Nielsen website article.
What does this really say about retailers and their marketing?
“The Nielsen survey shows that print is an essential part of this strategy and that retailers can’t and will not do without print,” writes Ulbe Jelluma in Print Power.
“More than half of all US shoppers use print at least once a week to seek product and sales information. This is 20 points higher than the next-closest digital touch point, emails,” Jelluma notes.
The overall conclusion is that digital represents the opportunity for new touchpoints along the journey to purchase, to be sure, but they are incremental to the overall impact of print. Print has a higher reach than digital, and shopper engagement is significantly higher among print media than digital, the research shows.
So as digital usage increases, it appears that consumers are not trading one for the other, but embracing new digital channels alongside their favored print channels.
“Even with the growth of digital, Nielsen research shows that print isn’t dead. Nor will digital be replacing print anytime soon,” the Nielsen article declares. And while most retailers did note they planned to increase their digital expenditures over the next five years, print remains vitally important in the overall retail strategy.