Digital is the primary communication platform for most colleges and universities, but there still is an important role for print within an integrated, cross-media approach. The best marketing strategy brings print, web, social, email, and advertising together in a harmonious way for more effective and compelling communication.
Print isn’t going away, but it has changed — it is more special and more experiential.
The most effective print pieces have simple and powerful messages. They create an experience through choices of photography, paper stock, shape, finishes, and inks. With print, you can focus on the romance of a message and let the website do the heavy lifting on the related detail.
A cross-media approach makes perfect sense, but it ain’t easy. Steve McKee gets it right in a post for Bloomberg Business Week, “Put simply, integration takes time. It’s not easy to integrate a brand into a wide suite of processes, materials, and messages that have been shepherded by different people, driven by different objectives, and brought to life in different places within the organization.” [Bloomberg Business Week — Integrated Marketing: If You Knew It, You’d Do It]
mStoner’s approach to print (or any other platform) is our approach to any good communication: Let your message and your audience define how you use the medium. For most, the first question is, “How do we integrate print with web?” We think that’s the wrong first question. Instead, we ask, “What is the best and most appropriate use of print?”
Determining when print is best:
Thinking about the best uses of print and web:
What’s print good for?
What’s the web better for?
What do both print and web do well?
My next post? Using the web to make your print work better.