March 1, 2021
Sure, digital marketing is cool. And effective. In a survey by eMarketer, the average company planned to allocate 62.3% of its total media ad budget to digital in 2021, with that rate increasing to 66.8% by 2023. Digital Advertisers dropped a whopping $356 billion in 2020. That's a lot of banner ads, sponsored Facebook posts, and pre-video videos on YouTube.
But we're not entirely living in the Matrix yet (we think.) With more and more advertising inundating the Internet, digital ads can run the risk of becoming so much white noise. When we're helping a client build a medical marketing strategy, we make sure they understand that, while digital is essential, the traditional ways still work. And can work most effectively.
Print advertising is still going strongto the tune some $233 billion dollars spent in 2020. Studies show that people have an easier time recalling advertisements they experienced in the print format versus electronic ads, especially when theres strong or novel imagery. The tactile quality of physically holding and turning the pages of the medium combined with your eyes and brain processing the stimuli causes an extra stickiness in your cerebellum.
Advertising in print tends to have a bit more gravitas as well. The Internet is full of scams and dubious companies doing business, so a print ad in a reputable publication can be gold by comparison.
And print ads can be highly targeted. Tout the benefits of your new medical device, in a specific medical trade publication, read by the docs who will actually be using the device, and youve got advertising Nirvana.
Since print ads exist in a physical medium, they benefit from pass-along readership, as multiple eyeballs view the same material. Imagine how many hands the magazines in a doctors office travels through (then reach for the Purell). Bonus: you can stick a cool or informative ad to your refrigerator (or bulletin board or office door) with a magnet! The great one can even live a new life as a poster. Weve turned plenty of the print ads weve done for medical device manufactures into posters that docs have loved to hang on the office wall!
Important safety tip: Keep in mind, print ads do tend to take longer to create and schedule, so planning is required.
Billboards
Not only are messages measured in feet instead of pixels, but clever billboards capture attention. If it's on your daily commute, it has the added advantage of sinking into your gray matter through repeated exposure. Chances are, you can easily recall several billboards you've seen lately. Billboards can also be interactive and show things like current pollen count (hello, allergy medications!). And billboards dont have to be stuck in the same placemobile billboards can be parked right outside a convention hall to spark conversation from all the attendees.