How to Ace Large Format Printed Marketing and Your Business Carbon Footprint

Year on year, technology continues to evolve, assumably leaving behind the efforts of printed materials. You can be forgiven for thinking that digital marketing is effectively killing the printing industry. But it’s not. Print marketing can reach out and touch your customers in ways that digital marketing simply can’t.

shoes in grass to represent business carbon footprint

One thing that is slightly alarming about your printed marketing efforts, however, is your business’ carbon footprint. You may have heard that term over and over again, but what exactly does it mean?

Well, your business’ carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases that are produced to, directly and indirectly, support all of its activities. From how many of your team drive to work to leaving the heating on when the office is closed. Greenhouse gases are terrible for the environment and the aim is to have as small a carbon footprint as possible.

So, if you’re wondering how you can nail your printed marketing (which involves producing lots of carbon producing activity) and still have a small carbon footprint, this post will tell you everything you need to know.

We’ll cover:

How to Nail Your Printed Marketing Campaign
Tips on How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

How to Nail Your Printed Marketing Campaign

As we’ve mentioned, your printed marketing campaign is just as important as your digital and social media outreach too. All three should work together and collaborate into the perfect resource for your target market.

Improve your customer relationships, broaden your reach and increase positive responses with the following tips on how to create a killer printed marketing campaign:

Know Your Target Audience

You need to know who you’re targeting before you even think about starting to produce your printed materials. Why? Otherwise, how will you know how to shape your copy and angle your persuasive techniques?

The first step to knowing who you’re exactly going to need to target your campaign to is by identifying your consumer needs. Once you’ve established these, you can start to form a strong relationship with your readers with a clear message on how your business can help them achieve their needs.

Capture Your Audience’s Attention

A customer’s first impression is made in a matter of seconds. So you’ve got to really jump out at them and make them want to look at your printed literature.

Two of the most effective ways of doing this are with bright, attractive colours and designs that will strike and entice the reader and catchy headlines and statements that will want to make them read on and find out more.

However, don’t go over the top with wacky combos of random colours and unsuitable text. Keep your printed materials professional and avoid clutter. Highlight your key product information or benefits in a simple, clear message that’s easy for the reader to get to grips with the first time.

Include a Call to Action (CTA)

Once you’ve drawn the reader in and they’re interested, where do they go from there? That’s where your CTA should come into action. Direct them on how to acquire the benefits and services you are promoting by providing them with a phone number, website or social media profile and create a strong channel of response.

This allows your customers to clearly know where to go next and gives you access to vital customer information that can be then stored on your database for you to target with your printed materials.

Tips on How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

Printed methods of marketing immediately start to sound the carbon footprint alarm bells. From producing the raw materials to shipping the end product to its final destination, there’s lots of energy being used and carbon being produced.

Waste disposal is another area where businesses tend to contribute to their carbon footprint greatly. This isn’t just wasting paper but also inks, solvents and adhesives too. Luckily there are ways in which you can prevent your carbon footprint building up when producing your large-scale printed marketing campaign, these are:

Re-use frames and supports. These tend to be most used at events marketing. But rather than using new ones all the time, the same ones will do the trick just as well.

Multiple use designs. Plan your printed marketing materials so that they can be used numerous times. This, in turn, cuts down on overall printing levels, which is a whole lot better for the environment.

Use recyclable materials. This means that there is less waste and is beneficial for the environment.

Use a sustainable/ethical printing supplier. Does your printing supplier use recyclable materials that have been reproduced and do they dispose of everything in the correct way?

Keep deliveries and transport of campaigns to a minimum. Try and order your materials all in one bulk order so that they’re not releasing excessive emissions. Try and give materials out face-to-face (e.g. events) rather than direct mailing to a large blanket audience. Not only will this reduce emissions but it will also encourage targeting the right people.

Reducing your carbon footprint isn’t just beneficial for the environment, but for your business too. Customers prefer to buy products from companies who have strong ethical morals and do the right thing. Plus, when looking to recruit, you’ll find people are more likely to apply for a position at your place if you operate ethically.

Make Sure You Print Correctly and Ethically

Reducing your carbon footprint in your printed marketing campaign is just one way that a business can operate more ethically. There are plenty of other ways. Not sure what they are? Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. Luckily for you, we’ve created a free guide to ethical advertising and print.