Remember Brochures?
Even in this day-and-age of social media, brochures sure come in handy. In fact, they are very much here to stay.
You can sit down and have a conversation with a customer, point to pictures in the brochure, then leave the brochure behind for further review, and with your phone number and email neatly featured for future contact. This type of process is unwieldy with an iPad or laptop – never mind that you’re not going to leave your iPad or laptop behind – but with a brochure, it’s simple.
Print as a medium for marketing may be reduced in scope, but it’s not going away. The only challenge is – how do you get people reading your brochure to connect with you on social media? Those little social media icons most of us place on the back of our brochures don’t exactly inspire people to find a computer, get onto the web, find your social media, and then, if they’ve actually made it that far, to “like” your page.
I’m hardly the only one who has stumbled around this concept. Kevin Mullett, an online visibility development and internet marketing professional, posted a rant on his LinkedIn blog. He said “printed social media icons are notifications, not calls to action.” According to Mullett, the solution is simple: icons “should be used in conjunction with a path or URL so the viewer has a friction-less and memorable way of engaging with your brand.” To see Mullett’s entire post, click here.
I’m working on a brochure with a client right now and we stumbled onto an idea that takes this opportunity to a new level. We are placing a photo and caption from a compelling social media story and a call to action to our social media on each page of the brochure. Our hope is that once people see these compelling photos and stories, they will race to their computer to see more. This weaves the concept of going to social media directly into the process of reading the brochure.
What are you doing to inspire and motivate people reading your printed materials to visit you on social media?