RECOMMENDATION 02
Drop print for digital

It'll do so much more than just save money

7 reasons to swap from print to digital

Everything's going digital at the moment, for obvious reasons, but even after the pandemic passed, there are strong arguments to be made for suspending or at least significantly limiting printed collateral.

Let’s be honest, we all have that stash of unread brochures cluttering up some corner of our home or office desk drawer. It's an unfortunate consequence of attending conferences and events. Some may have reached you by direct mail, but onto the pile they go!

Brochures and event materials contain valuable content, but how many people actually read them? The truth is you don't know. And it’s far too much of a waste to throw that much paper away.

Let’s consider a future without printed flyers ... Here are seven reasons why it would be better for everyone if we switched to digital brochures 👉

REASON 1:

Save money

Having printed brochures as part of your strategy puts significant strain on your marketing budget. Brochures don’t just accumulate costs in the designing and writing stages but include costly additional steps like printing, physically picking up (or receiving in the post), and distribution. Each one of these added steps comes with a large price tag.

The price of printing 5000 budget brochures alone is around $500, according to PSPrint. Add to this the costs of designing the brochure (around $1500 for a mid-quality designer), shipping to your office – or even international shipping to your offices around the world – and you’re going to be looking at a minimum spend of at least a few thousand dollars. Whew.

Creating digital brochures means that not only can you save money on distribution and shipping, but also that you can keep your design in house. Online design platforms – like Turtl – make it easy for anyone to pick up design skills and create quality content.

REASON 2:

Make it personal

Ever thought this: “Yes, it was nice to have a brochure personally handed to me at an event. It was nice to be directed to the pages where I could find the content most relevant to my needs. But wouldn’t it be far nicer not to have to carry around all this content which isn’t relevant to my situation and won’t be in the future?”

Well, the solution actually exists. Digital platforms are now at the point where you can speak to a prospect at an event, create a digital brochure that only contains content relevant to their needs, and send it to them to read on the train home. Nice.

REASON 3:

Keep it on point

All of the information you printed in your brochure was accurate in January 2021, but by March it’s only half-true, and by the time it gets to June you might have reconsidered your product offering or switched up your visual brand identity. Printed brochures are quickly out of date and – in the worst cases – can spread false information.

There’s also the possibility that your outdated brochure is still in circulation – you simply have no control over it once it’s been unleashed into the world. Digital brochures, on the other hand, are simple to edit, easily replaced and updated, and alleviate the concerns that your reader might be reading something which is no longer true.

REASON 4:

Wait – did someone say ‘event canceled’?

It’s pretty obvious that physical brochures have to be physically given to someone – whether in-person or through the post. If you’re looking at saving costs on mailing, or aren't targeting people already in your database, then you're left with events as the sole distribution method for your brochures.

But we all know that even at the best of times events don’t always go to plan. And when the going gets tough, marketing needs to get digital to make sure that people can still access their outreach comms. The truth is that far more people are going to be reachable online too – meaning that digital brochures give you that extra international reach power.

REASON 5:

Go green

It’s the obvious one next. Going greener with your marketing is better for your ESG rating, kinder to your community, and better for your carbon offsetting. The fact is that consumers are now proven to be more in touch with their environmental impact than ever, and more likely to favor a greener alternative when it comes to choosing who to invest their money in.

Your company might not be the only one handing out wads of paper at the next event, but you’re sure to stand out in a few months once digital becomes the norm – and not in a good way.

REASON 6:

Know if it's being read

There’s no way your paper brochure is going to be able to tell you who read it, or how long for, or what parts they spent most time mulling over, or if they shared it with someone else – and so forth.

The best statistic you can report with a printed brochure is how many have been handed out – but when it comes to the increasing demands on marketing to prove ROI – this just isn’t going to cut it.

Digital brochures can report everything from read times to bounce rate – meaning that you can change up your brochures depending on what most people read for the longest, and which pieces of content aren’t keeping readers engaged.

REASON 7:

Be far, far more exciting

We all like a good experience. A good experience in the world of digital brochures means interactive polls and charts, embedded videos, enlargeable pictures, and clickable, shareable quotes. A good experience in the world of printed brochures means shiny paper. Need we say more?

Find out more about joining the digital revolution here.