According to a Digital Printing Hot Spot article “Small Businesses Believe in Cross Media Marketing” 76 percent of small business owners feel that the ideal way to market is to include a mix of both digital and print communication.  The most popular forms of marketing businesses included in their cross media mix were email, social, direct mail and mobile marketing.

Additionally, at least half of the business men and women surveyed believed that QR codes are highly effective tools to connect the offline and online marketing messages that each brand sent out to its target audience.  QR codes assist in making each message seamlessly run together to create one engaging and unified communication experience between the brand and its consumers.

The businesses surveyed in the Digital Printing Hot Spot survey also reported that they found QR codes were more effective when the were used in communication with 19-24 and 35 to 44 year old demographic.  Similarly, personalized URLs were also found to have a higher response rate when used in communication between a brand and its users between the same demographic age range.  Both QR codes and personalized URLs create a connection between the brand’s printed message and it’s digital communication.

Debra Thompson-Van the Vice President of Marketing at Pitney Bowes was quoted saying,

“Small business owners are increasingly challenged to effectively communicate with their customers and prospects in ways they want to be reached. As a result, businesses are recognizing the requirement, and opportunity, of adding new customer communication channels. However, they need tools that are easy to implement and more information on how to use them to help build their business. They need guidance in managing those tools, and confidence that they will see a return on their investment.”

While most small to medium sized businesses claim to not only be aware, but also interested in cross media marketing, more than half claim to not have the time or resources to allocate to successfully implement a cross media strategy.

While it may take additional time to organize a cross media marketing campaign, the campaign will offer a 33 percent higher ROI on average.

Timothy Freeman

President

Print & Graphic Communications Association