Published Wed Jan 25 2023

10 Steps to Creating Stunning Print Ads For Your Brand

Print advertising includes flyers, billboards, magazine ads, posters, and so on.

Branding
Design
Marketing
Print ads in a magazine.

Many people neglect the significance of print advertisements as digital media is what every business is concentrated on. Regardless of what type of business you run, topics like web design, SEO, photography, and online video content are trending topics. While digital marketing comes with a lot of benefits, print advertising should still be taken into consideration. According to the research, when choosing between print and digital advertisements, 82% of respondents trust print ads more. So, if you are not investing in print advertising, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.


Print advertising includes flyers, billboards, magazine ads, posters, and so on. There are ways for your company to gain from print advertising, even though not all of these strategies will work for every type of company.


Why Are Print Ads Important?

In an age where there is an abundance of digital content, the clarity, intrigue, and memorability of printed advertisements' messages and designs are unsurpassed by digital advertising. Print advertisements have a brand recall rate of 77% compared to 46% for digital advertisements. So, people thinking that print ads are dead are greatly mistaken. They still remain important for businesses. If used correctly, they can bring a lot of revenue and awareness to your brand.


Elements of Print Advertising

A great print ad can present your product to new audiences. Successful print ads contain information about your products and brand. Make sure your ads convey a clear offer apart from information about how people can act on that offer. However, not all print advertisements are made equally. Make sure to include all the elements below in your advertisement to get the most return on your money.


  • Headline - A strong print ad provides readers with an immediate perk or incentive to find out more about your product. This could be a hot new product, a sale, or a discount. Your offer should be the main emphasis of your advertisement because it serves as the reader's hook.

  • Offer - The advertisement's title gives the viewer an opportunity to know what to expect. The main advantage or offer you are offering is described in your headline. Typically, the advertisement's headlines make up the majority of the text. Potential customers who see a strong headline continue to read; those who see a bad one quickly turn the page.

  • Body - Details about your offer, information about your business or product, and any other material you wish to draw attention to are included in the body of your advertisement. Keep your body copy short and simple to read. To split up the material, use subheadings or bullet points. The information that readers seek should be available to them as soon as it is possible.

  • Image - You should definitely include one or two eye-catching images that highlight your offer in your print advertisement. If you are giving away a product, your ad should have a lovely picture of it. If you are showcasing a hot new product or offer, your image should be of that hot new product. Use colors to grab the reader’s attention.

  • CTA - Give your advertisement a sense of urgency. Instead of just describing your offering to readers, compel them to act in order to take advantage of your offer. Give readers a deadline and precise, brief directions about what to do. For instance, if you have a product that can be purchased only in your store, tell people that it is available again but for two days or the quantity is limited.

  • Contact Information - Your print ad should also include the address and phone number of your company. Additionally, your print ad should also contain any other information a reader needs to follow through on your CTA.


  • Logo - If you want to build recognition and awareness around your brand, you should definitely include your company’s logo in your print ad.

10 Strategies to Create Incredible Print Ads For Your Brand

1. Create a Concept

The first step is to create a concept to get started with your print ads. Do some brainstorming and write down all your thoughts and ideas. Ask yourself what message you want to convey with your ad.


For instance, if you are planning to create an anti-smoking poster or a brochure with the Save Planet concept, you need to find effective ways to communicate this message to your target audience. If people read your poster or brochure and do not understand what you are trying to explain, then you should definitely change something about your print ad.


2. Learn About Your Target Audience

It is highly important to do market research before you start your print ad campaign. You need to learn who your target audience is and whether your print ad is good enough to attract their attention.


To do so, you need to focus on two important things. First, learn the demographics of your target market. Find out your target audience’s age group, gender, education level, marital status, occupation, and income. Next, learn their psychographics. It is about people’s buying habits, hobbies, interests, and needs.


A person drawing an arrow pointing to the word Audience


Once you collect all the necessary information, you can narrow down your audience and target a specific group of people who will be interested in your products and services. In this way, you can make sure that your print ad campaign can run successfully and achieve all the goals.


3. Use Interesting Typography

Surprisingly few people utilize typography to its full capacity in print advertisements, despite the fact that it may play a significant role. They do not want to try something new as it is always risky.


Words in different fonts on white paper


In order to set a theme and mood in a print advertisement, designers can use typography. For instance, if you want to draw the reader’s attention to a particular message, you can use bold, large text to communicate that information more effectively.


4. Include Eye-Catching Graphics

If you want to run a successful print ad campaign, you need excellent graphic design. Whether you want to create a flyer or poster, you need some eye-catching visuals to grab people’s attention. Plain text does not compel readers to keep reading your information. You may interact with your audience and promote your goods and services using visuals.


Help your prospects understand your offer by using a high-quality graphic. Ensure that the images are relevant if you want to boost [brand awareness](brand awareness).


5. Keep Your Copy Short

No one likes reading a bunch of text. People do not have time to spend a lot of time reading your ad copy. Customers want you to get to the point immediately and in a simple way. So, you should make sure that your sentences are not too long.


Hire a copywriter who has experience in writing copy for advertising. In this way, you can make sure that your target audience gets the right message that is easy to read and engaging enough.


6. Include a Strong CTA

As we have mentioned earlier, a strong CTA (call to action) is an important component of print advertising. The main goal of your print ad is to make people take the desired action. For instance, if you want your potential customers to make a purchase from your store, you need to write a message that is convincing enough.


7. Highlight Your Brand’s Uniqueness

Apart from including fancy visuals, typography, and strong messages, you also need to think about ways to emphasize your brand's uniqueness in your print ad. After all, you want more people to learn about your business. So, you need to include branding assets that reflect your company’s vision and mission. Whether you include your brand colors, taglines, or logo, make sure to use them on purpose.


8. Personalize Your Print Ads

Studies show that 76% of consumers prefer personalized ads specific to their shopping habits. It can be challenging to personalize traditional print advertisements because it frequently costs money and takes a lot of effort to make each print ad different. However, variable printing offers a solution to this issue. The marketer can alter certain elements (such as text or visuals) on a print advertisement from one piece to the next by using variable-data printing techniques, such as on-demand print jobs. There is no requirement to stop printing or make manual adjustments. Instead, it quickly customizes your print adverts using digital printing techniques.


9. Focus on Advantages

Your brand, product, or service can be promoted or introduced to the market through advertising. It goes without saying that print advertisements must explain how your goods or services may solve the audience's issues. Along with describing the characteristics, discussing the advantages can help people comprehend it better.


For instance, you are selling furniture with high-quality material.


  • Feature: Good material
  • Benefits: People can use it for a long time, and it requires little maintenance.

10. Pre-Test Your Print Ad

It may be worth working with a marketing research firm to estimate the effectiveness of print ads before spending all your money on a campaign that does not work. Companies will test your ad’s effectiveness by measuring customers’ reactions to your print ad. After, you can make some adjustments, updates, and improvements before ordering the full batch of ads. For example, you can learn how to pixelate an image so that you see what hues have been used in the design. Or, you can play around with scale or composition and test out variations.


Be aware that pretesting can be an expensive and time-consuming process, and you won't be able to make modifications in real time as your audience expands and changes. For the kind of scalability, adaptability, and progressive advertising your company requires, you might want to think about switching to a completely different kind of marketing. Your advertising efforts can be improved by using an inbound marketing strategy, which also offers unmatched versatility and eventually aids in your success.


Summary

Some people think that print ads are not trendy anymore. However, it is not true. You can take advantage of them to become a more successful and credible business. Thanks to actionable and stunning print ads, you will be able to increase response and conversion rates.


We can't dispute the fact that putting a beautiful ad in a well-respected publication is equally advantageous as digital campaigns. Even though digital advertising assists you with projection, conversion, and engagement, you can still achieve success with such ads. The only thing you ought to do is to narrow down your audience in a smart way, use visuals, include strong messages, and personalize your print ads as much as possible.


We hope our guide was helpful and you can easily get started with your print ad campaign. Start small and regularly improve your advertising strategies to achieve the best possible results.

Mery Content Manger

Meri Minasyan

Content Manager

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