With digital content marketing for print

Content from Austria for the German media market on behalf of a Brussels organisation: WEKA Industrie Medien delivers digital content for the European Print Power initiative.

It is a battle for attention that the advertiser Ulbe Jelluma is waging. For attention for a media genre that, until a few years ago, did not have to struggle for attention. From Brussels, Jelluma heads the Print Power initiative, a European lobbying organisation that ensures that print advertising continues to play a role in companies' media plans. "We notice a lack of understanding and knowledge about print advertising among agencies and brands. With the increased complexity of digital channels and the big changes that are happening in TV right now, there is less attention to print media," says Jelluma. Taking the print pillar completely out of the equation, however, jeopardises the effectiveness of advertising campaigns: campaigns that are played out on multiple media channels, such as print and digital, are already almost one-third more effective at building brands than non-integrated measures. This was shown as recently as 2018 a study by Kantar Millward Brown. And the more ramified the delta of media channels, the better advertising can tell stories: At least that's what 37 per cent of consumers surveyed in the Kantar Millward Brown study think. "Our goal is to get agencies to discuss the value and role of print," says Jelluma. The argumentative lever where Print Power comes in is, for example, brand safety, a factor that is becoming increasingly important to many brands.

From website visit to personal conversation

The platform that Print Power uses for its activities is printpower.eua website that brings stories in English, French and German that inspire creative professionals, media planners and marketers and, arguably, provide a domestic argument to colleagues. "Our approach has become more focussed in recent years: we concentrate on the most important markets of Great Britain, France and Germany," says Jelluma. There, in turn, Print Power targets the ten biggest brands in each of a total of six product categories. "CRM software runs in the background, analysing not only the visitors to our website, but also those who read our newsletter and are interested in our "gated" content, i.e. the content for which you have to register," Jelluma explains the principle. Personal appointments are then made with the visitors tracked in this way, if possible, to talk about the role of print in the marketing mix.

Access increase

Since spring 2019, the content for the German-language website has come from the WEKA Industrie Medien digital team. According to the specifications of the target group segmentation by Print Power, the team is also involved in the creation of the long-term topic plan and is involved in the accompanying distribution of the content via various social media platforms. When selecting the content supplier, Print Power had corresponding demands: "To be relevant for agencies and brands, we have to demonstrate that we understand the media market. That's why the quality of the content is so important, as well as the contacts our content partners have with the players in the market," says Jelluma. After a few weeks of cooperation with WEKA Industrie Medien, Jelluma can already draw a first conclusion: "We have been able to register a significant increase in hits on our website," says Jelluma - for example with a Interview with German media planner Thomas Koch, one of WEKA Industrie Medien's first productions for Print Power. "Germany has always been a print-dominated country. The sheer size of the print market gives Germany a unique position among the three countries. And that also explains why we need a German-language website," says Jelluma.

Production: B2IMPACT - The agency for impact and results