Harnessing the effectiveness of touch

There are many reasons why I am a big advocate of using print as part of a business marketing mix. Just one of them is the unique opportunity that print provides to communicate information about your product or service through the sense of touch.

When potential customers or clients interact with your business online via your website, app, or social media, they are able to engage with your brand via sight and sound. This makes digital media ideal for conveying written information, pictures, audio, and even showing videos about what makes your product stand out from the competition.

But by including print in your marketing, you are able to take this one step further, engaging more of your audience’s senses.

Quoted by Print Power, Martin Lindstrom, writer of Brand sense states: ‘When brands appeal to more than three senses, advertising effectiveness will increase [by] 70 percent’. Print Power breaks this down, citing quicker absorption of content, and improved retention of information. They also state that 28 percent of the brain is used for tactile processing. You can find this information, and more, on the Power of Print web site (opens in a new tab).

Being able to communicate information about your product or service successfully is important for marketing. So too is your audience’s ability to recall this information over a period of time. And with almost a third of your brain geared up to process haptic communication, it’s a sense which is worth engaging.

So how can you harness the effectiveness of touch for your business?

If you distribute printed marketing materials you have the opportunity to include samples or swatches. This might be particularly useful if you make a product which is very colour specific, or which uses highly tactile materials, such as cashmere, as demonstrated by this sample from Brora.

A swatch allows customers to feel the softness of Brora's cashmere for themselves — A swatch allows customers to feel the softness of Brora’s cashmere for themselves

A swatch like this offers a great opportunity for Brora’s audience to feel how soft their cashmere is, and to accurately experience its subtlest of shades.

But what if it isn’t feasible to include samples, or you provide a service rather than a product? How can you harness the power of touch to enhance your marketing message?

The answer lies in the paper and finishes you choose, and the way in which they engage your recipient’s sense of touch.

The key is to find the right match for your business. At one end of the spectrum, a high gloss finish might be perfect. At the other, a toothy uncoated with an embossed texture could speak volumes.

To take the idea to the next level you can combine textures – a shiny paper with matt foils and varnishes, and textured stocks with shiny foils. Done well, this approach can create something which is almost compulsively tactile.