As we enter 2025, print marketing continues to evolve, blending timeless appeal with modern innovations. At Marketing.com, we’re closely following these key 10 trends that are shaping the future of print.
1. Personalization Gets Hyper
Businesses are creating hyper-personalized marketing campaigns with a more strategic use of consumer data supported by innovations in variable data printing (VDP). Personalization strategies are moving beyond merely placing names in salutations. With VDP, companies can alter every print piece to include photos and graphics that resonate with demographics and lifestyles of recipients, make purchasing suggestions based on past buying behavior, and produce individualized catalogs that highlight products based on known personal preferences and order history.
VDP also takes personalization beyond the realm of direct mail. Ecommerce businesses are developing stronger connections with customers by creating unique, customized product packaging that adds fun, distinctive, and memorable elements to unboxing events. Loyalty programs are enhanced when businesses include personal touches with special messaging and rewards that leave a great impression. Local marketing becomes more impactful when content is changed to reflect regional, cultural, or even language preferences.
2. Eco-Friendly Printing Solutions
In 2025, brands and marketers will continue to embrace sustainable print practices and turn to eco-friendly, biodegradable materials to reduce waste and meet the increasing demand from environmentally minded consumers.
Fortunately, it is becoming easier and more affordable for businesses to adopt energy-efficient practices, that include heat-free printing and UV printing technology, and purchase recycled and responsibly sourced paper, card stock, and other substrates. The result is new and innovative printing procedures that use less water and reduce waste, environmentally safe inks derived from natural sources that replace potentially toxic substances, and resources and packaging made from recycled or sustainable materials.
It’s important that businesses communicate their commitment to sustainable practices to their prospects and customers. Eco-friendly symbols and certifications on packaging and labels can highlight green practices and graphics and images can educate consumers on best disposal methods.
3. Interactive Print Media and Augmented Reality (AR)
Consumers are seldom without a smartphone at hand. Brands and businesses have seized on this and are adding interactive elements to print media, like augmented reality (AR), QR codes, and video-in-print technology, bridging the gap between print and digital content when printed images are scanned with a phone’s camera.
This opens up entirely new opportunities for brands to extend the user experience with 3-D models, animations, and virtual worlds. Integrating interactive print media into product launches lets consumers go behind the scenes to learn how a product was made. Every printed piece can take on an entirely new personality as product catalog pages become virtual dressing rooms or an interactive auto brochure photo leads into an exciting test drive along a scenic route.
Interactive print media also provides extended shelf life for printed materials. The digital content can be swapped out to change with new promotions or seasonal ad campaigns while the product packaging or direct mail piece remains relevant.
4. High-Quality, Low-Run Printing with On Demand Printing
High-quality, low quantity print on demand (POD) capabilities give businesses of all sizes the flexibility to create and distribute marketing materials quickly and offer unique branded merchandise to their customers without upfront inventory investments. POD is an ideal solution for e-commerce businesses that offer custom apparel or accessories and want products printed in small batches or to expand their product range without a significant inventory investment.
Marketing.com’s e-commerce technology allows a customer to order both virtual (POD Items) and physical (pre-printed and promotional items) items seamlessly within our platform.”
— John S., General Manager
POD will also continue to be a resource for highly personalized marketing mailings and corporate gifting, and businesses in the real estate, hospitality, and education sectors use POD for event-specific marketing materials. With high resolution color accuracy and the ability to use POD on a wide range of materials, it’s possible to produce memorable t-shirts, sweatshirts, decorative items, water bottles, and tote bags quickly. When integrated into fulfillment and shipping, POD lets businesses get merchandise out the door and into the hands of their customers faster.
5. Tactile and Sensory Appeal
With everything in the marketing world seemingly digital these days, people will continue to treasure the special way printed materials feel to the touch, especially when special coatings, embossing, and textured finishings are used in the print process. Special inks can transmit comforting scents that trigger warm feelings and pop-up elements can add unique and fun 3-D visual appeal to flat surfaces for memorable experiences.
Tactile elements can also include an assortment of shapes and sizes that make envelopes and postcards stand out in mailboxes and colors that trigger emotional responses. They turn regular pieces of marketing material into sophisticated and luxury engagements that leave lasting impressions.
6. AI Driven Workflow Automation
As is the case with many aspects of our lives, AI will grow in importance through the new year in helping print projects become more efficient. AI offers benefits to simplify print workflows and manage all aspects of scheduling, managing inventory, and analyzing processes in real time. The benefits for their customers include improved print quality, faster turnaround times, and the ability to streamline the proofing process to eliminate costly mistakes.
AI can analyze vast amounts of data quickly and give brands and marketers insights to identify potential cost savings by accurately predicting inventory needs and personalizing messaging and appeal with AI-powered design tools. AI print solutions can predict production flow based on customer behavior to help businesses identify areas of cost optimization that translate to print project cost-saving measures.
In terms of the finished product, AI delivers consistent color accuracy, precise cutting and folding, and exact applications of ink and coatings that result in reduced waste and let brands adhere to the sustainable operations their customers increasingly demand from them.
7. Growth in Packaging Solutions
Business will continue to explore new ways that printed packaging of products can play in creating better customer experiences, both throughout the shopping process and during unboxing events. Integrating emerging smart technologies with print gives them opportunities to engage and educate customers and even provide confidence to consumers that package contents have not been compromised or damaged.
Brands can include QR codes on packaging that let shoppers access important information and explore products through AR-enhanced product visualization to make more informed decisions. These codes and other interactive print elements make it possible for businesses to show how products are created and share other valuable content without cluttering the package and reducing its visual appeal. E-commerce businesses can personalize packaging with unique designs, messages, and special inserts to add a tactile experience to what up to that point is a purely virtual transaction.
8. Direct Mail Enhances Local Marketing
Innovations in print are giving brands and marketers new ways to optimize direct mail campaigns, especially for hyper-local messaging that seizes on advanced data analytics and direct mail friendly USPS promotions.
Brands are increasingly tailoring messaging and targeting prospects in geographic areas, communities, and even specific neighborhoods determined by demographic and consumer data. They’re able to engage with households using interactive print technologies and with content that is relevant to their needs. As brand direct mail strategies continue to evolve, they’ll have the ability to make every direct mail piece feel more personal and every recipient feel special.
In 2025, USPS promotions will support brands engaging in local direct mail campaigns that leverage traditional print and digital to increase engagement rates and promote new products. These include the Integrated Promotion, Continuous Contact Promotion, First-Class Mail Advertising Promotion, and Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) Promotion.
9. Increased Focus on Print Data Security
As cyber threats grow more sophisticated, and government regulatory agencies respond with stricter data security measures, brands and businesses are becoming increasingly vigilant about secure print environments and how they handle private personal data.
In 2025, new privacy laws will come into effect in several states and more legislation may be one the way, placing a priority on compliance with existing laws and global privacy standards. Among the regulations companies handling private personal data must comply with or face often sever penalties are the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other US state-specific privacy laws.
For companies active in the healthcare sector, compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) will continue to be necessary to avoid penalties and fines.
10. Printing Innovations Create Multi-Channel Opportunities
Print marketing will become even more crucial role for initiating multi-channel marketing campaigns that place the customer experience front and foremost. Print adds tactile and emotional connections to digital and interactive marketing content that people remember and enjoy. It will continue to be a marketing channel that gives digital advertising credibility and that consumers consider trustworthy, and provides tactile, physical experiences that digital alone cannot match.
Print drives consumers to digital channels through a seamless integration using QR codes or designated URLs while grabbing attention with strategic design and deployment of colors that form emotional connections.
Print remains a vital component of any multichannel marketing strategy, and by staying ahead of these 2025 print marketing trends, your business can create tangible, meaningful connections in an increasingly digital world. Marketing.com can show you how to connect the dots in your multi-channel marketing and guide you to success. Contact us today.
— John S., General Manager