3D printing is unstoppable. The technology has been booming over the past decade, is used across industries and it is sure to make your company more agile.
3D printing enables you to print parts when you need them so you don’t have to worry about storing them long term. It eliminates the need to look for resources from different parts of the world and is used in marketing by big firms.
Brands such as Coca-Cola, VW, Nokia, Belvita and DVV are great examples illustrating how additive manufacturing benefits the marketing sector with creative out-of-the-box solutions.
Nokia gave their customers the opportunity to 3D print a custom cover for their Lumia and Coca Cola 3D Printed mini bottles for a marketing campaign in Israel.
Plus, keen side hustlers are using 3D printing to make extra income – even without owning a printer!
To know more about 3D printing, its benefits and some success stories of its use in marketing see below:
The Role Of 3D Printing In Marketing
3D Printing is a very innovative approach that can be used in marketing. One of the examples is its use in the food industry.
Biscuits and chocolates may now be printed in three dimensions. It will be fascinating for food-related enterprises to see what its marketers and printers are capable of if they are given complete freedom.
Companies may now make any design of biscuit with meticulous attention to detail. Because the technology is still fresh and cutting-edge, many people will be drawn in by the incredible designs and logo printing. As a result, these freebies make excellent free samples at trade events.
Old marketing collateral can be reproduced and showcased. All the past products, promotional materials, and other historical company materials can now be replicated and displayed in waiting rooms, lobbies, and libraries. This technology will make it easier to bring all the company’s history into one location in a cleaner, more concise format.
Some of the most innovative manufacturers are also utilizing 3D printing technology to create prototypes and test products.
Product development has become more efficient as a result. These 3D printing developments save time and money while also increasing profit margins.
Whether it’s used to grab a potential customer’s attention at a trade fair or employed behind the scenes for rapid product prototyping, 3D printing has a wide range of applications that are only limited by our creativity.
Benefits Of 3D Printing for Your Brand
The benefits of 3D printing for your marketing campaign are numerous, including storage benefits, customization, and simpler prototype development process.
Storage Benefits
Storage can rapidly become an issue for a small firm. You must find a location to keep your merchandise, at an additional cost to the company. Thanks to a digital inventory and on-demand manufacture, additive manufacturing allows you to produce your parts when you need them. 3D printing is becoming a method to rethink the entire supply chain management idea.
Simplify Your Production Chain
You can simply create replacement parts or other critical aspects for your manufacturing chain using 3D printing without having to dramatically increase your production time. Three-dimensional printers can create precise replicas of the missing or broken part, eliminating the need to order it or shut down your entire supply chain to resolve the issue.
Customization
3D printing makes customizing your product, even those made in huge amounts, extremely accessible, especially for small firms. It has made customized implants and prostheses a regular practice in the medical industry. Instead of trying to adapt a piece of machinery to a different function, the aeronautics industry employs 3D printing to build exact pieces of machinery. You can rapidly and efficiently customize things for your consumers using 3D printing.
Resource Reduction
Three-dimensional printing is a whole new method of producing items. You start with a big amount of a resource and build a product from it in the classic reductive way of production, such as carving a statue out of a block of marble.
Prototype Development
Businesses frequently required prototypes in order to attract investors and potential clients. In some cases, a prototype is required at each stage of development. However, if your production unit is not an in-house business, this might be costly and time-consuming.
Who Can Benefit from 3D Marketing?
Almost any industry can benefit from 3D printing marketing. Surface Scan delivers 3D printing services to artists, the automotive industry, archaeologists, industrialists and more. 3D printing is a very precise process with low margins of error.
This makes 3D printed products very trusted among professionals like engineers. Knowing that a product is trusted by professionals will also get you the trust of potential clients. In fact, several marketing campaigns use this technique.
For instance, a new 3D printed protective helmet would include the words “Trusted by engineers” so as to strengthen their objective of alluring potential clients.
Examples of Successful Campaigns With 3D Printing
Coca Cola
Coca-Cola uses 3D printing to make small bottles available in Israel. It asked customers to enter a mini-me competition. They used a mobile app to construct miniature 3D copies of themselves that they were to care for like Tamagotchis.
Volkswagen
3D printing was used by Volkswagen to market the Polo. It launched “The Polo Principle,” a marketing that transformed customers into car designers. People could use a website to operate the 3D printer used by the company to produce the initial model of the car.
Nokia
Customers can manufacture unique covers for the Lumia 520 and 820 models using a 3D printing kit offered by Microsoft. Customers could then 3D print whatever they wanted to replace the detachable rear shells of the two cell phones. The kit was created as part of the company’s Community 3D Printing Project.
DVV
The Belgian Insurance Company DVV used 3D printing to make insurance more enjoyable. It launched Key Save, a solution aimed at resolving one of its customers’ most vexing issues.
Customers can 3D scan their keys and store the information on a secure server, according to the insurer. They can get the data and use a 3D printer to produce a new key if they lose the keys.
eBay
Through the eBay Exact, the online auction behemoth also got into 3D printing. Users may purchase customizable items from renowned 3D printing firms like Hot Pop Factory, MakerBot, and Sculpteo through this iOS app. The items range from jewellery to iPhone covers and other technology gadgets.
Read more: 35 Best Things To 3D Print (Life Hacks)