Despite the burgeoning panoply of fancy-pants ways to woo consumers that online and mobile provide, firms often find that good old print offers a cost-effective and reliable way of breaking the ice.

A QR code label on a packet of mince; printed magazines with hot links to additional interactive content; near-field communication, social media links, personalised landing pages. An entire garden based around a QR code at the Chelsea Flower Show.

 Cross-media marketing, integrated marketing... Call it what you will, it’s an increasingly common feature of everyday life. Brands are coming up with all sorts of clever ways to use the new tools for customer engagement and sales generation. And the good news for print is that, despite all the hype about mobile and social media, print still has a part to play when it comes to creating successful, cross-media campaigns.

The London 2012 Olympics provided a high-profile platform for the sponsoring brands to roll-out fresh ideas for cross-media interactions. BP used QR codes and unique identifying codes on its carbon-neutral promotion, which arrived with Games tickets, of which more below.  Lloyds TSB used the ticket pack to put a promotion directly into the hands of recipients. It sent out what appeared to be a straightforward printed leaflet, which turned out to include an integrated label to be used as a Team GB supporter’s bib. To be in with a chance of winning tickets for the Team GB after-party, recipients uploaded a photograph of themselves wearing the bib to a Lloyds TSB Facebook page.

But getting the mix right is crucial. For example, email marketing is understandably popular, due to its relative cheapness, but earlier this year Pitney Bowes published research that pointed to falling email open rates in cases where email was the only contact point with consumers, with 53% of some 5,000 respondents reporting negative perceptions about email intrusiveness – more than double that for direct mail.

It’s increasingly clear that amid a blizzard of marketing messages, print’s ability to stand out, whether through size, shape or tactile effects, means it can hold its place as a powerful driver of customer interactions.

A recent report on the direct marketing sector by PrintWeek’s sister title Marketing described marketers as "feeling their way" in a world of fragmented media. PrintWeek spoke to three very different companies about their experiences and ambitions in the burgeoning cross-media space.