It’s just mostly dead. Compared to conventional print marketing, paperless marketing is cheaper, easier to target your audience and transparent in it’s effectiveness. You can actually tell if someone has clicked on your ad, opened your newsletter, or visited your website. When you place an ad in your local newspaper or in a magazine, you can only guess how many people looked at it or acted on it.
Another problem with print marketing is that it’s expensive. You’ll spend as much or more on a single placement as you might spend on a month or two of an AdWords campaign. If you print and mail your promotion, there are design, printing, shipping, and postage expenses to absorb. The general trend across most industries is to move at least three-quarters of your annual print budget into online marketing and website development.
Why not stop print marketing altogether? Don’t stop. Scale it back, for sure. Move some of those dollars into interactive media. There is still an audience for print, we just need to be more selective about when and where we advertise.
In print, bigger is better. Place one full-page ad instead of 3 quarter-page ads. It’s more impactful, generates a greater response, and is remembered longer. Special editions are more valuable than standard issues; a Summer Guide, Winter Guide, or “Best Of” publication has a longer shelf life. Say yes to sales and special offers. Magazines will sometimes reach out with a great price for a great placement. I find those hard to pass up.
Would you believe me if I said junk mail is fresh again? Well-written collateral is getting opened again. Direct mail is back. The USPS offers a single-price delivery to individual postal routes, that’s a great innovation.