Because print works

If we had a £5 note handed to us every time we heard a member of the digital community pipe up and say that print is dead, we’d have bundles of them, but we’d be nowhere near as rich as those businesses that understand, acknowledge and leverage the power of print. The simple fact is that print drives sales and will continue to drive sales. All kinds of print deployed in all kinds of environments works.

That is not to say that we damn digital media. We can all embrace those too. But what we acknowledge is that all media, all channels, are equally valid until proved unworkable or uneconomic for our own businesses. For most of us it is all about achieving the perfect blend of media and measuring each medium not merely by its cost but in the return it delivers on our investment in both the short and the longer term.

Back to print specifically. We ask those who damn print, what about the branding at football matches and other sports fixtures—all those billboards, programmes, tickets, the packaging for the merchandise? Shop window and in-store posters selling lifestyle images, special offers, new season’s merchandise, back-to-school, Christmas… you name it. Don’t tell us that this promotional print doesn’t draw the eye and encourage shoppers to enter, browse and buy. Catalogues fulfil the same role as retail stores without requiring the customer to drive, park, walk, battle with the crowds or carry the merchandise back to the car. Leaflets, fliers, catalogues abound at point of sale—would they be there taking up prime space in these super-professional retail outlets if they didn’t generate extra sales? Hardly.

Have these print detractors not noticed that uber-digital brands like Google are amongst the most prolific users of print—and that they use it to recruit customers they presumably cannot otherwise effectively target. Ditto the various broadband service providers. What we’re seeing is that print is actually more effective for these companies than online media. And you can bet they measure their results to the nth degree.

Then there is local press advertising, inserts and door drop deliveries used by major retailers to drive store traffic. How else can DIY chains and supermarkets saturate local areas and be guaranteed to attract customers into their branches? They are looking to reach as many people as they can within their catchment areas —only print can actually achieve this reliably and cost effectively. It is a competitive world out there and getting those special offers and discount coupons into consumers’ hands is vital for every store chain. How is Sky gaining all those new subscribers? Take a look at the inserts falling out of the weekend and local press, and at the space ads they are buying in the national media. Print dead, no we don’t think so, nor do they.

And back to store chains, even those that now enjoy good levels of online grocery and non-grocery orders use print sent in the mail to deliver money-off coupons and loyalty-card statements complete with special-offer fliers to their online customers. They also produce extensive catalogues distributed in-store, as well as customer magazines. Print. Dead? Wake up and smell the roses!

Judicious use of print is there to be seen, alive and kicking, and generating business from every corner of the market—business to business and business to consumer. Ironic too, that those who eschew print are keen as mustard to get their products reviewed in the press—because they know, as we do, that nothing drives traffic quite as dramatically as a favourable piece in a magazine or newspaper. It is a case in point too that the digital service providers also clamour to get their case studies and white papers into print media. The power of the press, no less.

The amusing thing is that some will say that PR coverage costs them nothing, therefore they pursue it. It may not cost anything if measured in media space terms, but aren’t they missing something? What about the fixed costs of the in-house staff responsible for PR and/or the external PR consultancy fees? We don’t suppose they get picked up in the right cost centre. There is a lot of talk too that social media will deliver customers free of charge—but again, who is calculating the fixed cost of the person(s) handling the social media interchange and how long before charges are levied by the leading networks? Going full circle here too, look at the publications that have folded or merged with others (NOTW apart). All publications with quality editorial offerings rely on advertising revenue—editorial does not create itself. Without it there will be no readers and the media will be unable to continue to serve their markets. Where else can the sales and credible brand-building contribution currently achieved from print media PR coverage be generated? Why, the customer magazine of course, and this is one area of print media that is booming. Many of these customer magazines are actually more akin to catalogues in their content but they are in print! Yes, many produce an iPad version, a digital page-turning edition for those who want it, but realise that to ignore the value and reach of the print edition would be suicidal.

This brings us neatly to direct catalogues delivered into the hands of loyal customers and new prospects. These can be mailed or enclosed with order shipments, inserted into magazines or handed out in-store by multichannel businesses. They can be designed for use by party plan and commission agents to sell products to their neighbours, family, work colleagues and friends. Think Avon, Kleeneze, and the like.

Catalogues can be upmarket, value driven, problem solving, authoritative, entertaining, aspirational, funky, traditional, useful, however the brand wants to be portrayed. Catalogues are also green. Careful targeting avoids wasted copies. Those shopping from home are not burning petrol on drives into town and also get to save that most valuable resource—time. This, of course, applies equally to online buying and this is where some of the biggest misconceptions about print arise. For between the lines of all the announcements and brouhaha about growing online sales lies the very simple fact that much of the growth in online sales volumes is entirely due to customers placing orders online having been presold by catalogues, direct mail, magazine advertising and PR. Not to mention those who routinely visit retail outlets to compare and evaluate products, then return home empty-handed to order them online. For many people, websites are merely a modern-day alternative to using the call centre order line. They are the checkout counters at which customers confirm and pay for their order for the goods they’ve chosen offline. Of course, a good website may well convince customers to buy something else, but that’s another story and a role that is filled by the catalogue enclosed with the customer’s order shipment.

Print is not dead. Print works harder than any other medium. It has a productive role to play in every direct and multichannel business.

Jane Revell-Higgins is publisher of Direct Commerce magazine and founder of the ECMOD conference and exhibition.

Need more convincing?

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