Be careful about falling into the trap of believing everything you hear, see or read. Print media has been around for centuries, it isn’t going anywhere, it will simply evolve. Every time a new media source is developed the so-called “experts” create wide spread panic that “the sky is falling” and print media is going to get crushed. Really?! (Yes I’m rolling my eyes, over-reactions have always had that effect on me.) And who are these “experts”? They are most often the sales and marketing teams of the latest trend trying to create the buzz on the newest marketing fad. The sad part is that they don’t want to help YOU, they want to make money for THEM. They’ll convince you it’s going to work, but they don’t care if it does. The leaders of these packs make their money and disappear, leaving the people who care to figure it out, pick up the pieces and eventually come up with the formula that will actually work.
But the damage is done, by nature people don’t want to be part of a sinking ship and they want to be popular and cool with the “in crowd”. So they follow the masses, scramble to mark their territory and often cut their noses off to spite their face. What amazes me is that they do so while blindly following and trusting people they don’t know; business “experts” who have no verifiable credentials or reputation and they make very little effort to learn the mechanics behind something new that they don’t understand.
So the print industry takes a hit, revenues plummet, poor performers get forced out of business, our economy takes a beating and your business begins it’s downward spiral. Unfortunately, big industries (like the multi-billion dollar print industry) are often very slow to react in these situations which is bad for small businesses. The good news is that eventually they get their heads out of the sand and figure it out, however many businesses will suffer in the process.
This process is exactly what is happening right now. Print media isn’t working the way it used to - well of course it isn’t, our world is changing and consumer patterns are changing. As such the print industry is changing, albeit a slow change, and the outcome is a new print/ multi-media industry which harnesses the power of BOTH online and offline marketing combined. But in this new era of combining online and offline to work hand in hand, other changes are also required because consumers are very clearly telling us what they do and don’t want to read, regardless of where they are reading it. So the current evolution for print media is a bit of a double whammy. 1) The method of delivery is evolving and 2) the nature of the content is changing.
For your business to get the most out of its marketing efforts it’s imperative that you are utilizing the right combinations of online and offline methods. The right choices for offline include print media that is focusing on the content that the public WANT to read - like the Gateway Gazette - and print media that is providing advertisers with the benefit of both offline and interactive online exposure with every insertion - like the Gateway Gazette. This is just one piece of the puzzle, but it is a hugely important piece.
To learn more about the “New Print Multi-Media” era visit our website and click “The dawning of a new era”.
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