Sure, Print’s Hard … and It’s Worth It

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ve seen me write about the trust effect in print magazines. Consumers trust printed content more than they trust digital, and this trust helps elevate the brand and its associated advertisers and partners.

You’ve also no doubt read about the ability of print to creatively engage readers in ways digital cannot. Our human brains are innately wired to engage more deeply in print, thanks to the complete sensory experience of the medium. In this age of constant distraction, an engaged reader is like gold.

The challenge, of course, is that print is neither cheap nor easy to create, whereas digital marketing has basically zero barriers to entry and lends itself to easy tracking of metrics. Yet print continues to thrive, as marketers realize it delivers the one thing vanity metrics can’t measure – quality attention.

“One of the major reasons why businesses still spend so much on print media, especially when it comes to advertising, is because of the value for money it represents,” writes business growth consultant Dakota Murphey. “For example, magazines and newspapers only tend to feature printed adverts that are relevant to the content they contain, whereas digital adverts range from anything to everything.

“Producing printed media can also be a lot more affordable than running digital campaigns, and provide consumers with a physical product they can have an emotional attachment to,” she continues. “Digital media definitely has a number of advantages as well but, for many people, being able to hold and look at a physical product is preferred to having to stare at a phone or tablet for hours on end.”

When you look at the value delivered by print in your marketing mix, it’s easy to understand why print is gonna stick around for a very long time.