Put these facts in your hip pocket and pull them out at your next strategy session.
As more industry writers make the realization that print is thriving as a powerhouse medium from brands, they can’t help but pull out the old saw that, gee, print isn’t dead.
We pegged it over a year ago and called the idea eye-rollingly silly. Still, beliefs are hard to shake, even though Samir “Mr. Magazine” Husni says “you’d have to be out of your mind to say print is dead.”
Still, more articles every day are pointing out the power of print; it’s fun to see people get a little astonished when they wrap their heads around print as a powerful medium.
Danielle Moore of Bates Creative notes that “we’re here to share that what we’re actually seeing is a rethinking of the medium as it finds its place in the digital world.” She says it comes down to educating those who haven’t gotten the memo:
“The most proactive step publishers, marketers, and advertisers can take in surviving the print medium is to educate others,” Moore notes.
Among the facts you can have at the ready, Moore suggests, are these:
- Survival rates of new magazines are on the up. More magazines are remaining in business after 10 years of publishing despite all the news of doom and gloom.
- Last year, every major publisher—Hearst, Conde Nast, Time Inc. and Rodale—published a new print magazine.
- Millennials are the largest growing segment of print readers. According to the Association of Magazine Publishing, 95 percent of adults under 25 years old are reading magazines—nine per month, in fact.
This is all great information to know and have at the ready. But for most brands, it goes far deeper than stats. You see, what print is all about these days is providing a platform from which a brand can tell its story in a deeply rich and personal way. This kind of depth leads to strong engagement with your readers, which is the foundation for trust.
And a brand that has built trust with its audience is a brand with a future.
As Moor notes, “According to Bauer Media, magazine readers see 90 percent of all pages in an issue and will usually pick up a copy of a magazine more than once per day across multiple days.”
Can any digital outlet claim that readers see 90 percent of what they put online? Digital simply cannot stand up to the successful curation of a topic that print accomplishes by its very nature.
Moore, in her article, gives some good ideas on how to successfully use print in your channel strategy. She also advises brands to think outside the box of strict print ROI, but instead consider “How effectively do we deliver on our mission and make a distinctive impact relative to our resources?”
That is where that print truly shines – although the ROI for print ads isn’t shabby either, and beats digital display with a big stick, both good things to know when you are wooing advertisers.
Yes, many are still clinging to the old saw. We chuckle, we roll our eyes, and we continue to create stunning print titles and catalogs for our clients who continue to love what those titles and catalogs do for their businesses. Print is a beautiful place to live.