New Media and Print: Like Peanut Butter and Jelly?

Some self appointed experts proclaim there's a vast difference between the brave new digital world and more traditional media like print. Although there are obvious differences in the way messages are delivered, fundamentally there are more similarities than it may seem.

At the core, it all revolves around communication. We are still trying to communicate the same things:

• Persuading recipients to open our communication
• Encouraging people to read our relevant messages
• Convincing our target market to believe the point we are trying to get across
• Driving people to take action on our message

There's no denying that the Internet has changed how we communicate. However, it would be a mistake to believe that digital should completely replace message delivery methods like print. As studies have shown, most people trust print more than email and social media. Anyone can send out a tweet, blast an email, or publish a Facebook post, but only legitimate businesses will invest the time and necessary resources to create a print campaign.

According to a recent survey, conducted by consumer research service E-Poll Market Research, consumers trust traditional media brands exponentially more than social media brands as these sites are starting to wear thin with consumers.

It's interesting to note a recent trend with many online retailers and other Internet based businesses using print advertising to drive visitors and sales to their websites. Even Google uses direct mail. Online and print work well together when there's a solid strategy in place.

One of the unfortunate side effects of the digital age has been the exponential increase of spam and junk aimed at businesses and consumers. The low cost barrier to entry has encouraged irrelevant messages to fill in boxes and clog the Internet with useless information. It turns out there is a cost to free.

The other negative side effect of digital delivery and the Internet has been to give equal footing to the useless and the idiotic. This makes the job of having your messages stand out even more difficult.

Whether you're writing an email, a web page, or social media posts, it's a struggle to be seen and heard above the massive onslaught of junk and spam in the digital wasteland of today. Ironically, the new additional marketing mediums of today have made it much harder, not easier to get your message across.

A recent report from the Web service PageFair said that on average 22.7 percent of visitors to 220 Web sites were using ad blocking software, which automatically removes most ads from a Web page. Eyeo claims over 200 million downloads of the software since it started offering Adblock in 2011.

Despite the issues, digital is here to stay. But print is not going away either as Vogue Magazine had its second biggest September issue ever this year. And for the first half of 2013, print magazines remain strong but digital editions only account for a mere 3.3% average of the total circulation, according to Alliance for Audited Media. There are strengths for both mediums. Smart businesses and marketers know that for any campaign to work as well as it can, there must be a combination of print and digital. 

Using print and digital together is a lot like having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Sure, you can have one without the other, but it tastes a lot better when you combine the two.

Posted by Chuck Gherman

For more information about how Printing Arts Press uses print and digital together please visit www.printingartspress.com