Print + eMedia = Results

You really can’t have one without the other

The other day I gave a presentation to Meister Media’s sales group in which I (understandably) advocated vigorously on behalf of digital advertising. At the heart of the session were numbers – numbers, numbers, numbers. How emedia is eminently measurable. How its cost-per-impression is extremely competitive with print. (And actually it’s often far lower.) How good emedia leads to clicks, and from there – if the total campaign is crafted well – how the click results in solid and relatively inexpensive sales leads for the client.

There was plenty of receptivity among the salesfolk to the emedia message, and really there has been for some time, as Meister’s digital revenue has been growing vigorously. But there’s also a natural reluctance to disparage print in favor of emedia, and as I took pains to say – there really doesn’t need to be. The two go hand in hand.

I use the metaphor of torque (see above). Individually, print magazines, enewsletters or websites will get you down the marketing road but maybe not as far or as fast as you would like. Put them together and 3+3+3 = 4. Print is a highly effective way to build awareness. eMedia drives action – traffic to websites, advertiser/prospect interaction, multimedia and measurability.

Is any of this revolutionary? Hardly. But we in the media business have wasted a good decade-and-a-half either declaring print dead or pronouncing its imperviousness to all new oncoming competitition. We’re all wrong! And we should stop polarizing the discussion. A friend who is a professor at Cleveland State University’s noted School of Communication recently pointed out that no new medium of the past 100 years has really gone away – radio slid over to make way for movie theaters, movie theaters for TV, TV for video games and the Internet, etc. And each evolved a new business model to coexist with its newfound competitor.

Print is now sliding over to make way for emedia, and both are going to evolve into something new as result. More later on what each likely is going to become on the other side of this transformation. But for now, the message is: Print and emedia – they’re each an important part of this nutritious media breakfast.