Print v. Web | What You Need to Know

Ninety-nine percent of the content on the internet is 'distractive and of no consequence.' ALAN KAYE, Co-inventor of the GUI

For more than 20 years, trend watchers and techies have been sounding the death knell for print media.

Current pundits predict all paper-based communications will disappear by 2012. Survey after survey touts the benefits of online advertising and the critical need to drive traffic to your website. If this is true, then clearly, the web is the only communication channel anyone needs.

Certainly, the web feeds into the concept of “more, better, faster.” It’s massive, so it delivers more - so much more, in fact, there are no truly accurate estimates of how many pages currently reside on the internet. It grows every hour of every day. Some sources estimate five to 10 million pages are added daily, which conservatively translates into 1.78 billion new pages per year.

Whether you favor print or web-based media, you might want to consider these facts:

• Top-level decision makers use a mix of print and digital media to do their jobs (Forrester, Inc.)
• Nearly 60% of senior executives view print materials as more trustworthy than online content (Doremus, 2007)
• Nearly 60% of executives turn to print media when they’re seeking an indepth analysis (Doremus, 2007)
• Several studies indicate roughly 57% of decision makers have in the past 12 months used a white paper, case study or similar content as part of their buying decision process
• Encountering the same or similar content in print and online can influence the final buying decision (McKinsey & Company)
• Seeing the same or similar content in print and online during the research phase can increase the value of the final buying decision by as much as 30% (McKinsey & Company)

If you and your company have abandoned print media and are using web-based content as your exclusive sales-marketing-advertising channel, you might want to rethink that strategy.

The evidence indicates you're more likely to develop brand recognition, reach critical C-level decision-makers and influence the final buying decision with an intelligent mix of both.

These facts and the potential to bump the final dollar value of a sale by 30% mean a well-coordinated, overlapping print and digital strategy can signficantly improve your ROI.

__________________________________


Related
Print v. Web | Google Chooses Print
Brand v. Branding | What's the Difference?