Why Print?

Print. It’s a quality opportunity

Steve — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:59:43 +0000

Have you considered the stack of mail you bring in every day lately?

It’s thinner. But you probably noticed the pieces are of higher quality. People are taking more time with design, and the impression the piece makes.

Essentially the lower quality items have moved where the cost of production is the lowest – the web.

That leaves the mailbox for the higher quality message.

Print. It can reproduce color accurately

Steve — Tue, 22 May 2007 13:47:38 +0000

One of the things I hear from people when I ask them about the future of print is that they think catalogs will go away. Printed catalogs, that is. They think that it’s just easier to order stuff on the web.

It is easier to order stuff on the web. The problem is being able to tell what you ordered!

You see, on the web, you can’t reproduce color accurately. You have no control whatsoever over the output device. In theory if everyone calibrated their monitor and produced an ICC profile so that incoming images could be corrected to display properly on that monitor we could get color correct images. Have you calibrated your monitor? Me neither.

But a printed catalog can be checked for color accuracy. There are production controls available that will ensure the catalog meets a standard for representing the colors correctly. Something you don’t get on the web.

Print. It's there when you need it.

Steve — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 02:24:30 +0000

I've noticed something. When I get a brochure for a conference or a trade show it sits on my desk for a while. It sits there for many reasons. Maybe I'm trying to figure out how to justify going. Maybe I'm trying to figure out who to send. Maybe I'm trying to decide whether to go at all. Regardless, it's sitting there on my desk. Reminding me.

Email ends up in a long list of similar items, waiting to be trashed when no longer relevant.

Print. The media everyone can use.

Steve — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:22:22 +0000

Have you mastered the Internet? How about blogging, RSS feeds, XML, Podcasting? All of it's pretty cool stuff. Most teenagers know how to use it, and when it works it can be really impressive.

But the majority of our population isn't teenagers. It's older folks, most of whom don't know what the heck an RSS feed or podcast are.

But they do know how to use print. Everyone who knows how to read does.

Print. It gets there.

Steve — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:21:29 +0000

I just found out that an email I'd sent to someone didn't get there. My email signature has the word “sex” in it – as in Sussex, the town where my company is located. The recipient's email filter blocked the message because they thought it was about sex.

Do you know how much email gets blocked? A hell of a lot of it.

On the other hand, everything that the postman puts in my mailbox passes through my hands. I may not have asked for it, I may not value it, but it gets there.

Print. You know what you’re paying for.

Steve — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:20:40 +0000

One of the most disappointing things about being a webmaster is when you learn that the web stats you get on your site are not very reliable. Referrer spam makes it look like lots of folks were following non-existent links to your site. Page loads make it look like a visitor is really fascinated by your content, but really he just hit the reload button because he has a nervous tick.

It’s the same with advertising. Click fraud is common, easily automated, and even done manually in low-labor countries. Traffic and popularity analysis of sites is also still unreliable as the technology and usage change faster than people can learn how to measure it.

With print, however, things are different. You have a physical object to track. People understand how to measure the responses. The data may not have the detail the web seems to provide, but the data is real, it’s accurate, and it’s well understood.

On the web you pay for the presence, and you wonder what happened.

In print you know what happened.

Print. It gets read.

Steve — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:17:43 +0000

Do you get spam? I know, it’s a stupid question. What’s even more stupid is that despite the incredible technology and effort that have been hurled at blocking all forms of email advertising people still pour money into it.

I don’t know about you, but very little unsolicited email I receive gets read by me. I’ve just been soured by so many ads for suspicious deals for things I don’t need, not to mention phishing and other attacks that I just don’t bother.

I do read what I find in my mailbox. Not all of it, but what’s relevant to me will generally get opened. If I toss something without acting, it’s almost always because the offer just isn’t compelling enough.