Hold Your Customer’s Attention Through Print Media

In recent years, there has been a growing trend among publications of dropping print and going completely digital. The New York Observer, Glamour, Seventeen…what do these publications all have in common? In an effort to cut costs, they ended up cutting the majority of their print operations and, therefore, cut a very important by-product of print: their readers.

As David Pilcher, author of Freeport Press, wrote in an article cleverly titled, “This Engagement’s Over – How Some Publishers Broke Up With their Readers,” he addressed research revealing that, while a post-print existence may be less costly, it’s more constrained. This is because the content that was formerly able to be opened and enjoyed got stripped away when it became another thing to scroll through on an online timeline or feed.

“Quality attention, the data shows, is the one thing social metrics can’t get you,” David writes. “Creating content for the ‘like’ or the ‘share’ could be backfiring. Consumers are getting really good at ignoring, blocking, even reporting digital content. And even when they are engaged, it’s not the kind of deep, focused attention that brands need to grow, and consumers need to gain a deeper understanding of the issues.”

In his article, to help remind us of the importance of print media and the drastic and devastating impact of going strictly digital, David referenced some of the findings from Matthew Kassel with Mediaiate, the top U.S. website covering the intersection of media and politics. Kassel cites a study that followed NME, a popular British music magazine also known as New Musical Express. After NME discontinued the print version of its magazine, the amount of time NME’s readers spent reading the magazine dropped 72% in a single year.

“That amounts to a loss of 307 million minutes of engagement compared with the last year that NME was in print, when readers spent 424 million minutes with the publication,” Kassel says. “Online readers of NME only spend an average of about three minutes a month with the publication, per the study, while print readers spent an average of about a half-hour a week with the magazine.”

A well-loved magazine became just another tab on the computer, just another email in the inbox—overnight!—and all this because they decided to sacrifice their tangible print magazine. Kassel predicts that more publications will follow the lead of Seventeen and NME. He sees reduction in the time spent with real, quality news as one of the great dangers of quitting print. “Something may be lost in the process of switching from paper to just pixels,” he warns.

At Strictly Business, we not only believe in the power of print, we live it! With our magazine being mailed out to over 15,000 businesses in Omaha and more than 10,000 businesses in Lincoln each month, we have a strong physical presence in the local marketplace. This is because we know the impact print has. There is just something about holding a tangible magazine in your hands. It carries more creditability with it, and it has a longer-lasting impression.

We also understand the importance of having a digital online presence, which is exactly what we provide for our clients each month when their news goes live on our website. We are #PrintProudDigitalSmart, and we are committed to helping our clients become #PrintProudDigitalSmart as well.

If you haven’t joined us in our movement to connect real people and local businesses through our print and digital platforms, we invite you to contact us today! Our team is passionate about sharing your story to promote your business and the people who make up your business. It’s so rewarding to hear about the connections that have formed after someone reads an article in one of our issues. Those connections are exactly why we do what we do!