Business News

Print outperforms digital

Wednesday 30. April 2008 - Paper costs are rising, mail rate hikes are looming and competition from new media continues to grow. Yet marketers' use of direct mail and other printed materials is stronger than it's been in years.

Thanks to variable-data printing, companies can now tap purchase-history databases to design, create and print entirely personalized catalogs that cross-sell products and services to individual consumers. They can also combine print with other media in the evolving discipline known as cross-channel marketing.

A recent article in knowledge@Wharton, University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School business journal confirms what many of us within the printing industry already know:print marketing continues to outprtform digital methods.

The article quotes Wharton marketing professor Eric Bradlow, who says, “print offers marketers a clear advantage over digital media, such as email. “Many people see email as impersonal and costless to write,” he says. “People want to feel special. In marketing [terms], email is transactional; paper is relational.”

Brendan Hoffman, president and chief executive of NeimanMarcus.com says, “even though print is expensive, it gets the job done. While the web site is the company’s biggest single outlet in terms of sales volume, it is through print catalogs that customers are motivated to visit the store online. “We send out approximately a million catalogs a year, and about 99% are thrown out,” says Hoffman, “But when we stop mailing out those catalogs, we lose customers.” There are, he says, no plans to stop.”

Gary Lindsey, vice president of marketing at the Parent Company says, “There’s real return-on-investment from those catalogs. About one-quarter of our customers come back to the web site and spend, based on our emails. When we send them catalogs, about 36% return and spend.” His conclusion: “People love shopping online, but there is something powerful when you combine print and Internet.”
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