Only Losers Pay for Print
This is a topic of content among many of my peers in the photo production industry as print budgets decline, so do usage fees but it’s time we faced up to the fact the landscape has changed.
If you plan on building a successful brand in 2016 you have to learn the digital game and play it wisely.
“Marketing in the future is like sex. Only the losers will have to pay for it”
— Jon Bond, cofounder of Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners
Not only is print ridiculously expensive and no longer able to hold peoples attention but it is the targeting equivalent of firing a shot gun at a bulls-eye. Sure you might hit the spot now and then but look at all the shrapnel that missed. That shrapnel is your money being wasted!
Digital allows you to get ultra specific with your core customer and tailor your content directly for them without wastage. Notice I said content and not advertising? People don’t want interruptions!
According to a report by McKinsey & Company, in 2014 nearly all luxury market growth came from e-commerce with online sales spiking at €14 billion, up 50 percent from 2013.
Online is where the attention is and a twice yearly advertising campaign, no matter how well executed is not going to cut the mustard. You need consistent, quality content to keep your audience entertained with a mix of product, brand & authentic lifestyle images as well as video features and educational content.
To illustrate this point more colourfully lets turn to a recent keynote delivered by Gary Vaynerchuck.
Birchbox, the monthly subscription make-up box brand grew from ZERO to $400 MILLION revenue in the space of 4 years using an engaging digital content strategy across Pinterest, Instagram & Facebook.
They seem to have achieved this with a mix of product reviews/unboxing videos, influencer interviews, customer spotlights, beauty articles and make-up tutorials, all the while accompanying these with high quality images & graphics.
Meanwhile in a meeting with L’Oreal who are struggling for the attention of 20–35 year old women, he had this to say on their current strategy:
“If you think your going to reach 20–35 year old women by buying page 197 in Vogue and spending 700 million in print advertsing, your out of your goddamn mind!
”
— Gary Vaynerchuck
If you are currently spending a single penny on print advertising without knowing for sure the return on investment you’re getting I implore you to stop right now and think.
Take your budget and invest it into creating content for your customers then use paid tools like Facebooks promoted posts to put that content into the news feed of only people who want it.
Add value to their lives and you will be rewarded in kind. This is how brands are built in 2016!
Don’t get me wrong, I love the tactile feel of print and will continue to buy magazines for that very reason but we are no longer swayed by the adverts, they are merely a spectacle and they will never give you the same return on investment as digital.
In the future print will serve as nothing but nostalgia or at best a status symbol for high-fashion brands who don’t mind wasting their millions.
Do you really want to play that game?
Thanks for reading!
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Originally published at www.adammarcwilliams.co.uk.
