Is Print Media Dead or Becoming Better? (Credits: Non Sequitur Comic by Wiley Miller)
Print media today has been constantly facing new challenges from the online media as well as social media. Publishers who are not familiar or not ahead of such new challenges, will be facing “sunset” in their own industry. Hence, the only way to survive or perhaps succeed in print today, is to integrate with the new media.
Here are some suggestions publishers and advertisers could look into:
1) Market Your Credibility
As print magazines or newspapers are tangible items where one could see and feel, they will look more credible in the perspective of the reader. On top of that, publishers should try to encourage advertisers to contribute more articles in terms of editorial coverage instead of the normal print advertisements. This is because your editorial will help advertisers’ brands to look more credible in their own industry.
The credible hulk (Credits: Tumblr)
By marketing the credibility of print, publishers could retain existing advertisers as well as adding new advertisers to their portfolio. Credibility is something that prints have not lost over the change of time.
2) Since You Can’t go on Real Time, be Timely Instead
No matter how fast you put your stories on print or how much overtime hours you have put into your content, your printed stories will still be slower than a tweet or a Facebook post. Accept this fact. You cannot beat social media or online media in terms of speed.
The speed of the birds (print media) will always be slower than that of lightning (new media)
Since you cannot go on real time, why not be timely instead? Find out what is the latest buzz on social media, predict roughly how long will the frenzy last and then reinforce that stories in your print in a timely manner.
3) Encourage Re-Marketing Online
Re-marketing provides both a win-win situation for both the advertisers and the print publishers in enhancing their brand reputations through the power of social media and internet.
Encourage your advertisers to share about their editorial coverage on the internet or in social media . Information is everywhere today and people are no longer receiving information from just on one source of print. Hence, you got to let people share and link to your website URL, your Facebook page or your twitter account.
Learn to share, my friend
In this way, the more the people share, your brand will be exposed to more people; and then, the more credible your brand will look.
4) Advertisements CANNOT be your Only Source of Income
Traditionally, print advertisement is considered as the only source of income for most publishers. However, they need to go beyond that. The fact is, the effectiveness of print advertisement is fading at an increasing speed.
Look for New income sources for your Business Creatively
Smart consumers today like us, are bombarded with many advertisements online, offline and in social media in almost every single day of our lives; our attention level is very short and because of that, little to none of such “interruptive” ads are able to make us respond and take immediate action.
Advertisements will make us feel like ignoring them much more. (Credits: Tom Fishburne from marketoonist.com)
Moreover, with the help of new age advertising mediums such as Google Adwords or Facebook advertising today, advertisers are able to reach hundreds thousands of their targeted prospects in less than a day and also at a smaller investment than putting up a typical quarter page ad on traditional prints.
Publishers need to add more income sources creatively into their business model. One way is to organize events such as awards presentations to recognize your advertisers as one of reputable brands in their own industry. From such events, not only you have added a new source of income in terms of sponsorship, you have also helped your advertisers lift up their brand reputations as a result.
We need your creative juice!
At the end of the day,
It must always be a win-win situation. It is about knowing who your advertisers are, their market positioning, their needs etc; and from there, try to find ways to help them building up their brands with your brand.
Go for win-win. Help you and your advertisers achieve their goals
Most importantly of all, try to encourage as many advertisers and readers to share on the internet and in their social media platform. So long your focus is on building your brand credibility, advertisers will come to you naturally; this is because they know that your brand will also make their brands more credible and reputable even though they know that print magazine’s reach is always relatively lower than that of the new media.
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