Print is not dead…really!

Admit it. You love to flop down on the couch with a new magazine. Nice, cool to the touch, slick, full-color pages, beautiful pictures, interesting articles with data you will use, recipes you will make, websites you will visit, a product you might try.

Print is really not dead. I guarantee. And it’s also a great marketing tool. I’m not talking only about print ads, I’m talking a Customer Magazine, produced by your company and exclusively for your client base.

At all of my positions, I have either apprenticed, assisted, edited or created customer magazines (or newsletters) for my companies. At Diskeeper Corporation (now Condusiv), my “Newskeeper” customer magazine went out to our entire database–nearly 100K contacts, monthly. They still produce the “Newskeeper” at Condusiv to this day. Magazines are something I really enjoy creating, and is my specialty.

A fully branded customer magazine is marketing tool that communicates quality. Since you need more than one small article, you may have to enlist others on your staff or in other departments. It’s a great chance for others to show off their writing talents and feature their knowledge on your product or service. In the sales and technical departments they always knew when I was looking for writers as I would come in with cookies and good will.

As recently as 2014 actual digital/online companies have gotten on board with the print magazine: CNET, WebMD and Net-a-Porter are distinctive tech companies who have jumped in with their own publications. Of course the luxury items have their snazzy magazines, like Driven, BMW’s customer magazine. Heck, tractor company John Deere has been around forever and had a customer magazine for nearly as long, Homestead.

There are also many different ways to distribute the magazine. Recommended is by mail, to keep your client database updated. In addition, you can send out the magazine in email form, connecting it to the articles posted on your blog, as well as hosted the magazine digitally online and distributed through online magazine sites, such as issu.com. It’s valuable and extended material for social media as the articles themselves can be shared and retweeted. This spreads article-type content out about your product that is carefully written and edited and controlled by you, furthering your brand.

Remember, people spend actual TIME with a magazine. “Studies have shown that the average reader spends almost 45 minutes with a single magazine; compare that to the average time spent engaging with a single Tweet.” (from Print is the New Black) An opportune time for you to really further your messages with your clients and customers. eventually driving more sales.

 

Click Bait (or, Vague Hyperbole from Hell)

You see it, all over Facebook stories, ads, banners, videos on YouTube, even your Google search results.

“This one weird trick…what he saw next floored him…you won’t believe what happens next…she is stunned when this happens…advertisers HATE this…restore your faith in humanity…will shock you…” and how many times do we need to read the next reason why JLaw is our perfect BFF? Well, apparently one more time, because I, personally, love her.

Why are these phrases so overused? And why, oh why, do we fall for them, even if we roll our eyes to the ceiling when we read them? Can’t help it. Want to know. Is there some information in there that I will miss out on? I’ll just peek at it, I can always go on to the next story.

Since it seems like human nature to fear missing out on something (especially something as simple as a short article with possibly life-changing, or immensely uplifting info), we marketers just can’t resist. I see the seduction–you probably can get more clicks, more readers by using the allure of the “bait”.

It’s all about the “mystery sandwich”: you create a vacuum in between the reader and the story. Nature abhors a vacuum, so you suck them right in. It’s emotional physics. Bing! Done. You’ve achieved your metrics.

I am an idealist (sometimes unfortunately), and I like to try to stick to my guns. That could mean with a bit of extra work, coming up with a story that is genuinely readable and gets me clicks, or possibly, not much. Back to the drawing board.

And, since we now have a word for those stupid phrases (that get lots of clicks, yes I know), I would rather not be knows as a purveyor of that type of rubbish.

Now, back to that article: “Watch this video to find the true meaning of life!”