Put it in print!

If you’ve interpreted media reports about the problems faced by daily newspapers as a sign that print is dead as a communication vehicle, you’d be making a big mistake. Far from being dead, in some areas print is still very effective in business to business communication and deserves a rightful place in your business media mix.  

The demise of print media was predicted over 20 years ago, when then futurists saw computing and the internet replacing all forms of print communication. What happened subsequently is that publishing exploded, because magazines and specialist print media became much easier to produce. New, niche magazines and journals appeared on newsagent stands, dissipating the media spend across a much wider cross section of titles. In business, the new ease of production saw a barrage of paper based material appear in letterboxes and in-trays around the country.

More recently though the tide has definitely turned. It’s now our email inboxes that are cluttered, while our in-trays receive only infrequent material.

A glum Rupert Murdoch, pondering the fate of print fortunes, even recently gave newspapers only a ten year lifespan.  Well cheer up Rupert, at least you won’t live long enough to see your prediction either proved right or wrong.  

The real problem for newspapers and magazines hasn’t so much been competition for readers from digital media (which has undoubtedly had an impact) but the demise of advertising, especially classifieds. For newspaper proprietors and magazine owners, this is going to be an ongoing problem and you’ll continue to read a great deal more about it.

But businesses that need to communicate with their clients shouldn’t be distracted by the headlines and shouldn’t interpret those headlines to mean that print communication to your clients is also dead.

Here’s a little test for you. Imagine in the week just gone you received several hundred emails, many of them marketing emails. You may also have received a couple of magazines and a small number of newsletters, one of which came personally addressed and included a hand signed covering letter.  

My guess is that the percentage of you who would have opened and read the hand signed letter and then browsed the newsletter would be close to 100%. The percentage of you who opened and read the marketing emails would typically be less than 5% - especially if from firms you don’t know.  

The point simply is that digital communication can do some things very well. It can reach a very large number of people and do so very quickly and at very low costs. But there are downfalls. You should never confuse activity with outcomes. The whole point of your business communication and marketing strategy should be to communicate effectively with your target audience. The mere fact that you regularly send an email or e-zine to thousands of people on your database doesn’t mean you are communicating if they aren’t reading it. The fact that you have a lovely looking website isn’t communication if few people are visiting it. And if you aren’t measuring and tracking the open rates of your electronic communication, you might be deluded into thinking that your message is being widely heard when it isn’t.

Print media collateral, by contrast, takes a little longer to prepare. It takes longer to send and typically costs more to produce. Hand signing letters can be laborious. But it has a much higher chance of actually being noticed and read – which means it’s actually doing its job.

I don’t for one minute dismiss the valid role played by electronic communication but I will argue very strongly that, for most businesses, a total reliance on electronic communication for whatever reason, can be a mistake. Print, well designed and properly executed, has an important part to play in your media mix. (And like any form of communication, poor design and lack luster execution means it has no chance).

You only need to ask yourself the question: would you prefer to scan through a classy magazine or a lively, well illustrated newsletter in print form, or would you rather spend your time reading more emails? If a personally addressed letter arrived on your desk, would you be more likely to read this first or would you put it aside and scan your email inbox? What is more likely to be discussed with colleagues or kept for reference or internal distribution – digital or paper? And if you needed to review a document, do you typically print it to read, or do so on-screen?

Even if you have developed an iPad addiction and love nothing more than reading news or journals on screen, I’d argue strongly that digital’s big advantage for news is immediacy, but print’s big advantage for business marketing is longevity, effectiveness and penetration.

Digital and print are quite different things and you need to understand how to work them to your business advantage. You also need to think rationally about your mix of business communication, and understand the rightful place for print, and for digital. And you need to avoid being too influenced by the advertising worries of the Fairfax or Murdoch empires and by the prophets predicting that this all means the end of print communication. If you’ve made that mistake, I think should think again.

Next: Slow death by boredom. What NOT to do.

The clairvoyant client

Why is it that some businesses seem to think their clients or customers are clairvoyant?

One of the ongoing essentials of good business communication is to keep in regular contact with your client base. Existing clients, past clients and potential clients all deserve to know what’s going on in your business - where that is of potential interest to them.

But often, many businesses seem to keep what they’re doing a secret. Or at least, they seem to expect that their clients and potential clients will somehow intuitively know what they’re doing, and get in touch to find out more.  But they don’t have crystal balls. Unless you tell them and keep them informed, how do you expect them to know about how your business is growing and what it can offer them?

It’s almost like a form of corporate shyness has infected the business world – particularly those in professional services which market to other businesses. But the failure to communicate regularly can mean that you risk slipping from their attention and that can be fatal when there are limited opportunities for work in a difficult market. Think Richard Branson: would you call him shy, or reticent? Hardly. He’s made an art-form of exploiting publicity for his own benefit.  And while we can’t all be like a Branson, the business of regular communication is something you shouldn’t shy away from.

News about new projects, new clients who have come on board, new challenges, staff changes, and other initiatives are all worthy news items. You ought to have a fair idea about the sorts of things clients want to know about you when engaging you for work – so news that touches on any of these ‘selling points’ is valid because it reinforces your business reputation and skill set. When you’ve been pitching for work against competitors, what is it that clients have wanted to know most about your firm? What makes it different? Where are your competitive strengths? Weaknesses? Understanding these and then focussing on various angles that relate to these competitive strengths should provide plenty of content for regular communication.

How often is often enough?

There’s no magic answer here. If it’s significant news (the recruitment of a high profile new executive for example) you can get that out immediately. Otherwise more routine news can wait for your regular newsletter or e-zine (providing you have one). My view, for what it’s worth, is that you need to be reaching out to your market at least once every quarter. Any less than this and you risk being forgotten. Too much more than this can risk making you a nuisance. (Weekly emails, for example, can be an overkill).

But I’ve got nothing to say!

I’ve often found that professional firms regard what they do as very unexciting, and not worthy of communicating to their clients. But if you bring in a fresh set of eyes (someone external to the business) you might be surprised at just how much happens in your business which your clients and potential clients might be interested in.

Mix and match.

Good communication should also aim for a mix of content, which has slightly different aspects of appeal to differing groups of clients. Some may be more interested in personnel changes, others might be more interested in technical advice. Mix your content also in length – keep some items very brief, others can expand a bit more.

What to avoid.

Definitely I suggest avoiding the social aspects of your business. Your in-house touch footy team’s season success or news about babies within the business family is all terrific stuff for the staff newsletter, but to be honest, I doubt your clients are really interested.  Just ask yourself the question – do you have an ongoing interest in how their work social activities for the year are going, and would you like to receive regular updates about them? Probably not.

The other thing you should try avoid in speaking in the language of your profession. Jargon, acronyms and abbreviations might be understood within your own professional circles but when communicating with clients, plain English has a lot going for it. I’d also suggest you do your best to make your communication engaging. Avoid the polished ‘corporate speak’ that sounds like it came from a corporate brochure written by a committee of lawyers. Be honest and write much in the manner you’d speak to your clients, for a more effective message.

Next: the message and the medium: why I am still a fan of paper.