Is Print Advertising Dead?

My article "Customer Intelligence Is Meaningless If You Don't Tie It to Strategic Action" has received thousands of views. In fact, I’ve also had several organizations ask if they could reprint the article in their training materials as a way of demonstrating the importance of customer service and its impact on the customer experience. One aspect of my article that is rarely commented on, but is no less important, is the action I took related to my search for a local service supplier when my original vendor did not satisfy my needs. The quote from my story reads:

"At this point I let my fingers do the walking through the Yellow Pages…."

Notice what I did not say:

“At this point I called my neighbor to see who they used for their appliance repair and followed up with the company they recommended.”

Or …

“At this point I turned on my computer, got online, and did a search for a local appliance repair shop.”

Yes, both could have happen. In fact, if you read my article you may have been surprised that I even mentioned print Yellow Pages in my quest to find a new service provider. And no doubt the quotes above would have been more colorful in demonstrating the power of word-of-mouth marketing and online search. Come to think of it, what marketer isn’t talking about those topics today?

The truth of the matter is that I really did pull out my phone directory. It was fast, easy and got the job done. Did you know research shows that many people still use print for local search? As it turns out, there are several services such as appliance repair, plumbing and auto service, just to name a few, where consumers view print as their preferred local search option.

What does that mean for marketers? Well, it doesn’t change the importance of your customer experience, search engine optimization, or social media word-of-mouth marketing initiatives. However; it does prove that there are still situations and strategies that work very well for print advertising. The acquisition of new customers at the local level is important to business owners. Particularly SMB’s and independently owned dealers and franchises who are not concerned with dominating the world. Most of those organizations would be very happy if they could just see a steady source of new leads from their local zip code or trade area. Since print often delivers those leads at the most important point of the consumer buying cycle it’s important to continue to consider print in your marketing mix.