Don't sell print short!...It seems more and more people (including execs and other professionals) may be getting fed up with being constantly plugged-in and are actually "unplugging" to get away from constant contact...AND they are turning back to the printed word.

What does this mean for content managers and marketers? Read this piece by Joe Pulizzi from FOLIO magazine to find possibilities:

Print can still play an important role in your overall content marketing mix.

Okay...there, I said it.

You'll find no greater supporter of online content marketingthan me, but marketers and agencies are talking up print for 2011. Yes, in the era of iPads and Apps, there is still a role for print.

Jeff Jarvis recently wroteabout how media companies need to ignore print.

"The physical costs of production and distribution are killing. The marketing cost of subscriber acquisition and churn are hellish."

He's right.  And if you are a media company that relies on most of your revenue for print, you need to post Jeff's article on your forehead.

But if you are a corporate marketer, there is an opportunity here. Here's why:

1. Getting Attention: Have you noticed how many fewer magazines and print newsletters you are getting in the mail these days? I don't know about you, but I definitely pay more attention to my print mail.  There's just less mail, so more attention is paid to each piece. Opportunity? Less traditional publishers are printing magazines today, which leaves opportunities for content marketers.

2. The Focus on Customer Retention: In a soon-to-be-released research study conducted by Junta42 and MarketingProfs, customer retention was the most important goal for marketers when it came to content marketing outside of basic brand awareness.  Historically, the reason why custom print magazines and newsletters were developed by brands was for customer retention purposes.  We have a winner!

3. No Audience Development Costs: Publishers expend huge amounts of time and money qualifying subscribers to send out their magazines. Many times, publishers need to invest multiple dollars per subscriber per year for auditing purposes (They send direct mail, they call, they call again so that the magazine can say they that their subscribers have requested the magazine. This is true for controlled (free) trade magazines).  

So, let's say, a publisher's cost per subscriber per year is $2 and their distribution is one hundred thousand.  That's $200,000 per year for audience development.  

That's a cost that marketers don't have to worry about.  If marketers want to distribute a magazine to their customers, they just use their customer mailing list. That's a big advantage.

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