Many of your know that Putman Media, the publishing company that owns Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, has invested heavily over the course of the last seven years in digital media. We have invested heavily in technology tools, continual optimization of our websites, and most importantly in human capital (knowledge and training of our people).Digital media investment is continuing at Putman Media, there is no question about that, but I would like to call attention to our renewed investment in our print property.
Have we lost our minds? “Print is Dead” has been the rallying cry within the B2B marketing press for several years now. I could wax poetic about our emotionally attachment to the printed word (including why I still get excited when the new issue of the magazine arrives at the office or how I have always loved the smell within the stacks at a university library), but our decision to invest in print was a specific and thoughtful business decision. There are multiple reasons, but I will highlight three:
1. From audience studies, we know that half of our audience (roughly half of your clients and prospects) prefer print and engage more heavily with Pharmaceutical Manufacturing magazine than with digital media. We needed to add investment dollars to a medium half of your customers prefer – hopefully you will see the importance of this too.
2. We know that print still carries an authority that digital media does not always. How do I know this? When our editors approach their sources and share that the source's contribution will run online only, there is typically mild enthusiastic. When our editors share that the piece will run in print and online – the source is excited.
Many of our clients today only want to spend against digital media, but want their PR activity to run in print and online (the magazine typically being the priority). Hmmmmm……scratching my head over this one. If digital media is most important for advertising, shouldn’t it be most important for PR as well? From my experience, this is not the thinking of many of our clients and it does not make sense. Actually, I understand why some companies are thinking this way (measurability primarily) but, when you put the strategy/tactic against the light of reason it does not make sense.
3. Everyone’s e-mail box is jammed and their mail box is pretty sparse. We believe that we are offering an expanded opportunity for our clients to break through the marketing clutter allowing them to better communicate with clients and prospects.
So….what will this investment mean in reality?
- 18-20% more editorial pages per issue
- An even greater emphasis on content quality (and the bar was awfully high before)
- The addition of some new regular features and content approaches that we have not had the space for in a while
- More premium advertising positions to offer our advertisers
For more on these sentiments, you might be interested in a blog post on this topic: “Seven Reasons Print Will Make a Comeback in 2011”
