3 reasons I still believe in paper

From time to time, I get a note from a rep who is thinking about doing the newsletter who asks me…

"Do you have a digital version? Can I get the newsletter as a PDF that I can send out digitally so I don't have to pay for printing and mailing?" Of course, I tell him or her, "No, we don't, and here's why." Then I tell him or her why I still believe in paper. Just the other day, I was thinking I should share that with all of you. So here you go.

First, a printed piece lasts longer. I will bet that even if your customers and advisers don't read the entire newsletter, it at least does not get thrown away immediately. It sits around on their desks for at least a few days…with your face and contact info staring up at them. It gets you into their minds. And if an adviser goes a step further and actually reads it, posts the centerfold or saves it for future reference, then YourBook has really done its job of marketing you.

Compare that to an e-mail with an attached PDF. First, your advisers have to open the attachment. Then they have to read it…right then. Because if they don't, in all likelihood, they never will. It will get buried in their inbox until they get around to either dumping the e-mail or filing it in a folder that they never go back to.

Second, we sell print. And we (Jostens and us) tell our customers that the print we sell is not going away. That Facebook or Twitter or a digital version of a yearbook will never replace a printed yearbook. And we believe it. So shouldn't we also believe that a printed marketing/education piece is better?

Last (and most importantly), intimidation. When I go into one of my schools and see any kind of printed piece from one of my competitors, it just ticks me off. And to be honest, I get a little paranoid. How about you? If you don't, you must be the most confident person around. Now, have you ever had the same intimidation factor when you saw a copy of an e-mail from a competitor in your adviser's inbox? Of course not. Why? Because you can't see your adviser's inbox.

Now put the shoe on the other foot. An adviser has a copy of your newsletter on his or her desk, and your competition sees your newsletter. If he or she sees it in one of your schools, that rep has to think that, "OMG. That (your name here) really knows what they're doing when it comes to yearbook." But even better, if it's in one of your prospect schools and that rep sees it on his or her adviser's desk (or better yet, the adviser has one of the centerfold posters on the wall), the rep's thoughts are just as paranoid about the situation as yours would be. The competition is intimidated. By you and by Jostens. But they can never be intimidated by an e-mail because the rep will never see it.