Ink On Paper is Big Business and Greener Than You Think

We have all heard the rumors that Printing is dead and Digital Marketing is the way to go.  I think I could present a pretty good argument that that particular path was the wrong one for many companies in the last five years or so.  Historically, we have done a ton of direct mail - yep, the old fashioned kind where you mail beautiful, thoughtful, printed pieces with a strong message and call to action to a targeted group of people.  That is probably still one of our main areas of expertise.  A few years back, several of our customers ditched print for email marketing and I can honestly say that it did not go well for most of them.  All leads are not created equal and unfortunately they found this out the hard way.  I am in no way saying that you shouldn't pay attention to digital marketing, social media, email and content marketing as they are all very good ways to supliment more traditional methods. I'm just saying that you should not abondon a method that has worked well for decades. There is much to be said for a well rounded marketing campaign.  I don't have to be a genius to know that the companies that continued to advertise on Television, Radio and billboards over the last few years have grown much faster than their counterparts that did not.

That being said, I ran across a website www.printisbig.com that had some statistics I was pretty surprised at.

*     Direct mail brings in 78% of all donations for non-profits

*     Direct mail increased U.S. company sales $702. billion in 2010

*     80% of all housholds read or browse their advertising mail

In spite of the millions spent by special interest groups to promote email marketing and trash traditional printed collateral is wasteful and harmful to the economy the facts are that the printing industry is very green.

*     The paper industry plants three times more trees than it cuts

*     70% of all of todays ads and direct mail are printed on recycled paper

*     Spam email wastes 33 billion kilowatt hours annually (equivolent greenhouse emissions to 3.1 million cars using 2 billion gallons of gas.

*     51.5 million tons of paper was recovered from recycling in 2010 alone

I think we all need to remember that there is no silver bullet when it comes to great marketing and different business models need different marketing campaigns.  Print, promotions, tv, radio, billboards, social media, email marketing - they all have a place.

Great infographics below . . .