Print Establishment Paying the Price for Digital Denial

March 30, 2009 – 1:50 pm by Al DiGuido

The stats tell the tale in dramatic fashion. Over 525 print magazines were shut down in 2008 and thus far this year through the first quarter, over 87 magazines have been shuttered. Closed – not because consumers have stopped reading news and feature related material – but because these print vehicles, whether they are newspapers or magazines, failed to make the shift to the digital publishing platform in time.

Besides the costs of paper, printing and postage growing each year, there was also a shift of the behavioral and media consumption profiles of their subscribers from corner newsstand buyers to internet newsstand buyers. The dramatic shift of advertising revenue away from legacy offline channels to the interactive arena all impacted the balance sheets of these hordes of magazines.

It didn’t need to happen.

As a long-time legacy print publisher (CTW, Ziff Davis, Parade), I had a front row seat for the transformation as it was happening. With advertising budgets tightening over the past 10 years, there was a keen and growing focus on the need for accountability when it came to spending media dollars. Broadcast anything – whether it was newspapers, magazines, radio, television or even billboards – was attracting all kinds of scrutiny. Were the dollars being spent to reach a target audience truly effective…? Were all the dollars being spent really driving the incremental sales and profits marketers desired…in the most cost efficient and effective way?

Back in those days, we charted out all kinds of industry studies and 30,000 foot views of the impact of broadcast advertising on the purchasing process. Most folks bought into the logic…the economy was moving along…questioners were scorned. How DARE they doubt the effectiveness of such incredible institutions?!

Along came the internet…and e-communications as its delivery channel. Suddenly, targeting was possible. Accountability was documented. Questions could be answered. Suddenly relevancy, targeting and engaging with customers were front and center. Could it be possible that we could actually spend less and achieve more in terms of a return on investment?

The promise of the internet clearly answered this call. Most media folks….many of them now gone…were in a state of denial about the power of the internet. Instead of embracing it, they acted as if the rise of the channel was just a momentary phase that media types were moving through. Surely…we would all return to some sense of legacy sanity.

Instead of understanding that the connection between content and the reader on the internet provides publishers with an incredible wellspring of data – enhancing the value of this connection to an advertiser – most publishers gave away impressions and ad units online as merchandising to their print schedules. As such, they sowed the seeds of their own balance sheet woes. Imagine…a new medium that provided a depth of understanding about the relationship between an ad message, editorial content and the recipient and many gave it away for FREE.

I argue that of all the communications mediums, the internet connection is perhaps that one advertising opportunity in the market today that should (because of the richness of metrics and data) be sold as a premium. It’s the one channel that can truly document that a connection between a delivery channel and a recipient has actually occurred. It is the only channel that goes well beyond that metric to include the depth of the connection and actions taken as a result of that connection. Publishers gave away a fortune of value in providing access to the internet connection free of charge.

Now…for many who still publish, the challenge is to regain the value lost – to convince advertisers that access to their audience via interactive delivery programs is worth much more than the “merchandising value” they once received. It is a very tough road to convince someone to pay for something that used to be free, much less attempting to ascribe a worthy premium for this contact. The challenge for publishers is to remake their marketing and sales initiatives.

It takes a new breed of interactive salesperson to represent your property both offline and online. This is not the “take the customer to lunch” crowd. You need to hire folks who live, eat and breathe the interactive toolset – folks who are passionate problem solvers who can extend their enthusiasm into a new level of consultative selling of your customers and prospects.

There aren’t a lot of these types of sellers out there. Find them. There is still time for those who are publishing print editions. We see examples of publishers who are stepping boldly into the digital age. Providing new digital publications….breathing new life into the persona of their brands. Moving operational work (subscriptions and renewal efforts) to the web to saves time, money and adheres to the new profiles of their readers. Sadly…there seem to be others who are still caught up in a large case of denial.

Hope is not a strategy that will work anymore.