Dave says:

A question which I am sure more than a few of us are thinking about.

Email is a great way of marketing and works wonders for the big media companies. But how effective is it?

Email marketing only works if you have permission of the recipient, otherwise it’s junk mail. Print can go anywhere without permission, so that’s one up already. But email marketing costs little money compared to print which makes economic sense, plus it’s greener; or is it?

In recent years print has changed dramatically with everyone aiming to be as green as possible. All the printers we use are now responding to the market’s expectations for them to take environmental issues seriously. They use non-toxic vegetable inks, use local resources to cut down their carbon footprint and all the paper they use is either 100% recycled or from sustainably managed forests.

The linked article shows that in the America, print still has has more of a presence than viral marketing. Three quarters of people prefer printed matter to electronic communication. Email these days is so quick to the inbox but let’s not forget, if it hits a junk filter, the respondent is on holiday or is deleted, then it is very quickly gone too. With printed material, it is looked at and held onto for much longer. How powerfully the message gets across is down to the designers. More thought has to be put into making print effective, but the returns can justify the greater costs involved in producing it.

Print vs Electronic Media