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Don’t 'fold' too early on print

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I'm both a fitness enthusiast and a poker player. While I'm better at the former than the latter, I'm always looking to improve my game. So prior to stepping on to the elliptical machine for some cardio last week, I downloaded one of my favorite poker podcasts. The subject: folding your cards too early can often be a mistake and cost you money.

Without going into excruciating detail, the message was essentially this: fear and failure to commit can lead to a loss of opportunity as circumstances evolve.

At least, it was something like that.

As both an owner of and a supplier to newsmedia companies, I immediately related this lesson to the legacy newspaper – specifically, to the traditional print product.

I question whether many of us are "folding too early" on our print business. In other words, are we relinquishing opportunity for audience growth and revenue optimization by moving too far too fast away from print?

Many prognosticators suggest that the opposite is true – that if we fail to move away from print ASAP, our business is at risk. I'm not so sure.

Let me be clear – I am NOT a print apologist. While I'm an avid believer that the future of the newsmedia is bright, I am a "platform agnostic." That is, I do not believe that we, as an industry, need to decree how our audiences consume our content. That is why I have been critical of an uncompromising "digital first" mandate for the legacy newsmedia company. Instead, we must think CUSTOMER FIRST – and be relevant in content, in timing and in channel.

I figure we are smart enough to make money regardless of what channel our customers use to engage us – as long as they engage us. And the larger our audiences, the more we know about them and the better we can target them across all channels – the more money we will make.

To get to the point, here are four reasons for continuing to incorporate print as an essential component of a diverse, multi-platform strategy:

  1. Print audiences are critical sources of data and revenue – data that can enable relevance and revenue that can fund other strategic initiatives.
  2. Print audiences are a source of customers for other offline and online products.
  3. The ability to offer advertising solutions that can be integrated and optimized across multiple online and offline channels offers a compelling proposition to advertisers vis-à-vis single channel providers.
  4. Print advertising works.

Regarding this last point, I am an admirer of Alan Mutter (http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/). I don't always agree with him, but he usually makes me think. In his January 13, 2015 blog, Alan referenced a recent study by eMarketer that cited an interesting statistic: the amount of ad dollars by medium divided by the amount of time spent with each. The result: In 2014, advertisers spent 83 cents per minute to reach print readers – and only 7 cents per minute to reach mobile users. Alan further argues that "markets abhor this sort of inefficiency" – and that further migration of ad dollars from print to mobile is imminent.

I don't disagree with the fact that the downward trend in print ad spending is likely – but I certainly disagree with the characterization of the print/mobile dichotomy as "inefficient." The fact is that for today at least, print works. There are advertisers willing to tolerate the higher investment associated with print because the return on that investment is superior to what they would get with mobile. As Alan implies, the markets are rationale – and people will spend their money where the return is highest.

None of this is to say that the situation will not evolve. Mobile advertising – particularly location-based applications – will become more sophisticated and, ultimately, more effective. But for today – and for the near future – print produces a superior result for many advertisers. Perhaps most importantly, an integrated communications portfolio that includes a variety of print, digital, mobile and other multichannel solutions for advertisers offers a competitive positioning that is unique in the media.

In conclusion, putting any platform first – whether print, digital or other – is, IMHO, misguided unless the business is built ground-up for that specific platform. Such a proviso is not the case for the legacy newspaper company. Instead, a thoughtful, progressive transformation to an agile, platform agnostic media enterprise that delivers relevance and value to consumers, and optimized, multichannel solutions to the merchant community, is the path to a sustainable future.

Tom Ratkovich is the managing partner of LEAP Media Solutions and can be reached at tom.ratkovich@leapmediasolutions.com.

LEAP Media Solutions, Ratkovich
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