Is it Time to Change Channels?
By Jerry Rackley
That newspaper print advertising revenues has declined in recent years should come as no surprise to any marketer. Dr. Mark J. Perry, a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan, recently shared some data about this trend on his blog:
Dr. Perry observed that it took 50 years to go from about $20 billion in annual newspaper ad revenue in 1950 (adjusted for inflation) to $63.5 billion in 2000, and then only 11 years to go from $63.5 billion back to about $20 billion in 2011. That is a precipitous decline.
This data reveals just how severely the Internet has affected the newspaper print ad business. The wrong conclusion to draw from this data, in my humble opinion, is that newspaper print ads are no longer a valid marketing communications channel. I’m not trying to become an apologist for the print ad industry. Instead, I am promoting intelligent marketing communications channel selection.
The proliferation of marketing communications channels has created a challenge for marketers who must determine the optimal mix of channels to use for our communications. For most of us, it’s a mistake to believe we must use them all, particularly the new ones just because they're new. Or conversely, that the older ones are no longer valid. While a dizzying array of options is at our disposal, and they’re changing fast, what hasn’t changed is how we should evaluate and choose them. At the simplest level, we should begin the channel selection process by asking:
- Who are we trying to reach?
- What is the best way to reach them?
A great way to analyze your marketing channels is with the Demand Metric Marketing Channel Ranking Tool, which helps you rank your marketing channels based on their brand promotion quality, lead quality and cost per event. Once you have ranked each channel, a bubble matrix chart is automatically generated to communicate the findings of your analysis.
