Industry, Marketing Trends Help Grow Printed Business Publications

New print publishing trends and innovative marketing options offer good news for AccuList’s many business periodical clients seeking to boost subscribers and advertising.

Printed Business Magazines Are Alive & Well in the Digital Age

The growth of digital readership has not doomed all printed periodicals to declining circulation and revenues, as some predicted. In fact, a recent What’s New in Publishing article cites multiple ways print magazines are adapting for growth. For example, publishers are focusing on niche audiences willing to pay more for a higher grade product and cutting down on frequency. Consider the Harvard Business Review: It grew its subscriber base 10% by reducing print frequency from 10 issues to 6 a year and using smart positioning, creative new digital benefits, and heavier investment in the quality of the six print issues to increase audience appeal. Printed information is also seen as more reliable by readers and advertisers, according to research, creating a “halo effect” for business publishers with a print edition. “The good news for printed business magazines is that their credibility has a halo effect on their websites, too, which gives them a competitive advantage over digital-only competitors. People may be buying fewer magazines, but they still associate them with quality and reliability,” explains the publishing industry’s Dead Tree Edition blog. Plus, despite fears that younger business readers were turning mainly to digital sources and social media for information, publishers can take advantage of continued print readership popularity. For example, the Association of Magazine Media’s “Magazine Media Factbook 2018-2019″ shows that, in the United States, “the top 25 print magazines reach more adults and teens than the top 25 prime time shows.”

Business Publishers Can Leverage New Marketing Trends

New print technologies and a revival of traditional marketing tools offer business periodicals options for boosting audience and advertiser appeal. A recent article from media agency Mediaspace Solutions cites some ideas that publishers can leverage. With the digital space crowded, noisy and less trusted by potential readers, direct mail campaigns have increased in effectiveness, the post notes. Plus, many publishers have returned to sending printed newsletters to subscribers. Print technologies (QR codes, augmented reality, etc.) are not only tools for better direct mail response but also a way to attract print advertisers by boosting print advertising effectiveness, the post points out. For example, augmented print uses an application that stacks digital content over a print ad so that when the print ad is scanned by a smartphone, a new digital ad springs to life. Personalization is a must in today’s marketing, and business publishers can combine list segmentation and targeting with variable data printing to personalize direct mail campaigns for audience building. Plus, subscriber list segmentation can be offered to print advertisers to help them craft more targeted messages. For more ideas, see the Mediaspace Solutions post.

Brain Science, Industry Data Bolster Direct Mail Fundraising

As digital, mobile and social media expand their donor influence, some nonprofit marketers prepping for the all-important fourth-quarter may wonder about direct mail’s role as a fundraising workhorse. To underscore why it’s essential to keep direct mail in harness, AccuList can not only cite years of success as a direct mail list broker and data services provider to fundraising clients, but also the latest brain science and marketing industry data.

Science Shows Donor Brains Respond to Direct Mail

Marketing channels and technology may be changing rapidly, but the human brain hasn’t changed in size and basic construction for about 500,000+ years, and mail marketers have a brain advantage, notes a recent NonProfit PRO article by Christopher Foster, vice president of business development at Modern Postcard. Neuroscience has shown that direct mail taps two basic parts of the brain: the cerebral cortex and the amygdala-hippocampus pairing. The cerebral cortex
is where we process information, think about messaging and language, and weigh the pros and cons of decisions. Unlike the truncated messaging of digital, e-mail and social, direct mail can engage this part of the brain by describing benefits and citing the objective reasons that a nonprofit is the best choice for donor dollars. Plus, research consistently shows that people trust print/direct mail information more than digital channel info. Of course, recall and emotional engagement are key drivers, and the amygdala and hippocampus, combining long-term memory with emotional response, favor direct mail over digital, too. In fact, research shows that direct mail is 35% stronger than social media and 49% stronger than e-mail when it comes to long-term memory encoding, and 33% stronger than e-mail and social media in the engagement that drives memory encoding. Overall, direct mail’s motivation response is 20% higher than digital media, per Canada Post research.

Mail Spurs Donor Response and Retention in Omnichannel Efforts

While the volume of direct mail has decreased by about 2% each year since 2015, this has actually helped boost direct mail effectiveness by helping it stand out in the messaging blitz of the digital era. In fact, the Data & Marketing Association (DMA) 2018 direct mail response rates were 9% for a house list and 5% for a prospect list, way higher than any other channels (such as e-mail, social media and paid search at 1%). As a result, mail’s median ROI is also higher than most digital channels. Direct mail, of course, works even better integrated into an omnichannel campaign, where it actually spurs digital results; for example, studies show donors are three times more likely to give online in response to a direct mail appeal than to an e-appeal. Plus, direct mail drives donor retention; for example, 70% of donors have restarted a relationship because of direct mail, per DMA data. And direct mail is efficient at retention; the Association of Fundraising Professionals reports direct mail costs $0.25 for every $1 from recurring donors.

The Right Fundraising Tactics Capitalize on Mail’s Strengths

However, direct mail’s fundraising success is certainly not a given. A recent NonProfit PRO article by Jen Linck, chief marketing officer for Corporate Giving Connection, cites some important strategies, beginning with list segmentation and targeting to avoid wasting time and resources sending costly direct mail to bad leads. We would note here that, for effective segmentation, data quality is key, which requires prospect lists from reputable sources and good hygiene of house lists (note that 20% of addresses in donor databases are out-of-date, per research). Then get creative to capture attention and drive envelope opens via tactics such as dimensional mail and a large or unconventional sized envelope, urges Linck. And make sure the direct mail pieces add value to the audience’s lives by including a special offer or a promotional gift of branded materials for everyday use, such as a notepad. But remember that content needs to tap both logical persuasion and emotional connections in donor’s brains! Because 63% of donors want to know how their donation will be used, use specific donation amounts to tell donors how they help and quantify how previous amounts donated have been used, but also inject emotional examples into the dollar results. Finally, remember that direct mail works best when it is integrated into an omnichannel campaign, so be sure to incorporate digital technology by including QR codes, short links or text keywords for use across all channels. Plus, links should direct donors to a branded, campaign-specific landing page, since 38% more donations happen when landing pages are branded and campaign-specific, and 66% of those same donors are more likely to come back and donate again. For more tips on integrating direct mail with digital fundraising, see this MobileCause infographic.

Is Your Direct Marketing Ready for Gen Z?

Generation Z is arriving in the marketplace. Gen Z, also called post-Millennials and the iGeneration, includes young people born in the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, who are now graduating and getting their first jobs. Any b2c marketer ignoring this group is risking the bottom line since Gen Z members not only make up 25.9% of the U.S. population now but will account for 40% of all consumer markets in 2020. Their annual purchasing power is already $44 billion and growing as they advance in the workforce. If you add their influence on parental spending, Gen Z accounts for closer to $200 billion in annual purchasing. Is your direct marketing ready?

The Challenges of Winning Over Gen Z

Wooing Gen Z will require marketers to amend their playbooks. Oberlo, an e-commerce agency, recently discussed Gen Z marketing challenges in its blog. IWCO Direct, a data marketing agency, comes to similar conclusions in a post. First, Gen Z members have a short attention span; marketers have only about 8 seconds to capture their notice, which is even shorter than the 11 seconds required to grab the attention of the typical Millennial. This means content must be targeted, relevant, to the point and quick to engage. Second, Gen Zers have a higher number of technological devices and are constantly jumping from one device to another. While Millennials bounce between three screens at one time, Generation Z can use up to five screens at the same time. Multi-channel, multi-platform, mobile-optimized campaigns are required to reach this generation. Third, Gen Z young adults have strong opinions and, raised to expect personalization, demand that marketers customize experiences. They will be very critical of advertising that fails to meet their standards for authenticity and meaningful interaction. What is meaningful? Gen Z members want to buy from companies that support their values, for example; 55% of Gen Z chooses brands that are eco-friendly and socially responsible. Yet Gen Z has less brand loyalty than prior generations and is less motivated by traditional loyalty programs, although they can be wooed with interaction, such as online games or events. And while Gen Zers are definitely social media fans, they use social platforms differently than prior generations. A study by Response Media found that Gen Z favors Snapchat to showcase real-life moments, gets news from Twitter and gleans some information from Facebook, although they see Facebook as a platform for older people. Market Wired research shows that Instagram is their most popular app for brand discovery, with 45% using it to find new products. YouTube video is another way to reach Gen Z.

Gen Z Was Weaned on Digital, But Print Marketing Still Works

However, direct mail marketers shouldn’t assume only a digital strategy can work with Gen Z. As IWCO Direct points out, Gen Z actually finds print media more trustworthy. An MNI Targeted Media study found that 83% surveyed said they turn to printed newspapers for trusted news instead of the Internet. Gen Z does not trust information on the Internet unless it comes from a website ending in .org or .edu, research showed. In fact, since Gen Z is online so often and using multiple devices, the biggest challenge is making a lasting impression, which is where trusted print material, such as direct mail that can be physically touched and revisited, offers an advantage. Omnichannel marketing that advertises on multiple online platforms and is combined dynamically with print is more likely to increase brand recognition than digital alone, per studies. For more insight on Gen Z marketing, including content and influencer strategies, check out this recent Forbes article.


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