Print newsletters are a luxury item

Your clients’ email boxes are full, but their mailboxes are empty.

As print publications continue to lose market share to digital, some publishers are adopting the idea of print as a luxury product.

Think of all the ways a print publication can differentiate itself from digital.

It can be sensuous — or, in any event, have more sensory impact. The paper can be heavy and glossy. It can have a nice smell. It can feel substantial in your hand. You can display it on your coffee table.

“Haptics” is the science of touch. There have been some very interesting studies about how physical media affect readers differently than digital media.

Print is a very different experience than digital, and while it’s very clear that most content consumption is digital, and will continue to be so (I’m not some Luddite advocate of print) some publishers are finding interesting niches for print.

There’s a funny contradiction about print, which is that while a print publication might be more engaging than digital – some studies show that – it’s harder to measure that engagement. We can’t count page views or time on site when somebody is sitting in their easy chair with a magazine.

I’m going to coin a term — the “measurable outcomes bias” — meaning that people give more value or preference to things that can be easily quantified or measured. That’s similar to “numeracy bias,” where people are more likely to believe something that’s expressed with a number.

I often suspect that a lot of the print vs. digital analysis going on at publishing companies suffers from these biases.

But I’m not trying to solve the print vs. digital debates today. I’m just whetting your appetite for this idea.

Consider a small-run print newsletter for your key prospects.

Think of it this way. Their inboxes are full and their mail boxes are empty. This is a way to set yourself apart and get their attention.

Everybody gets a billion emails. But how many people get letters – that they actually want to read.

You might know that I do that with The Krehbiel Letter, which is a free, monthly, 4-page newsletter.

People love it. It’s a great way to stay in touch with a relatively small group. I’m not advocating doing this at scale, where digital is clearly better. But as a bespoke outreach to a small group, it can be very effective.

If you’re curious, give me a call. I’ve learned a lot by publishing this letter, and I can give you some tips. I can even write the thing for you if you want.