Question

Topic: Other

Why Do We Need Printed Pieces?

Posted by Anonymous on 10/4/2004 at 11:02 AM ET 125 Points
I work in the corporate center of a company with many different autonomous divisions - who pay for their own marketing expenses. I am currently in a debate with the head of one of these divisions as to why he should have a printed brochure. He thinks he can just save his technical information to a .pdf and e-mail it out as needed. I've said that having something in print adds credibility. Now he's challenging me on this. Does anyone have any documentation (research, anecdotal) as to why we should make the investment in a printed brochure?
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  • Posted on 10/4/2004 at 11:38 AM Member
    Crunch the numbers – he may be correct! Is he getting better bottom line results than those divisions who use printed material? Depending on your industry and the connectedness of your customers – he likely has a good point. Make HIM prove it to you by duplicating his results at one of your other divisions that is willing to try his method. If he is able to prove his point, reward him – and use his program to phase out the use of printed material in your other branches. If he fails to produce measurable proof – insist that he test the use of printed material at his branch.
    daryl
  • Posted by SRyan ;] on 10/4/2004 at 2:44 PM Accepted
    Holly, you're both right.

    You need product/company info that people can access from anywhere, like a .pdf on a website. One problem with that, though, is the lack of control over the quality of what people see because of differences in PC monitors and personal printers.

    You MUST have some shiny, robust brochure-like pieces of info to hand to people you've met to cement the impression, or to send to people you want to meet to start creating an impression. If all you can do is say, "please download it from FlyByNight.com," then you will leave many people unimpressed.

    Not scientific, but all true for MY company!

    - Shelley
  • Posted by tjh on 10/4/2004 at 6:23 PM Accepted
    Studies? No, sorry. However, my personal experience goes like this:

    1. Having the brochure in both pdf and print is vital.

    2. An emailed or downloaded pdf nearly always gets printed out. And usually on a bad printer at that. Need to control the quality...

    3. Like it or not, people like physical things, big things. (Print a large brochure).

    4. They file and/or keep interesting brochures in physical files, travel with them to read them later, etc. My experience with electronic documents is that people habitually scan them, not read them. (And I tend to like brochures that give data, not just a branding or image piece. Give them a reason to keep it to read it later...)

    Just my 4¢ ...
  • Posted by telemoxie on 10/4/2004 at 10:22 PM Accepted
    A key issue will be where you are in the sales cycle. Once someone is interested in a product, they are more than happy to receive an emailed PDF, or download one from the site. But, when you are trying to create that initial interest, you often need something you can send in the mail.

    ... but it doesn't neccessarily have to be a brochure. It can be a CD as previously described, or a nice sales letter, or even information from your web site which has been printed on nice stock using a color laser printer...

    Another question is, how large are the companies you are calling on? If you are calling on the Fortune 500, I believe you need a professionally printed brochure, period.

    Another question you might ask is, "What do your competitors do?" And, "What are your target prospects used to?" If you are calling upon companies who use beautiful professionally printed brochures in their own marketing efforts, they may look down on your PDFs. If they use PDFs themselves, its not as big a deal.

  • Posted by mgoodman on 10/4/2004 at 11:36 PM Member
    I can only echo what others have said. A printed piece lends credibility that you can't get with a PDF for many audiences. Even if the printed piece is just a knock-off of the PDF (content-wise), it says that your company is "real" and prepared to make its promises and commitments "tangible" (i.e., in print). Everyone knows you can change a PDF in a few seconds.

    Given the relatively small cost of a good-looking brochure, it would seem to be a foolish risk to not have the printed version. The bigger your average sale, the more obviously true that is. (If you're selling a $1 item, maybe you don't need a slick brochure.) How many incremental sales/customers do you need to payout the cost of the printed brochure?

    My own experience is that people don't value electronic stuff the way they do hardcopy. Even if they print out the PDF, the likelihood of it being tossed is a lot greater than the likelihood the printed hard-copy will be tossed. It's just the way most of us are wired.

    Hope all of this helps. Good luck!
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