Do you really need a four-colour brochure? Why bother with a printed brochure when you can just put your brochure online? What about post cards or cut sheets? With the rise of the Web many industrial marketing professionals are questioning if printing has any relevance in modern communications. I believe printed materials most emphatically do have an important, albeit different, role to play in the marketing communications field. Many business pundits have been proclaiming that the Web would spell the death of printing. After all, how could printing compete with a seemingly no cost way of reaching millions of people all over the world? With a click of a mouse they could travel around the block, or the globe.

The problem with the Web is very simple – it can be very difficult to be found. Don’t let anyone tell ya any different. There are millions of sites on the Web with thousands of new sites being added daily. This explosively geometrical growth means the clutter on the Web is worse than you could ever imagine.

I believe the most effective use of printing is to drive highly targeted traffic to tightly focused landing pages on your website. This may be done with sales letters, post cards, or other forms of printed materials.

Andrew Shedden

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