I thought it was only me; or that it was, as The Who put it, My Generation. I’ve got all the social and professional networking going on, but you know what…. there’s more retention with a printed piece, its got to be an truly impressive website for me to even remember what I was looking atafter I shut off the computer for the night…

As for wading through “pages and pages” on the internet: Heck, my eyes get tired and I’ve got other stuff to do!

I may not be buying very much printing these days (don’t spend much in general, I work for a non-profit), but eventually it will turn around so that there will be personalized, well-though out documents, printed to our templated spec with information requested by our clients. It not the print enough to tack to every phone pole post in town approach anymore, targeted, targeted, targeted is key.
The print is part of a system of communication that is customized for each business.

I have to say my eyes went straight to the concept that marketers have (and I believe will continue) using printers as engineering consulates in order to derive specifications they themselves do not have the skill sets to do themselves.

Even worse we’ve all seen these resulting specifications used to bid a project with the result being that the printer who developed the specifications actually assisted their competition as the project was not awarded to them!

I’m sorry, but it happens everyday and I apologize if I’ve offended those design professionals who would never place a print partner in such a position.

Now that’s a “dirty little secret.”

The biggest idea I found in your post is the cost per sales lead.

Based on what I’ve seen, very few business people have a clear idea of customer acquisition cost and life time customer value. When you have good numbers on that marketing is not rocket science. Subtract customer acquisition cost from 1 year, 2 year and 3 year customer value. If the number is positive, do that. If it’s not, don’t do that.

The other dirty little secret is that most business talks ROI at the meeting, and act like “deer caught in the headlight” when they’re sitting behind their desks.

Well done!

Thank you for writing this.

John

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