I'm so delighted that my good friend, Jason Miller, over at LinkedIn is championing physical content with his Sophisticated Marketer's Quarterly. A PRINT publication that lands every quarter on your doormat full of amazing B2B marketing goodness.
The fallacy of the digital age is that offline channels are now dead and that every interaction has to be digital. So bye bye events, direct mail, telemarketing etc.
Not so.
The reality is its all about a MIX of channels. In fact, at Adobe, we can see that every channel (including direct mail) has a role to play in our marketing. OK, well, not every channel. I think fax marketing is off the table.
[A personal anecdote : I get so few things in the post, that when I do get something I get an email notification from our reception! Direct mail is one of the better ways to get my attention, along with twitter. See, its a mix.]
We all now have the data to see the effectiveness of our marketing and make decisions based on insights, not on gut feel. So if 40% of your marketing should be events, fine. Conversely if you should go all in on Facebook, don't hesitate. And if you get a higher response rate for direct mail, go for it! But don't feel peer pressure to do what's wrong for your business. Use data, not your gut. Above all, do what's right.
So zig when everyone else zags. And potentially be one of the few marketers that can proudly use the phrase "lands on your doormat" again :)
[Get your Yoda Mat at HMV here]