Is print advertising dead? The myths that cost neighborhood businesses customers

The honest answer

Print advertising is not dead for local businesses, but a lot of it deserves to be. Generic flyers, ad-stuffed mailers and citywide publications that reach mostly the wrong people have lost ground to digital, and for good reason. What still works is print that reaches a defined set of households, arrives as something people want to read and repeats your name month after month. For a business whose customers live in a few neighborhoods, that kind of print does something a phone screen struggles to do: it sits in the house, next to content people trust.

I publish The Good Life Park Cities, a monthly community magazine mailed to targeted neighborhoods in the Park Cities area of Dallas, so I am not neutral. I am also not going to tell you print is right for everyone, because it is not. What I can do is take the myths I hear most often, from both directions, and say what I have found to be true.

Myth: nobody reads print anymore

People stopped reading print they do not care about. They did not stop reading things that are about them. A community magazine filled with stories about residents, spotlights on neighbors and local businesses, upcoming events, and photos and announcements submitted by readers is a different object from a circular full of coupons. People look for their street, their kids' school and their friends in it.

The scale of the format suggests it is far from finished. Best Version Media, the network behind our magazine, says its more than 1,300 neighborhood magazines are mailed to over 48 million homes each year, and that more than 94,000 local businesses have worked with it since 2007. Those figures describe distribution, not attention, so they do not prove anyone reads your ad. That part depends on the content around it and on your message.

Myth: everything in the mailbox goes straight in the recycling

Some of it does, and you can usually tell which pieces in advance: the ones that are purely ads, addressed to nobody in particular, with nothing the household wants. A magazine that carries local stories gets opened, kept on the counter and picked up more than once over several days. Best Version Media describes its magazines as landing on coffee tables and kitchen counters.

The lesson for any business using mail is to be part of something worth keeping, or to make the piece itself worth keeping. A single ad among other ads has a few seconds. An ad beside a story about the family down the street has days.

That also changes what your ad should look like. In a publication people keep, you do not need to shout. A clear headline, a good photo of your real work and one simple next step will be seen more than once, so the ad can afford to be calm and confident rather than crowded with every service you offer.

Myth: digital is always cheaper and easier to measure

Digital ads are easier to count, which is not the same as being cheaper per customer. An impression is a second of a scrolling feed, and clicks do not always become customers. In competitive local categories, the price of standing out in search and social feeds can be high, because every competitor is bidding for the same attention.

Print is harder to count but can be measured, by asking every new customer how they heard of you, logging their neighborhood and watching the trend over a year; my guide on measuring whether your print ad is working shows how. The better question is not print or digital but which job each does. I compare them side by side in community magazine, postcards or digital ads.

Myth: one good ad will tell you whether print works

One ad in one issue tells you almost nothing about a medium that works through repetition. Households choose a contractor, a dentist or an advisor when the need arises, and they choose the name that comes to mind. That name is built by appearing again and again, in the same look, with the same message, until it is familiar.

Owners who test with a single ad usually see a few calls or none, conclude that print does not work, and move on just before it would have. If you are going to try a neighborhood magazine, plan for a year and judge it over a year. If you cannot commit to that, it is honestly better not to start.

A related myth is that a clever ad matters more than a consistent one. Creativity helps, but a neighborhood brand is built by recognition, and recognition comes from sameness: the same logo, colors, photo style and promise appearing month after month. Owners get bored of their own ad long before readers have finished noticing it.

Myth: sponsored articles are a trick readers resent

Readers resent being misled. They do not resent useful information from a local expert who is clearly identified. In our magazine, sponsoring businesses write articles in their field, and recent issues have carried pieces on HVAC care, roofing, hormone health and moving, each credited to the business. A homeowner who learns something practical from a roofer's column remembers that roofer.

Transparency is the key. The Federal Trade Commission's guidance on native advertising says an ad should not suggest it is anything other than an ad, and that when a disclosure is needed it must be clear and prominent. A column credited to the sponsor and written to help, not to sell, meets that standard and earns trust. If you want to write one, see my guide on designing your own ad and writing your own column.

Myth: the bigger the audience, the better

Reach sounds impressive until you look at who is in it. A citywide publication or a broad digital campaign puts your name in front of a great many people who will never hire you, and in front of your real prospects only occasionally. If your customers live in a handful of neighborhoods, you are paying mostly for the wrong homes.

A smaller, defined audience you reach every month is often worth more than a large one you reach once. That is the trade a neighborhood magazine makes, and it is also why it is the wrong choice for a business that genuinely needs citywide reach or a single big promotion. In those cases, a broad channel makes more sense, and I say so.

A defined audience also makes your message sharper. When you know the ad will reach the same few neighborhoods every month, you can speak to their concerns, their seasons and their streets, instead of writing something vague enough to suit an entire metro area.

Myth: print only reaches people who are not online

The households that receive a community magazine are the same households scrolling on phones, searching for providers and reading reviews. Print does not reach a different, offline group of people; it reaches the same people in a different moment, when they are at home, not rushing, and turning pages about their own neighborhood.

That moment is the value. Online, your ad competes with everything else on the screen. At the kitchen counter, it competes with far less. The point of print for a local business is not to replace digital but to meet the same customers where their attention is calmer.

Myth: print and digital are rivals

Treating them as competitors misses how people actually behave. A resident sees your ad in the magazine, notices your name in a social feed a week later, searches for you when the need arises and reads your reviews before calling. Each touch makes the next one more effective. Best Version Media pairs its print magazines with geo-targeted digital ads and an online presence dashboard for listings and reviews for exactly this reason.

The businesses I see struggle most with print are often the ones that ignore the online side: a good ad sends people to a stale listing, thin reviews or a phone that goes to voicemail. The print did its job and the rest of the experience lost the customer.

• Print: builds recognition in the home, with content people keep.
• Digital ads: keep your name visible between issues.
• Listings and reviews: convince the person who looks you up.
• Your phone and front desk: turn interest into an appointment.

So who should still be using print?

Print makes sense for a business whose best customers live in a defined set of neighborhoods, whose service households choose carefully and keep for years, and whose owner thinks in terms of a twelve-month presence rather than a single ad. Home services companies, medical and dental practices, restaurants, boutiques, realtors and professional firms are the ones I see fit most consistently.

Around Dallas, that describes a great many businesses, because so much of the metro is made up of distinct neighborhoods and small cities with their own schools, events and loyalties. A business that serves one or two of those communities well can become a familiar local name there far more easily than it can across the whole region.

It makes less sense for a business that needs citywide reach, is running a one-time promotion or whose customers are spread across the metro. If you are unsure which describes you, the broader case for neighborhood advertising is in why the households that should be your best customers have not heard of you, and I am glad to look at your customer map and give you a straight answer, even if the answer is that print is not for you.

Questions people ask me