According to a recent article, Meredith Guarantees Top Advertisers Sales Gains, the print media (or at least some of it) may finally get that is has always been about results. For many decades, print media has been able to offer space, take it or leave it, to their advertisers. We have an audience, would you like to pitch to them was the premise. Oh, and, of course our audience is perfect for you. If you don’t get the results you need to justify the investment, well then your ads must suck. At least that was their apparent position.
The reality of measurable, web-based marketing and the decline in print advertising may finally be getting through to the print media companies. Well at least some of them. The article notes, “Most media owners are not excited to do that, for a lot of reasons.”
Marketing expenses should be $0.00. Marketing investments should be as much as possible providing they create a positive ROI. To stop spending on marketing and make investments requires you focus on results that matter, not proxies you hope correlate.