1. Color can provide visual cues that direct the reader’s attention to certain parts of your document. If you want to highlight key product features, a quote, or a contact phone number, a splash of color will draw the eye to that section of the page.

Which headshot is more inviting, the left or right?

2. Color encourages readers to act.  A prospective customer reading your sales brochure is more likely to move beyond the cover if the piece uses color to appear inviting and welcoming.

3. Color conveys emotion. Red is an attention getter and expresses vitality. Green conveys freshness and health. Yellows are happy, while blue portrays a corporate look.

4. Color adds professionalism. Use of color in today’s world is expected from a professional company. Black and white print implies old technology and out-of-date methods, while color implies newness, freshness and cutting-edge technology.

5. Color adds personality. Since we live in a virtual world that often transcends borders, people like to see others (who they may not meet in person) when they view marketing materials or advertisements. The use of color brings life and personality to staff photos, images of customers in testimonials, and more.

What is important is to make certain you use color wisely. Too much color can detract from your message. Poorly-planned color schemes just convey ugliness. Lastly, remember to work with a graphics and marketing professional who can ensure that the color in all of your printed materials matches.

AdAge has been tracking media usage by way of the Mendelsohn Affluent Barometer, a survey of wealthy Americans (in this case, those making above $100,000 a year in household income) conducted by market research company Ipsos. It turns out that wealthier Americans use mostly traditional media: newspapers, magazines, and TV.

Source: http://adage.com/article/adagestat/affluent-americans-print-media-tops/229002/

The obvious first reaction is to say that most affluent Americans are likely to be older, more advanced in their careers and therefore earning more money. And these same older Americans are less likely to grab the latest app for an Android instead of picking up the newspaper off the porch. However, when AdAge examined media consumption among young affluents (ages 18-34), the numbers weren’t all that different:

Source: http://adage.com/article/adagestat/affluent-americans-print-media-tops/229002/

So what gives? Why would wealthy people—young or old—cling so strongly to traditional media? I can picture a young lawyer being the subject of some ribbing from the senior partners at a stuffy law firm as he checks stock quotes on his iPhone or a 30-something banker feeling like she needs the print copy of the Wall Street Journal under her arm in the morning to feel dressed. And maybe that’s the kind of thing that’s going on—young affluents model themselves after old affluents and are less likely to be found reading Slate on their tablet at the local coffeehouse.

Without some comparison data of young and old “less-than-affluents,” it’s really hard to say. But what we can take from this data is that the death of traditional media hasn’t happened just yet, at least not among the wealthy.

Another interesting question in the survey was “How effective are the following marketing ‘tones’ in initially attracting your attention to technology product advertising?” Far and away, “factual” (87 percent), “cost/value-oriented” (83 percent) and “benefit-oriented” (79 percent) were the most persuasive tones when it comes to influencing technology buyers and decision makers. Again, this is of interest to the trade press community, since most trade journals are written in the traditional “news reporting” style found on the front pages of newspapers. Other, newer media that are more likely to be lighter in their approach (such as Twitter or Facebook) did not strongly influence decision-makers, with the survey showing “humorous” and “edgy/cool” tones drawing just 17 and 15 percent respectively. And survey respondents at the CEO/President level rated “humorous” as effective just 12 percent of the time.

What lessons do we draw? Know your audience. Know where they like to go for information on the goods and services they need, and how they like the information presented. While humor and an avant-garde style work well in opinion pieces or in social media, they don’t perform as well when large contracts for expensive items are being drawn up. A well-written, factual article in a trade publication is a great avenue to reach technology buyers—and no doubt many others, as well.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal on the impact of ebooks on writers, publishers and agents mixed genuine concern for the little guy with a lot of misplaced sympathy for industry fat cats.

The article describes how major publishers are signing fewer authors and offering smaller advances due to declining print book sales. The piece seems to want to point the finger at the ebook, rather than the recession or an overall decline in reading among Americans. After all, recent polls like the Harris survey I described in my last blog entry show that people who use electronic book readers purchase more books than their non-e-reading neighbors, and are a rare bright spot in the publishing industry.

The article doesn’t stop there. It quotes literary agent Ira Silverberg calling the digital media revolution “this digital disruption,” as if digital media were a bad thunderstorm that would soon pass.

More:

Much as cheap digital-music downloads have meant that fewer bands can earn a living from record-company deals, fewer literary authors will be able to support themselves as e-books win acceptance, publishers and agents say. “In terms of making a living as a writer, you better have another source of income,” says Nan Talese, whose Nan A. Talese/Doubleday imprint publishes Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood and John Pipkin.

Au contraire. “Cheap digital-music downloads” have opened the doors for thousands of previously unheard-of bands to reach new audiences. And has writing as a career ever paid well, except for the select few? And why are e-books to blame?

"Ping," part of Apple's iTunes, helps users discover new music.

Even more:

Unlike traditional bookstores, where a browsing customer might discover an unknown book set out on a table, e-bookstores generally aren’t set up to allow readers to discover unknown authors, agents say. Brand-name authors with big marketing budgets behind them are having the greatest success thus far in the digital marketplace.

The article fails to understand that social media and online reader reviews allow readers to discover unknown authors even more easily than stumbling across “an unknown book set out on a table” (that’s marketing?).

Perhaps it’s the raw deals e-book authors are signing. For example, the article says authors make about $4.20 on every $28 hardcover, and just $2.27 on a $12.99 e-book. Yet their work hasn’t changed. What’s changed is the publisher’s cost—close to nothing in terms of printing, binding and distribution, because it’s all digital. Any teenager with a computer can run an electronic bookstore from his basement for the cost of the electric bill. And perhaps it’s some authors’ world views:

(John) Pipkin, who has a Ph.D in English literature, says he cobbles together an income based in part on grants, fellowships and a partial advance he has received for his second book. “I’ve had to rethink my plans in terms of supporting my family full time as a writer,” he says.

His wife, a tenured professor, provides health benefits for his family. Mr. Pipkin, who teaches an undergraduate creative-writing class at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, receives no benefits. Although he has an IRA, he doesn’t receive employer contributions. Mr. Pipkin, 43, says his goal is to find a full-time teaching position with benefits.

“Unless you’re a best-selling author, I don’t see how it’s possible for an author to get together enough income to pay for health insurance, retirement and other things,” he says.

Welcome to the recession, Mr. Pipkin! Thank goodness your wife has full-time employment, and that you have several advanced degrees which should make you eminently employable. If only the rest of the estimated 15 million unemployed Americans were so lucky.

The articles bemoans the fact that Mr. Pipkin’s award-winning novel “Woodsburner” has sold just 359 digital copies, compared to 10,000 print copies. Maybe that has something to do with how people buy books. In a brick-and-mortar bookstore, browsers judge books by their covers and have to hope the book is worth the cash they lay down at the counter. Buyers are more susceptible to traditional marketing—quotes from book reviews on the jacket, employees’ “picks of the month,” and so on. However, on a website, browsers can read reviews and comments by other readers (social media), which greatly influence their buying decisions. And Mr. Pipkin, patrons of Amazon.com are lukewarm on your book—it’s garnering 3.5 out of 5 stars. That’s a “C” average.

The real problem here is three-fold: one, a continuing failure of the publishing industry to embrace digital media, regarding it as an enemy rather than the future. Jann Wenner pushes print magazines and chides the Internet in those well positioned “Power of Print” ads seen in many magazines, even as his employees down the hall at rollingstone.com lure thousands of visitors to the iconic magazine’s website every day. It must feel odd and come off as more than a little counter-productive to have your boss publicly demeaning your work every day.

The second part of the problem is greed on the part of publishers, who want to pay authors less for the same amount of work, simply because a book is being published digitally and not on paper. And finally, there seems to be a failure on the part of some authors to understand the depth of the recession and the nature of their profession. Writing novels is an art, and art is largely a discretionary expenditure that comes well after food, rent, clothes and many other needs on most families’ shopping lists these days. As in all things, the days of oversized bonuses and easy money are gone.

She quotes him as saying “we will stop printing the New York Times some time in the future, date TBD.”

This is another story in the ongoing shift from print to digital media. Recently, the Detroit Free Press stopped home delivery of its print edition four days a week, opting instead for newsstand delivery and a special online edition of the paper that is identical to the print version. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer stopped printing newspapers altogether in 2009, and is now available exclusively online. I’ve documented on Trade Secrets the rise of ebooks, ebook readers and tablet PCs, all of which are helping to facilitate the transformation from trees and ink to silicon and e-ink screens.

Sulzberger’s comments, given at the Ninth International Newsroom Summit in London on Sept. 8, were really just flip remarks at the end of a talk on how the NYT plans to implement a pay system for most of its web content in 2011.

Many newspapers are considering pay systems for some or all of their content. The Wall Street Journal reports success with its system, which limits access to some articles to just the introductory paragraphs for non-subscribers. The NYT’s proposed system would allow free access to light users of the Times, such as those who come across NYT content with a search engine and just want to read an article or two, but would charge those who want access to more content.

I don’t think the Times’ idea is a good one. The WSJ may succeed because it offers unique content for a specific audience that can’t be found elsewhere. Most of the content in the NYT can, however—or at least content like it.

One of the strengths of the Internet is a user’s ability to surf seamlessly from site to site, accessing the information they desire. When those sites begin to set up their own proprietary pay systems, the information superhighway becomes a series of roadblocks and speedbumps. Suddenly, users will have to remember dozens of usernames and passwords to navigate through their daily media consumption. They’ll simply avoid paid content and stick to news aggregators like Google and Yahoo!, or news sites that have smaller budgets and can get by on their click-through ad revenue. However, smaller budgets usually mean less reliable news and poorer journalism.

A better solution would be to implement a global micropay system, in which member news sites charge all users a very small amount to access an article on their site (pennies per view). Users would simply register with this global news “Paypal” and accumulate invisible, behind-the-scenes charges that would be billed monthly to a credit card. Not only would users have to remember just one username and password, the system would bill light users less and heavier users more—no one-size-fits-all, $12.95/month subscription for someone who just wants to follow the Yankees or do the crossword puzzle.

Think about it—what if your cell phone company wanted to set up separate billing plans for each state you call, or even each friend? Or if cable TV billed you separately for each channel? Likewise, we shouldn’t be bombarded with dozens of bills from the news sites that we frequent.

When it comes to paid news content, KISS—keep it simple, stupid—should be the defining framework.

The blogosphere reaction has been, as you might imagine, negative. Generally, reaction falls into two camps: those who think that the publishers are missing the point, and those that think, yes, the Internet is indeed killing print media, and good riddance to their exclusive club and their turned-up noses.

A few examples:

Kent Anderson in the blog the Scholarly Kitchen: “With the iPad only weeks away from shipping, it’s an odd time for magazine publishers to spend $90 million to very publicly throw their digital editions under the bus.”

From Kit Eaton in the blog Fast Company: “With the dead-tree publishing industry in a bit of a mess right across the board, and a huge, difficult digital upheaval threatening to arrive any moment, you may well argue that spending a whopping $90 million on a printed-mag advert campaign is a little silly.”

And from Bo Sacks on the Print CEO blog: “Once again, they completely miss the damn target, this time by a mile, a 90 million dollar mile…I guess my complaint is their marksmanship. There isn’t any. The people who put this campaign together to protect print don’t have a clue what they are doing and who to aim at. It is also clear that the instigators of this campaign don’t use the Internet or any digital component therein.”

A rare positive, or at least, non-negative came from Rebecca Chandler on the Real Estate Book Blog: “My experience in our industry has been that most of those who would like you to think that print is dead and ineffective have a stake in influencing real estate agents to invest in online advertising.”

Perhaps the most compelling, and accurate, assessment came from Gavin St. Ours on the Gavin Show blog: “The problem at the heart of their “Internet vs. magazines” argument is that they’ve incorrectly labeled the Internet as a medium. The Internet is a delivery tool for media, like the printing press…Magazine industry leaders appear to not understand the gravity of that idea. You can hear it in the first few seconds of the video…The real discussion is this: In order to stay competitive in a digital world, magazines are going to have to find a way to deliver the immersive experience of their analog versions on digital platforms. That means using the Internet as a delivery tool.”

St. Ours is dead on the money in his assessment, as was Popular Science Editor Mark Jannot, as David Perry discussed in March. At Trade Press Services, we believe there is tremendous value to be found in both traditional print media and emerging, interactive, online media. The key always has been, and always will be, providing value to the user of the medium, whether that means compelling stories, helpful advice, accurate data, or timely reporting.

Both print and online forms have a place and serve a purpose. While a magazine cannot display video or up-to-the-second reader comments, it is extremely portable, easy to use, inexpensive, and easy to share with anyone, regardless of the user’s technical sophistication. (When $300 book readers and computer pads become so common as to be throwaway items, that may change. Until that time…)

Trade Press Services routinely helps companies place articles in both traditional print journals and online media. At Trade Press Services, content will always be king, and that means well-crafted, thought-provoking, bylined articles submitted to the best publications exclusively for our clients. We look forward to the innovations that online publishing will continue to bring, and also expect that the traditional print magazine will still command a strong position in the battle for readers’ eyes for a long time to come.

Writes Jannot, “Every time I summon up the vision of a paperless PopSci, my enthusiasm for the prospect inspires a certain horror among some readers, who write to let me know how betrayed they feel at the very notion of us migrating away from the pleasingly physical product that you’re holding in your hands.

“That said, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what makes a magazine a magazine, and here’s my definition: A magazine is a periodically delivered package of stories carefully curated, written, and designed by an expert editorial staff centered on a topic of passionate interest for a group of readers.”

Jannot touches on two very important issues relating to the viability and importance of traditional printed magazines and journals in the 21^st century. First, he mentions a “pleasingly physical product.” The psychological aspect of this cannot be understated. The arrival of a magazine, newspaper or trade journal often evokes the same feelings we experience when we open a gift package or see a mystery unveiled.

The cover of the publication hints at the wonders within. As we begin to proceed beyond the cover, it brings back memories of reading our favorite books or magazines from start to finish, whether they’re Hardy Boys novels or the latest issue of Seventeen, Forbes or Manufacturing Today. There is a very physical ritual involved in turning the pages, scanning the ads, and reading one’s favorite sections over and over.

The other key point that Jannot brings up is the notion of content. The Internet is full of seemingly authoritative content, much of which is unreliable because there are few filters or barriers to entry. Anyone with a PC and an opinion can look as professional as Reuters with the credibility of the New York Post. But when readers open a respected magazine or trade journal, they expect that what they read and see will be factual and accurate. There are high barriers to entry in the production of a publication, which generally leaves it in the hands of professionals, or as Jannot says, “carefully curated, written, and designed by an expert editorial staff.”

All of this suggests that due to the powerful psychological power of the printed word and our cultural tendencies to regard high-quality printed content as expert and factual, the era of the magazine, newspaper and trade publication is far from over. And that’s true. What remains to be seen is how to translate these powerful characteristics of print media to the digital stage. As Jannot says, “A glossy printed page is a great medium—I certainly don’t deny that. But for me, a full-color tablet redefines gloss completely.”

on how the Internet is siphoning away readers and advertising dollars from newspapers and magazines. In these commentaries, the Internet is seen as a competitor or replacement for print media—an aggressor that is stealing jobs, putting writers on the street, and sinking levels of journalistic accountability to lows not seen since the days of yellow journalism a century ago.

However, these comparisons are spurious. The Internet is not a competitor or replacement, but rather a medium that is new and revolutionary (even though it’s been a mainstream tool for 15 years or more, its very nature is to continually reinvent itself so as always to appear new). Like other revolutionary technologies before it, it is fundamentally changing the way we live, work and play. It is creating desires, lifestyles, markets and habits that we could not have conceived of until they came about. In the 1960s, the world of tomorrow featured flying cars and robot housekeepers. No one ever predicted that the future would include an interactive world-wide computer network through which we exchange ideas, images, sounds and information. Like a clever Madison Ave. advertising firm, the Internet has us saying “I never knew I wanted this. What did I do before I had the Internet?”

The purpose of magazines and newspapers has never been to put ink on paper. The purpose has always been to convey information, whether that information was entertainment, news or visual information in the form of photography and images. The printed page was simply the best format available. We should use the Internet to achieve that same goal, and it’s a medium ideally suited to that task. But it can’t be achieved by forcing the printed page onto the computer screen, or by cutting and pasting print media’s business models.

However, this is exactly what we have tended to do with each generation of new media. For example, the first television commercials sounded just like the radio commercials of the day, with perhaps a still image of dish soap as the announcer droned on—a far cry from today’s clever and innovative visual displays. It was only when we realized that television was a unique, new medium that we began to utilize it at its maximum potential.

Print media professionals—or should we say information professionals—should stop trying to force their paradigm onto a fundamentally different media, just because both print and online channels share some common building blocks like “words” or “pictures.” They should instead embrace the Internet for what it is—dynamic, vibrant, rapidly changing and unique—and definitely not print. Nevertheless, there will always be an important role for print media, and always a large segment of the population that utilizes it.