Of Fish, Tweets and Newspapers

It’s already Thanksgiving and you know what I’m thankful for? My daily newspaper. Yeah, that’s right. You heard me. And why? Because unlike social media, traditional mediums like print actually have reach. And for marketers like me that means two things: efficiency and effectiveness.

Blasphemy you say? Well read on, because if you think newspapers are passé, try wrapping fish in the last tweet you posted. Even the great Guy Kawasaki is schooling the social media community on the importance of reach.

Check out a few stats from my local daily, The Arizona Republic:

• Daily circulation is over 1 million – meaning 1 in 3 read the publication every day.
• The Sunday edition alone reaches 1.2 million readers – 38% of the regional population.
• 1,864,200 adults 18+ (56%) in the Phoenix area have read the paper in the past seven days.
• Captures 42% “Family Life” and 34% “Mature Years” Prizm Lifestage Groups – critical psychographic and demographic profiles who – like it or not – still hold the majority of purchase power in the United States.

If you’re a marketing professional who has written off newsprint as a viable media mix, you’re in dangerous territory. In fact, newspaper readership has not dropped as much as the economy has taken a toll on the business of newspapers. And let’s also not forget the younger skew of the agency people making planning and media buying recommendations – it’s not exactly an older person’s business.

Tremendous opportunity exists in social media. Two-way conversations, customer listening campaigns, viral messaging, and consumers above brands are not the traits of traditional mediums. But beyond the heavy-weight tweeters, not everyone is listening as intently as us. Yet.

Quite possibly in the next 48 hours, you may come across an older person snoring in a chair clutching a newspaper. Not exactly a captive audience, but I’m pretty sure they won’t be nodding off from a post-holiday dinner food coma cuddled up to my blog post. Or your last Tweet. Nope. Most likely it will be a newspaper.

Author’s note: The Arizona Republic readership data was provided by a Scarborough study – August, 2008 through July, 2009.