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How much would you pay for this screen shot of Wednesday’s New York Times Inauguration issue? Likely, not much, even in full resolution. E-mail and web pages live in the cyber-world. We don’t put much value on them.

Physical copies of the actual newspaper were going for $30 or more on E-Bay, according to a report on NBC. On Wednesday morning, the day after President Obama’s inauguration, there wasn’t a copy of the Times to be found anywhere in Manhattan. For that matter, there wasn’t a copy of the LA Times available anywhere in our home town, Rancho Cucamonga. I checked several places.

Would you throw away your Led Zeppelin Mothership LP box set, after you’ve downloaded it in MP3? Of course not. We live in a physical world, and we value physical objects. We relate to these objects in a visceral way.

As much as we love to market via e-mail and web, nothing compares to the permanence of print. Your brochure tells a whole different story in print. The fine texture and heft of your business card communicates its own message to the reader. The persistance of a printed sheet and its consistency all lend credibility to your message.

Here’s the common fallacy: it’s always cheaper to dump the print, and use purely electronic communication. Before you make this calculation for your own marketing and communication, be sure to include how much value you might lose in the mind of the reader.

The best way to use print hearkens back to Marketing 101: clearly communicate the most relevant message for a well defined audience. Done right, print will hold its own in the ROI department. It deserves plenty of attention in your own marketing efforts.

And by the way, please continue to support your local print newspapers. They employ the professional journalists that provide some of the best online content. I guess the question to ask is: would you be willing to pay for the news online?

Wanna see more Obama inauguration covers? Here’s a site that collected some from across the globe. Enjoy!