By, Andres Aguirre

In today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, many companies and businesses are relying more on their brands to stand out and to differentiate themselves among their competitors. The necessity of a strong customer relationship with the brand has never been more important, and a mixed multimedia presence is required in order to create and maintain such relationships. The economic recession heavily impacted many businesses and the most direct result was usually a slice to their ad spend. And while most companies dropped advertising and marketing from the top of their lists, the ones who saw the most success and a faster recovery were the ones who were able to sustain a consistent branded presence throughout several communication channels – including direct mail.

Direct mail marketing has the advantage of being easily targeted in a very accurate manner, delivering extremely efficient campaigns and high returns on investment as opposed to a radio ad or TV ad, or online banners for example. However, some industry experts have expressed concern over the future of direct mail advertising, and reasonably so. With today’s constantly evolving and diversifying media landscape made possible by mobile broadband internet, it’s no wonder why more and more people are reading their mail, newspapers, and magazines online. After all, it costs less and it’s much easier to deliver content over the web.

Yet, there are some things that simply cannot be translated; some sort of immutable and irreplaceable properties of the medium itself that are somehow lost in translation. Paper is something tangible that you can feel, pick up, turn, fold, and manipulate in ways that are simply impossible with a pdf file. There is no way to translate these aspects into the digitized format – it’s fundamentally different. A computer can help you collect, organize, and visualize complex data into a coherent and apparently similar form, but it also has the ability to malfunction and to distort information. You can’t feel, taste, or smell the internet, and you don’t get nearly as much junk mail as you do junk e-mail. On the internet it is easy to get lost in the virtually limitless amounts of information, infinite numbers of web pages, and vast quantities of user-generated content, whereas traditional print is strictly bound to what is transcribed. No hyperlinks or pop-up ads to take you away to another dimension.

My point is- there are some very elemental differences between our digital worlds of new media and ‘traditional’ media formats. A new emulation or digital incarnation of a preexistent medium should by no means be taken as a substitution for it. This should never happen. Instead it should be seen as an additional communicative tool, another channel by which to reach prospective clients and customers, and obtain feedback, information, and research.

So don’t be in a huge rush to move all your ads to Facebook. Instead of assuming that one medium can perfectly replace another, pursue the creative, interactive, and integrated use of all media. The key to a long and prosperous brand life is taking advantage of the multiple communication channels that are available, and using them to their full potential in order to introduce your brand message and personality – or in short – a consistent integrated multimedia presence.